The Dolphins’ trade of Adam Shaheen to the Texans will be voided and he will return to Miami after he was given a failed physical designation, according to a league source.
According to the source, Shaheen was flagged for a preexisting knee condition. A knee injury sidelined Shaheen for four games during the 2021 season but he hadn’t missed any time during the first two weeks of training camp.
The Dolphins on Tuesday announced they were trading Shaheen and a 2023 seventh-round pick to the Texans for a 2023 sixth-rounder. On Wednesday, head coach Mike McDaniel said the depth of the team’s tight end room allowed them to trade Shaheen, who was listed as fourth-team tight end — behind Mike Gesicki, Durham Smythe and Hunter Long — on the initial depth chart released Monday.
“Different opportunities come across your board,” McDaniel said, “and [general manager] Chris [Grier] is outstanding about communicating and talking about everything. Bottom line was, to Adam Shaheen’s credit, he’s a well-thought-of NFL player, as he should be. And to our tight end rooms’ credit, we thought that we could afford investing in the future draft capital because we felt pretty good about that position as well. ... We were happy for Adam. We were happy for the Dolphins.”
The Dolphins were set to save about $1.8 million by trading Shaheen and incur a dead cap charge of about $333,000. The team could theoretically find another trade partner in a Shaheen trade, so long as the other team passes him on a physical.
