Xavier Howard and Emmanuel Ogbah will not be Miami Dolphins come the start of the 2024 NFL season.
In moves that were hotly anticipated the Dolphins will release starting corner Xavien Howard to save $18.5-million, and Emmanuel Ogbah to save a further $13.7-millon.
The Dolphins have a massive cap-deficit to cover off, along with a number of high-profile free agents, with Christian Wilkins, Robert Hunt, and Connor Williams among them. They will now need a starting corner, and cover at edge.
Howard, Ogbah will need replacing (cheaply)
Howard will be a hard act to replace. His 8 pass breakups led the Dolphins last season, and where more than his potential replacements Kohou(2), Needham(0), Smith(0) had combined. He was joint fourth on the team with 1 interception.
It remains to be seen whether Cam Smith can become the reliable starting corner the Dolphins hoped when they drafted him after he managed only 15 coverage snaps, and 24 in total on defence in 2023.
As much as the moves were expected they given new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver a lot of holes to cover on that side of the ball.
With Bradley Chubb (ACL) and Jaelen Phillips(Achilles) both expected to miss the start of the season, Ogbah would’ve been a high level replacement. He fell out of favour after the sacking of HC Brian Flores.
Having registered 21 sacks in 2 seasons under Flores in 1,046 pass rush snaps he managed only 6.5 sacks the past two seasons un 396 pass rush snaps. He finished 6th on the Dolphins for sacks in 2023.
The Dolphins impending cap situation will be helped by the NFL increasing the cap by $30.6-million. That’s a massive 13.6% increase. Of course it should be noted all teams have received this boost, so while the Dolphins have a little less pressure on their payroll, other teams will now have equally more to spend.
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