One looming contract mystery lingers over the Tyreek Hill’s season-ending injury for the Miami Dolphins for 2026 — but its not the one you’re worried about
With Tyreek Hill’s season officially over, the question begs to be asked what the windfall is with a supersized contract?
Tyreek Hill‘s 2025 season is over. The Miami Dolphins, fresh off of a 27-21 victory over the New York Jets on Monday Night Football, have had the worst confirmed this morning. It feels like the end of an era — Hill has suffered a catastrophic knee injury that would be tough for any NFL player to come back from. And Hill will be 32 years old in March with no guarantees left on his current deal.
It’s a brutal ending to Hill’s season. For the Dolphins, there is implications on and off the field. Any time a player with this kind of economic weight goes down, it’s a blow in a number of ways. How will Hill’s injury impact the Dolphins’ team building outlook and their books?
Some of that is known, while one big thing still needs to be figured out.
What are the financial implications for the Miami Dolphins amid Tyreek Hill’s season-ending injury?
There are two prominent questions to be explored with Hill’s contract. The first is fairly straight forward, while the second is currently a mystery. Hill will now miss the final 13 games of the 2025 regular season due to his knee injury. For any money classified as “per game bonuses”, he will miss out on earning those bonuses. Hill’s adjusted contract from 2024 offers Hill a grand total of $1.8 million in per-game roster bonuses. The math works out to $105,882 per game missed — meaning the Dolphins will not pay out $1,375,466 to Hill that he would have otherwise earned had he not suffered this injury.
That counts as cash saved and, obviously, cap saved. But Hill’s contract features eight figure amounts — meaning that there’s a lot more at play than simply per game bonuses.
Inside Tyreek Hill’s 2024 contract adjustment with the Dolphins
- Hill signed an adjustment to his remaining contract in August on 2024.
- The adjusted contract gave Hill $54 million guaranteed at signing between his 2024 and 2025 compensation.
- Hill is on the Dolphins’ salary cap in 2025 with a $27,698,750 cap commitment.
- Hill’s current cap charge for 2026 is scheduled to be $51,898,750.
The unknown element of this situation is whether or not the Dolphins have taken out an insurance policy for Tyreek Hill’s contract. This has become an emerging trend for NFL teams with the monster contracts. To oversimplify how it works, if a player suffers a catastrophic injury but received large sums of money up front for that season, the team’s insurance policy can pay back to the team a certain amount — which can then be applied as salary cap relief to prevent teams from eating all of that compensation only to not see the player on the field.
The San Francisco 49ers saw this materialize recently with the season-ending ACL tear for pass rusher Nick Bosa. It is reported that they will save nearly $7 million in 2026 salary cap space due to his insurance policy, per Kalyn Hahler and Nick Wagoneer of ESPN.
The Dolphins have taken out at least one insurance policy for a super-sized contract — Tua Tagovailoa’s. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reported as much last fall.
“Paragraph 42 of the Tua contract, a copy of which PFT has obtained, authorizes the Dolphins to purchase one or more insurance policies that would pay the team up to $49.3 million in the event of a football-related injury that prevents him from playing.
The full $49.3 million applies to any injury happening from the signing of the contract through the start of the offseason workout program in 2025. After that, the maximum insurance is $36.975 million.”
— Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk
Did the Dolphins secure an insurance policy for Hill’s contract? There’s NFL precedent for contracts belonging to non-quarterbacks in the same price range (Bosa) and with the Dolphins themselves (Tagovailoa). If that’s the case, the major blow Miami is facing economically this season could be mitigated or at least partially offset.
One thing that is for certain is that Hill’s 2026 compensation situation is not impacted. He has no guarantees for his 2026 compensation at this point, for injuries or otherwise. He does have a deadline for $11 million of his compensation to guarantee next season, which is the third day of the league calendar year next March. It feels highly unlikely that the Dolphins will allow Hill to remain on the roster into that timeline, given the dynamics of his injury, his age, and the future direction of the team.
So that’s not in question. What is known is that they’re not facing any long-term issues with guarantees. It’s also known that they’ll save $1.3 million (approximately) in per game bonuses in 2025. The big unknown is if the Dolphins covered this contract in the form of an insurance policy for catastrophic injury. Perhaps that will come to light as the dust settles in the days to come.
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