The Miami Dolphins are expected to go into the start of the 2022 league year with $60.2 million in cap space, according to Over the Cap, which is the most of any team in the NFL. This will be beneficial for a team that’s really trying to break through and reach the playoffs after five years without making an appearance.
New head coach Mike McDaniel and general manager Chris Grier will be working collaboratively on building the roster for the 2022 season and beyond, and they’ll have a lot of decisions to make with all of that money to spend. However, the coach knows admits they will have to be smart with their decision-making, and he acknowledged it using his familiar charm.
“It’s not like mom’s allowance she just gave you, that you’re like, ‘Hey, we have some money. Let’s go spend it,’” McDaniel said during an interview that the team produced, transcribed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Flexibility, for sure, that matters, but then that doesn’t always mean, you have money, you can spend it. Which is why I rely on [Grier] so much, because he — ‘Mike, now, let’s think about it.’ And that’s a huge part of the process that coaches can be short-sighted, at times, so you need proper balance when talking through anything, especially salary cap, spending limits.”
McDaniel’s personality may make the idea seem nonchalant, but this is important for the Dolphins in 2022. There can’t be contracts just thrown around because they have money to do so. It will require more thinking and more deliberation before throwing larger contracts at a player like Miami did with Will Fuller in 2021, a move that was a big risk even before he got injured just a few weeks into the season.
If McDaniel and Grier can be smart with the money, they can bring in some impact players and pay some of their own free agents as well and potentially build toward a postseason appearance for the first time since 2016.
