One of the tools that helped sink the last Dolphins build can help bail Miami out of their salary cap jam in 2026
No needs to let a looming contract negotiation get in the way of some much-needed cap savings!
The Miami Dolphins‘ salary cap situation is not for the faint of heart.
There are ways that Miami can, and undoubtedly will, navigate these stormy waters. And they’ll be better on the other side of it. In the meantime? Well, let’s just say it’s fair to expect a pretty tight budget in 2026. Miami does have action items that can create wiggle room and breathing space for a functional offseason. Two of their most logical options for new business, C Aaron Brewer and LB Jordyn Brooks, can be considered among the tools at Miami’s disposal even in respective contract years.
The Dolphins can (and should) proactively convert salary for a pair of extension targets this summer
Both Jordyn Brooks and Aaron Brewer are largely expected to have the Dolphins attempt to iron out contract extensions this offseason — general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said as much at the 2026 NFL Combine. But even as both players’ contracts need extending and they enter into a contract year this season, the Dolphins still have a cap level to pull on both players if they want to.
And, given the fact that both players are expected to stick around long-term, Miami absolutely should.
A part of Miami’s excessive cap debt comes from a relatively new cap tool called “void years”. Void years are a dummy year that exists on the back of a contract — not to keep a player on the roster but instead to simply serve as a means to stash a portion team’s payment to a player into a future year of the salary cap finances. For example, both Jordyn Brooks and Aaron Brewer are in the final year of their contracts to play on the roster but both have three “void years” currently attached to the back end of their contracts, which hold equal portions of cash that they received in 2025 to play for the Dolphins.
If these two players are indeed in Miami’s future plans, the Dolphins could (and definitively SHOULD) convert their current 2026 salaries into a bonus to create additional cap space. Because the three void years exist on the back end of their contracts, Miami could take the money owed to each player and divide it by four (one for each year recognized on the contract) and put equal installments of that cash payment into the next four years of cap bookkeeping.
It would work exactly the same as if the Dolphins signed either player to an extension with a hefty signing bonus. And since both players are reportedly in line for extensions, it’s six in one hand and half dozen in the other. If Miami were to execute this maneuver, they’d simply sit down in the summer and discuss a pay raise in 2026 and then the terms for future years. It would essentially serve as fronting half of the the new deal’s 2026 cash up front in March before determining how much cash to stack on top for each player this season.
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In the case of Aaron Brewer, he’s owed $7 million in compensation this season. NFL contracts must maintain a minimum salary threshold; for Brewer and his league tenure that mark is $1,215,000. Some quick math (total compensation minus league minimum) gives the Dolphins $5,785,000 in currently scheduled compensation that could be reclassified as a bonus and spread across this year, Brewer’s final season, and the next three seasons of void years. Four equal installments of $1,446,250 against the cap from 2026 through 2029. It would offer the Dolphins $4,338,750 in salary cap relief at the start of the offseason — and then when a contract extension is secured, Miami would have to tack new cash commitments onto his 2026 cap figure.
That timing could be alleviated by happening after June 1st, when a potential $20 million in cap savings from Bradley Chubb’s pending release take effect.
Miami can use the same math with Brooks and create an additional $5.37M in cap savings this month for his services as well before potentially stacking on new money on top for Brooks this summer. Miami can use every ounce of wiggle room they can get right now, especially from players they know they want to be apart of the long-term picture in South Florida.
And that makes the contracts of Brewer and Brooks, despite their status as extension candidates technically entering into their final year, no-brainer resources to tap in an effort to have room to breathe against the cap. They’d give the Dolphins $9.7 million in cap space before Miami gives some of that spending power back later this offseason in the form of extensions (and 2026 raises).
The irony of the void years tool allowing that to be available after their usage helped do in the past Dolphins regime is not lost on me.
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