NFL teams have an idea of the salary cap they will work with in 2026. The league informed clubs on Friday that it is projecting a 2026 salary cap in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million per team, Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports. That would represent another significant jump from this year’s $279.2 million cap number, and nearly $100 million more than the $208.2 million cap in 2022. The cap was $34.6 million in 1994, the first year of the cap, and went over $100 million for the first time in 2006 at $102 million. The Titans, Raiders and Chargers are projected to have the most cap room this offseason.
I don’t see Tua being released. I don’t see anyone trading for him either, not with the contract he has. Sure, the bump in the cap will be a help, but we’re still going to be in cap hell until Tua is ultimately dealt with one way or the other.
I'm all for just completely bailing on being competitive in 2026 and eating all of the dead money immediately. Take the poison, accept that the team is going to be very bad, and then actually start over in 2027.
It is the ONLY way. We've done half measures for like a quarter of a century, trying to avoid the actual full rebuild. We need to just embrace it.
See, this is where I completely disagree. You can’t build a winner off of failure. Winning begets winning. Now I don’t expect the 2026 Dolphins to be a winner at all. I fully expect a dismal season but at the same time, those players and coaches should be making every possible effort to win every possible game they play. If the Dolphins start the season 0-7 then go on a 7-3 run and finish the season 7-10, everyone should be ecstatic! The team is finally melding and building a foundation to continue building upon. New GM, new HC, new coaching staff band aided roster and the team still goes on that run? Some folks here are unfortunately short sighted and all they see is “needing a high draft pick”. Well if your team only has 2 or 3 wins, you suck so badly that ONE high draft pick ain’t gonna fix anything! The secret to the draft is making the RIGHT pick, not where you pick. How many teams in the 1983 draft would have given anything in hindsight to draft Marino rather than the other 28 players they drafted ahead of him? Marino benefited from not only being drafted by the greatest head coach in history and on a Super Bowl appearing team. Would Marino as a New York Jet made their TEAM any better? I highly doubt it. The same concept applies here. It’s not WHERE you draft, it’s WHO you draft.
Dude.. Marino would have made ANY team better, especially the bad ones. There are many examples of a great QB going to a bad team and suddenly making the team into a winner. Also, having higher picks is obviously better because you have more prospects to choose from, especially near the top of the draft. As much of a crap shoot the draft is, it's still true that you tend to land better players near the top of the draft.
