The Miami Dolphins get one last nasty bill from the sins of their past.

Dec 11, 2022; Inglewood, California, USA; Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) celebrates his touchdown scored against the Los Angeles Chargers with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (1) during the first half at SoFi Stadium. © Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Bad news, gang. Anyone who has spent the lead up to the season hoping to see the Miami Dolphins drop some cash in an effort to bolster their roster has, to this point, been disappointed.

The Dolphins had nearly $20 million dollars in cap space available to them on the online salary cap tools at the beginning of the week — which justifiably opened the door for talk on if Miami needed to be adding players. But that’s the thing about the salary cap. Every time things seem to be evident, a deadline changes the way the charges are counted. And that’s what we’ve just seen happen for the Miami Dolphins. That spending budget? It’s not nearly as big as you may have thought.

The regular season’s salary cap accounting is here and it’s slashed the Miami Dolphins salary cap space significantly

OverTheCap.com has the Dolphins tracking at $6.69 million in salary cap space. At the beginning of this week, the number was floating around $19 million. So what the heck happened? Through the end of training camp, the NFL’s salary cap only counts the top-51 charges against the cap. After roster cuts and the 53-man rosters are finalized, the accounting flips to count all 53 players on the active roster, plus dead cap charges, plus the practice squad, plus the players on reserve lists such as the PUP list or Injured Reserve.

Here’s the rundown on where Miami’s money went:

– PUP List (Darrell Baker & Storm Duck): $2.344 million
– Injured Reserve (Kenneth Grant, Ben Sims, Trey Moore, others): $8.753 million
– Practice squad (16 total players): $4.37 million

The Dolphins also incurred more dead cap charges for releasing LB Tyrel Dodson and a slew of their minimum salary players who did not make the 53 man roster, too. That boosted their total dead cap accounting from $179 million to $181.59 million.

That, plus having to account for two more salaries as the roster expanded from 51 to 53? That, my friends, is how the cookie crumbles. It’s like watching Uncle Sam eat up your paycheck on payday. The good news for Miami is clear, though. This will be the last time the true severity of the team’s salary cap situation comes due.

The bad news? The Dolphins don’t have nearly as much to spend as you may have thought they did just a few days ago.

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