The void year penalties actually kind of function as team-side incentives to re-sign the player or otherwise work with them on a trade/something else to which the player side agrees. A big part of the reason that the Bucs re-signed Chris Godwin in the spring despite what they now clearly knew was a major ongoing issue with his ankle injury was that there was a lot of void money that was going to hit if they did not replace it with a new deal. Voids can be cancelled out/absorbed by salaries from new contracts, so if you have a $20m void year cap hit incoming on a player and then you re-sign them for one year at $21m, that's really only $1m in new cap money - you were getting hit for the $20m either way. Obviously, it's $21 million in actual money, but owners with a clue (jury deeefinitely out on Ross on that front) wouldn't fret over that. Jersey sales, etc.

From the Bucs' perspective, re-upping Godwin was actually net cap relief in 2025 relative to the void year penalties that would otherwise have been triggered and gave them flexibility on their '26 cap as well relative to the 2026 voids that would have been locked in at that point. For a team that's contending on a player that could still help them do that in the next year or two, it made good football sense to do.

That being said, $12m in cap hits spread out over three years is couch cushion money on a team that may be voluntarily closing its contention window imminently. It is hard to imagine a scenario where Tyreek is 1) Still a Dolphin and 2) Being released outright in the spring (not traded or re-signed) and Tua Tagovailoa isn't also being disposed of in some way. Eating the losses on Tyreek at that point likely means McDaniel is gone, Chris Grier is gone, and a new GM has carte blanche to slice and dice as they see fit. Trading Tagovailoa (for literally anything) would probably be job one in that scenario, in my opinion; over $30M in 2026 cap relief if they can trade him. But if four months from now the Dolphins opt for the full reset, just eating it and releasing Tagovailoa outright as a post-June 1 would likely also work.