Miami, FL
Actually, the Miami Dolphins’ Offseason Moves Make More Sense Than You Think
The Miami Dolphins entered free agency needing a new starting quarterback, and lacking the cap space to pay one. That was the case despite the team clearing $22.8 million by releasing wide receiver Tyreek Hill last month, with an additional $7 million in savings coming from the eventual release of pass rusher Bradley Chubb. There just didn’t seem to be enough money for the team to be active in the open market. Miami’s last front office, helmed by former general manager Chris Grier, left the new regime, led by first-year GM Jon-Eric Sullivan, in deep shit from a salary cap perspective, and many assumed the new group would spend this first offseason digging their way out of it.
When a team led by a new brain trust inherits a crappy roster and then immediately starts shedding salary, the safe assumption is that they’re preparing to tank. And before noon on the first day of the NFL’s legal tampering period, Miami couldn’t beat those allegations. After failing to garner any trade interest in quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the team decided to release him for nothing except for a $99 million dead cap hit for the upcoming season. Moving on from Tagovailoa, who was benched last season and whose press conference missteps became a distraction, and resetting the vibes in the locker room may have been worth the cap penalty. They also traded safety Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Jets for a seventh-round pick—and though the 29-year-old may be past his prime, he’s still a very useful player who would fit in any defense. Sending him to a divisional rival in exchange for a ham sandwich and a conditional bag of chips is not a win-now move. But then Miami’s offseason took an interesting turn when the Dolphins gave quarterback Malik Willis a three-year, $67.5 million contract with $45 million in guarantees. Those are some round numbers for a passer who hasn’t played much in the NFL, and it’s not the kind of deal a team that’s actively trying to get worse would make.
Coming off the incoherence of Grier’s nine years at the helm, it’d be understandable if Dolphins fans were triggered by these seemingly mixed messages. During Grier’s tenure, Miami tried the tanking thing but ended up winning too many games to earn the top pick in the draft. (In Brian Flores’s discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, he claimed that when he was the Dolphins head coach in 2019, team owner Stephen Ross offered to pay him $100,000 per loss in order to incentivize him to lose games, but he refused.) Miami also tried the “all in” approach after hiring Mike McDaniel as head coach in 2021, trading for several big-name players over the next few seasons, including Hill, Chubb, and Fitzpatrick. Those bold moves resulted in two trips to the playoffs and zero postseason wins or division titles.
Those two extremes of roster construction are seemingly at odds, but there is a commonality between them: impatience. Tanking teams try to accelerate the process of getting bad enough to land a franchise-saving quarterback at the top of the draft. “All in” teams try to accelerate the process of going from good to great by trading away draft capital and giving up cap space for an injection of talent. The Dolphins failed at both, and now the new front office is taking a more patient approach. But before Sullivan can build up the team, he has to clean up the mess his predecessor left behind. These early moves aren’t signaling a tank or even a naive push for the playoffs; rather, they seem to be signs that Miami doesn’t want to repeat its recent mistakes.
Cutting Hill would have been an appropriate move even if the Dolphins were closer to competing for a playoff spot. He just turned 32, he’s coming off two down seasons and a major injury, and the move cleared $22.8 million in cap space. Hill didn’t seem too happy in Miami over the past two years and was entering the final year of his contract, so he was probably fine with the move, too. Chubb, meanwhile, had a $31.2 million cap hit for the upcoming season. And while he’s a solid player, he collected just 8.5 total sacks over the last two seasons and moving on from him frees up an additional $7.3 million in cap space. There’s no question the Dolphins would have been better off from a financial standpoint by keeping Tagovailoa on the roster for one more year instead of taking on a record $99 million dead cap hit and a loss of $42.9 million in 2026 cap space, but releasing him shouldn’t hurt their on-field product. Tagovailoa was dreadful throughout the 2025 season and was eventually benched for rookie Quinn Ewers—a seventh-round pick who went on to outplay the veteran QB. Beyond the cap implications, these moves give the locker room a fresh start while not really moving the needle on how competitive this team will be next season compared to last.
The Willis signing is the big question mark in all of this, but that might not affect things much either. Willis was very productive in limited action as a backup for the Packers, but he played just 302 snaps in Green Bay and was sheltered by conservative, run-heavy game plans from coach Matt LaFleur. And during his first two NFL seasons in Tennessee, he took just 92 dropbacks and wasn’t good enough to beat out Will Levis in training camp entering his third season. There’s a wide range of potential outcomes for Willis in Miami, where under new offensive coordinator/play caller Bobby Slowik, the Dolphins will be installing a new version of Kyle Shanahan’s offense. There should be plenty of overlap with the offense Willis ran under LaFleur, who coached under Shanahan in previous stops. If Willis picks up where he left off in Green Bay—where he averaged 9.2 yards per dropback—this deal will be viewed as a steal in a year or two. But if he’s bad, the Dolphins can move on quickly and inexpensively.
Willis got what is essentially a two-year, $45 million deal with a team option for a third year. That’s not a massive investment given that the salary cap is up over $300 million now. Willis’s deal will account for about 7.5 percent of that, which isn’t much more than the deal Indianapolis gave Daniel Jones (5 percent) last offseason before his redemption tour. Justin Fields is the only veteran starter from last season who’s making less money per year than Willis’s $22.5 million average. And when accounting for cap inflation, Fields’s $20 million annual salary is on par with what Willis got—and actually carries more long-term liability since the Jets included two void years on his deal. Fields will be on New York’s books through the 2029 season no matter what they do with his contract this offseason. If Miami moves on from Willis after 2027, he’ll be off the books completely.
So the Willis deal won’t prohibit the Dolphins from searching for a long-term option at quarterback. And Sullivan doesn’t strike me as a general manager who is going to be content after making the 26-year-old his first big signing.
“The quarterback position again is the most important position in sports in my opinion, certainly the most important position in football,” Sullivan said when he was introduced in January. “We’re going to invest in that position every year if we can. Now depending on where we are as a football team, it’ll be at different values, but we will draft quarterbacks every year, if not every other year because I think you have to.”
The Dolphins may have guaranteed Willis $45 million over the next two years, but his position as Miami’s QB1 could be tenuous if Sullivan sticks with that strategy. That’s the antithesis of the thinking that convinced the last front office to double down on Tagovailoa and give him the four-year, $212 million contract that put the Dolphins in their current predicament. Miami was paying a steep premium for mediocre quarterback play. At least if they get mediocre play from Willis, they will have paid an appropriate price.
Steven Ruiz
Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.
Cain and Kushner are launching a South Florida real estate joint venture, planning a luxury apartment tower in Edgewater for their first project, The Real Deal has learned.
London-based Cain, led by Jonathan Goldstein, and New York-based Kushner, led by Laurent Morali and Nicole Kushner Meyer, plan a 40-story, 364-unit project on Cain’s 1.5-acre site at 614 and 720 Northeast 27th Street in Miami, according to a news release. The property is near the Missoni Baia condo tower that Cain co-developed with Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group.
BDT & MSD Partners provided a $42 million loan for the project, which is in the pre-development phase. Construction is expected to start late next year, the release says.
The Cain-Kushner JV is targeting residential and mixed-use investments and developments in the tri-county region.
“We are looking at all opportunities that we think are sensible,” Goldstein said.
Their South Florida JV comes as the region is experiencing another influx of out-of-staters after the pandemic-era boom, only this time the in-migration is primarily of wealthy individuals and their companies amid the blue-to-red-state migration.
Yet, Cain and Kushner’s plans for Edgewater apartments come as the multifamily market has softened due to hefty deliveries in recent years. A record 18,600 units were completed in 2024, outpacing leasing that year by about 20 percent, CoStar Group data shows. Although construction starts have slowed, last year’s 12,718 unit completions still surpassed total leasing for the year by about 1,000 apartments.
It has led to slower lease-ups, more concessions and a drop in the average asking rents across South Florida.
Developers starting projects now have said demand will catch up by the time they finish their buildings, with many adding that South Florida remains a strong apartment market. Many are betting on luxury rentals, which CoStar’s data showed made up the bulk of leasing in recent years.
“We are big believers in South Florida and big believers in Miami,” Goldstein said.
Cain, backed by Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries, has been investing in South Florida for nearly a decade, with the JV in some ways marking its second chapter in the region.
Cain’s most recent project is the Delano Miami Beach renovation. The hotel, which closed in 2020, is expected to reopen in time for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix early next month.
Aside from the Missoni Baia condo tower, Cain also partnered with OKO on the Una Residences condo tower in Brickell and the 57-story 830 Brickell office tower. The office building was completed in 2024 fully pre-leased, catching a demand surge during the pandemic-era in-migration of out-of-state companies to Miami. Cain also is an investor in Doronin’s hospitality firm Aman Group.
Kushner has a presence in Miami’s Edgewater, completing the 37-story, 420-unit apartment tower at 2000 Biscayne Boulevard in 2024, with plans for more residential development next-door at 1900 Biscayne Boulevard. It also purchased the 276-unit Hamilton apartment building at 555 Northeast 34th Street from Aimco.
Elsewhere, Kushner plans a 932-unit multifamily development at 300 West Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. It borrowed a $115 million construction loan last year for a luxury 68-unit apartment project in Surfside. And it scored approval in October for a 470-unit rental building and synagogue development near Hollywood’s Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
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The right-hander consistently set the tone early, either landing a first-pitch strike or inducing a foul
The Miami Heat are heading into another crucial offseason, and they MUST make changes. This team has been mediocre for the past few seasons and has been stuck in the Play-in Tournament. The Heat can’t currently compete with the way the roster is constructed. They need to trade for a star who can lead this team, and if a star becomes available, Miami will be involved. The real question is which direction actually makes the most sense.
The Heat could go after three potential targets this summer: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, and Donovan Mitchell. Who should Miami target? Let’s stack rank them based on fit, risk, and potential.
1. Giannis Antetokounmpo: The Only Move That Changes Everything
The Miami Heat need to go all-in for Giannis. This is a trade that would completely reshape the franchise. Giannnis could potentially turn the Heat into a contender overnight. Even with his recent injury cutting his season short, nothing about his overall impact has changed. He still bends defenses in a way very few players can. Teams build entire game plans around simply trying to slow him down, and most of the time, it doesn’t work.
The Miami Heat have desperately needed a true superstar who can take over games late in crunch time. The Heat have been relying on undrafted players and role players to create and execute their offense. Giannis flips that instantly by creating advantages on his own, possession after possession.
I think the most interesting part will be pairing Giannis with Bam Adebayo. They would automatically become the best defensive frontcourt duo in the NBA. Giannis and Bam could both guard 1-5, and their switchability and rim protection would be elite. Offensively, Bam’s versatility allows Giannis to stay aggressive without needing to adjust his game too much.
The risk is obvious. Injuries have started to creep into the conversation, and committing everything to one player always carries weight. Still, Miami has never been a franchise that plays it safe. If Giannis is available, the conversation starts and ends there.
2. Donovan Mitchell: The Cleanest Basketball Fit
If Giannis is the bold swing, Mitchell is the move that makes the most basketball sense from top to bottom. At this stage of his career, Donovan Mitchell knows exactly who he is as a player. He can control tempo, create offense in isolation, and take over stretches of games when things stall out and that is something Miami has struggled with consistently.
This is less about transforming the roster and more about fixing a specific problem. The Heat have lacked a reliable perimeter engine. Mitchell fills that gap immediately. What makes him especially appealing is how easily he fits into different lineups. He doesn’t need the ball every possession to be effective, but he can handle that role when needed. That flexibility matters on a team that values structure as much as Miami does.
There’s also a timeline advantage here. Mitchell is younger than the other options and doesn’t come with the same long-term durability concerns. He gives Miami a clearer runway to build around, rather than a shorter window that demands immediate results. He may not bring the same overwhelming presence as Giannis, but he raises the overall level of the team in a way that feels sustainable.
3. Kawhi Leonard: Elite Talent With Too Many Variables
When Kawhi Leonard is available and healthy, he’s still one of the most controlled and efficient players in the league. His season with the Los Angeles Clippers was a reminder of that. Playing 65 games was a big step, and when he was on the floor, he looked like himself, methodical, physical, and impossible to speed up. From a pure basketball standpoint, he fits Miami’s identity. He defends, doesn’t force offense, and thrives in structured environments.
The hesitation comes from everything outside of that. Kawhi’s availability has been unpredictable for years, and even in seasons where he plays a high number of games, there’s always uncertainty about how things will hold up deep into a playoff run. Age adds another layer. Miami wouldn’t just be trading for a player; they’d be betting on a timeline that may already be shrinking. There’s no denying the upside. A healthy Kawhi still moves the needle in a big way. It’s just harder to justify that gamble compared to the other two options.
Final Take
Each path offers something different. Giannis is the all-in swing that could put Miami back in the championship conversation overnight. Mitchell is the calculated move that stabilizes the offense and fits long-term. Kawhi is the wildcard, still elite, but with more uncertainty than the Heat can comfortably ignore.
If Miami is serious about breaking out of the middle, they need to pick a direction and commit fully. Giannis is the dream, Mitchell is the smartest bet, and Kawhi is the toughest sell.
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