The Miami Dolphins are moving on from Tua Tagovailoa but his contract will still be an albatross on the team for two more seasons.
The Dolphins announced their plans Monday to cut Tua Tagovailoa — less than two years after he signed a $212 million extension with the club — in a move that will leave a record $99.2 million of dead money on Miami's salary cap.
The charge for Tagovailoa can be split over the 2026 and ‘27 seasons if the Dolphins designate him to be cut after June 1 but nevertheless it will have to hit the team’s salary cap, topping the $85 million charge Denver took when cutting Russell Wilson two years ago.
A dead money charge is any money on a team's salary cap for a player no longer on the roster. In most cases, the dead money charges come from signing bonus money that has already been paid to a player but was pro-rated for multiple years on the salary cap to lower the single-year charge.
Teams can spread out bonuses for up to five years — with the charge being split evenly among those years — but that charge accelerates to the salary cap when a team trades or releases a player before it has all hit the cap.
In Tagovailoa's case, there was also $54 million in guaranteed salary for 2026 for which the Dolphins are still responsible. Tagovailoa has already found a new team, agreeing with the Atlanta Falcons on a one-year deal, a person with knowledge of the quarterback’s contract told The Associated Press on Monday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the contract can’t be finalized until the new league year begins on Wednesday.
Tagovailoa is expected to get a little more than $1 million for the veteran minimum salary, which will eventually be credited to Miami's salary cap.
NFL teams have been more willing in recent years to take on hefty dead money charges as the salary cap keeps rising at a high rate, making the move less punitive than it used to be.
Here's a look at some of the largest dead money cap hits NFL teams have incurred after moving on from players, with numbers from the website Over The Cap:
The Dolphins got very little production out of Tagovailoa after the hefty contract extension they handed him in the 2024 offseason. Tagovailoa had been under contract on the fifth-year option of his rookie deal for $23.2 million in 2024 and the team could have used a franchise tag of about $38 million for 2025 instead of giving him an extension.
Instead, Tagovailoa will be paid nearly $125 million for that one extra season in which he made 14 starts, throwing for 2,660 yards and 20 TDs as the Dolphins finished 7-10 and fired both general manager Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel.
The Broncos traded two first-round picks and two seconds to acquire Wilson from Seattle in the 2022 offseason and rewarded him with a five-year, $245 million extension before he took a snap for the team, even though he had two years remaining on his contract.
Wilson never even made it to the new deal, getting cut after his second season with the Broncos. Wilson was paid about $124 million for his two seasons in Denver before signing with Pittsburgh for the minimum in 2024. Wilson counted for $53 million on the cap for the Broncos in 2024 and $32 million last season when Denver still managed to earn the No. 1 seed and make it to the AFC title game.
Tagovailoa wasn't the first high-profile quarterback to be told he would be cut this offseason despite a heavy cap charge. The Cardinals did it last week with Murray.
The former No. 1 overall pick in 2019 signed a five-year, $230.5 million extension in 2022 that still had $36.8 million in guaranteed money for 2026. Arizona is on the hook for that, as well as additional money from bonuses already paid, leading to the $54.7 million dead cap charge.
Ryan had been the longtime face of the Falcons when the team traded him to Indianapolis in 2022 after the relationship soured when the team made a run at acquiring Deshaun Watson.
Getting rid of Ryan came at a cost as the team had repeatedly pushed money from the five-year, $150 million extension he signed in 2018 into the future and had to account for it all in 2022.
After reaching the divisional round in the 2022 playoffs, the Giants rewarded Jones with a four-year, $160 million contract to keep him off the free agent market and used the franchise tag on star running back Saquon Barkley.
Both were gone in less than two years, with Barkley signing with Philadelphia the following offseason and leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl title, while Jones was cut midway through his second season. Jones had earned $36 million in 2024 at the time he was cut, with $11.1 million more hitting the cap as dead money, along with $22.2 million last season.
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FILE - Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) throws a pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans, Oct. 5, 2025, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)
FILE - Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa runs off the field during the first half of an NFL football game against the New England Patriots in Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, file)
NEW YORK (AP) — Uber launched a feature Monday to allow both women riders and drivers across the U.S. to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its ride-hailing platform.
The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it discriminates against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.
Uber's feature, announced in a blog post, allows women to request a female driver through an option on the app called “Women Drivers.” Passengers can opt for another ride if the wait for a woman is too long, and they can also reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance. A third option allows female users to set a preference for a female driver in their app settings, which would increase the chances of being matched with a woman but doesn't guarantee it. Uber also allows teen account users to request women drivers.
Uber's women drivers can set the app's preferences to request trips with female riders, and they can turn off that preference at anytime.
Uber, based in San Francisco, says about one-fifth of its drivers in the U.S. are women, though the ratio varies by city.
Two California Uber drivers filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber in November, arguing that by potentially giving female drivers access to a wider pool of passengers, the new feature violates California’s Unruh Act, which prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises. The lawsuit also argues that Uber’s policy “reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.”
Uber filed a motion to compel arbitration in the case, citing an agreement the plaintiffs signed when joining the app as drivers. In the motion, Uber disputed that its new feature violates the Unruh Act, saying it “serves a strong and recognized public policy interest in enhancing safety.”
Ann Olivarius, co-founder of the law firm McAllister Olivarius who specializes in sex discrimination and sexual harassment cases, said she believes Uber and Lyft have a strong case against discrimination litigation because the features address an urgent business need to protect clients.
“Lowering a client's risk of rape — is that a business necessity? I would argue that it is a business necessity,” Olivarius said.
Uber piloted the “Women Preferences” feature in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit last summer and expanded it to 26 U.S. cities in November. The company first launched a version of the feature in Saudi Arabia in 2019 following the country's landmark law granting women the right to drive. It now offers similar options in 40 other countries, including Canada and Mexico.
Both Uber and Lyft have faced thousands of reports of sexual assaults over the years from both passengers and drivers. In February, federal jury found Uber to be legally responsible in a 2023 case of sexual assault and the company was ordered to pay $8.5 million to an Arizona woman who said she was raped by one of its drivers.
Uber maintains that because its drivers are contractors, it’s not liable for their misconduct. But Uber says it has taken multiple steps to improve safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.
Melody Flores, a single mother who drives for Uber overnight in San Francisco so that she can care for her 4-year-old daughter during the day, said she almost exclusively uses the Women Preference option and participates in ads promoting the feature.
Flores, 41, said she frequently dealt with drunken male passengers who would make lewd comments. Now, she mostly picks up women coming out of late shifts at hospitals or restaurants or leaving parties. She said business has picked up, in part because she feels more comfortable driving into neighborhoods that once made her nervous.
“Especially when you work overnight, it's been nice to have that feature,” Flores said.
Sergio Avedian, who drives for Uber and Lyft and is a senior contributor to The RideShare Guy, a popular blog for drivers, said he thinks the feature is a good idea but he is skeptical that it will be effective in practice because of how few women drivers there are, especially during overnight hours.
“Are you going to sit there in front of the bar and wait an extra 20 minutes to get matched to a woman?” Avedian said. “For the riders, it's mostly about how fast can you get here and how much is it?”
Uber said it hopes the Women Preferences option will attract more female drivers to its platform, and has launched a media campaign featuring star athletes including Alex Morgan and Jordan Chiles to promote it.
Unlike Lyft's Women+Connect, Uber's feature is not open to riders or drivers who identify as nonbinary. For drivers, Uber said the company relies on the gender listed on their driver's licenses, meaning that for transgender women, their ability to use the feature may depend on whether their state allows them to change their gender identification on documents.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, Uber said “we consulted with various women’s safety organizations and LGBTQ+ groups while designing this feature and determined that it is not the best way to serve non-binary riders or drivers.”
The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - An Uber sign is displayed at the company's headquarters, in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - In this March 15, 2017, file photo, a sign marks a pickup point for the Uber car service at LaGuardia Airport in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
