The Miami Dolphins’ new front office is having a fireside sale on Monday, and the result is some notable names hitting the free agent market.

Guard James Daniels, the team’s big free agent signing last offseason, is out after just playing in the season’s first three plays before a pectoral injury — and a mysterious extended absence — ended his season.

Bradley Chubb is gone one year after missing all of 2024 recovering from a very avoidable ACL injury. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine is out after one highly disappointing season in South Florida.

But the big name of the day, of course, is Tyreek Hill. The team finally decided to cut bait with their superstar wideout after four mostly seasons together.

The Dolphins’ reset needed to exclude Tyreek Hill beyond just dollars and cents

The numbers don’t need too much explanation and certainly don’t lie. The team entered the day in cap trouble, with just $2.3 million in effective cap space, per OverTheCap.com. And that’s with a decision still to be made on what to do with Tua Tagovailoa this offseason.

The release of Hill, Daniels, Chubb, and Westbrook-Ikhine saves the team over $66 million and $56 million in cap space for 2026. Hill’s portion of that savings is $23 million. That all buys a lot of room to make some more financially savvy and longer-term moves this offseason.

That said, this team has needed a new identity in multiple respects for over a year now. They’ve needed to get tougher and more physical. The incidents of shortcomings in these areas is replete. Jordyn Brooks called his own team soft after getting handled at Green Bay on Thanksgiving in 2024. Former players have said the same thing. It’s the team’s well-known public reputation.

However, they’ve also needed to separate themselves from the distraction of Hill going back to the end of the 2024 season as well. Hill’s off field issues have become increased distractions. His arrest on the way to the 2024 season opener was arguably substantially the fault of some overzealous police officers, with charges later being dismissed.

But he fully forced himself into the public spotlight in a terrible way in Week 18 in the middle of a 32-20 loss to the New York Jets. He took himself out of the game and said in the locker room after the game that he was done, which served to fracture the relationship he had with some of his teammates, in particular Tagovailoa. Tagovailoa talked in training camp about Hill earning that trust back with his teammates.

More news-worthy events came, including the police being called in April 2025 for an alleged domestic disturbance at Hill’s condominium in Sunny Isles Beach. No criminal charges were filed, but the Dolphins were forced to issue a statement on the matter.

The Dolphins had an exciting run with Hill and Tagovailoa from 2022-23, but that’s where the duo needs to stay — in the franchise’s past.

Simply put, the Dolphins are resetting to a new era, and it’s one that needs to go in a different direction. One that exists without the wrong kind of drama in its building.