The market is the market’: What is Tua Tagovailoa’s market for a new contract?
Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa enters the 2024 NFL season, coming off his first Pro Bowl selection and leading the league in passing yards in 2023 after leading the league in passer rating in 2022. He also enters this season slated to play in the final year of his rookie contract after Miami used the team fifth-year option to ensure he stays with the club through this year. The deal pays Tagovailoa a fully-guaranteed $23.2 million this season, but provides no security beyond this season.
The Dolphins and Tagovailoa are working on a contract extension, with the team hoping to keep their 2020 fifth-overall selection with the club for the foreseeable future and Tagovailoa looking to maximize his salary. “I’ll tell you one thing; the market is the market,” Tagovailoa told the media last week when asked about the contract negotiations. But, what is the market?
A lot of discussion has focused on the idea that Tagovailoa’s new contract would be a record-setting deal in excess of the $55 million per year contract signed by Joe Burrow with the Cincinnati Bengals during the 2023 season. Is that the market Tagovailoa mentioned? What should be seen as the right number for Tagovailoa?
(Note: The numbers used this article, as via OverTheCap.com and use the total value of the contract as reported. In the NFL, when the majority of contracts are not fully guaranteed, the true value of the contract is less than the total value of the deal, but the numbers reported are usually the total value number, leading to this comparison.)
Instead of just looking at the reported annual value of the contract and then projecting Tagovailoa to top the deal, continuing the trend of each quarterback setting a new record for the highest contract, I wanted to look at how much the quarterback costs the team compared to the salary cap. The salary cap increases (nearly) every year, which logically allows for players to receive higher salaries. How do quarterback salaries compare to each salary cap?
I compared the top 15 quarterbacks in terms of annual salary to the cap for the year the contract was signed. Teams obviously sign deals expecting the cap to increase, but the amount of increase is not always clear – and in 2021 (due to the COVID-19 pandemic year), the cap decreased with the knowledge that it would drastically increase in the following years, which does throw off the comparison a little.
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