Status Quo with Armstead ... And What That Means

Five-time Miami Dolphins Pro Bowl tackle Terron Armstead has to decide whether he wants to return for another NFL season

Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Terron Armstead (72) during the game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. / Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel's sitdown with reporters at the owners meetings Monday came almost five weeks after he spoke at the NFL scouting combine, but there was no update on the status of Terron Armstead.

The five-time Pro Bowl tackle still is deciding whether he wants to continue his NFL career, but McDaniel repeated his stance from late March that he's operating as though the Dolphins will not have him on their roster in 2025.

Shortly after McDaniel spoke at the combine, Armstead accepted to take a significant pay cut to lower his cap number to give the Dolphins more operating room in free agency.

Armstead still plays at a high level when he's in the lineup, but he's been fighting off or fighting through injuries pretty much his entire career — he's still looking for his first season without missing a game — and the question is whether he wants to put his body through another year.

For the Dolphins, the question is whether they want to turn to 2024 second-round pick Patrick Paul as the starting left tackle and/or whether they could or would want to have to depend on Armstead staying healthy and available through the next season.

Another wrinkle is whether Armstead would consider coming back in a backup role, something that might be difficult to accept for somebody who not only has those five Pro Bowls on his resume but also last appeared in a game without starting way back in 2013 — when he was a rookie third-round pick with the New Orleans Saints.

“That will be clean when that comes, what he’ll be coming back as,” McDaniel said of Armstead's role, “and if he would be even able to compete to be able to withstand the rigors of the season as a starter.

“We have had unbelievable amount of conversations about his body and how he feels. I think, tied into that, where he’s at relative to other years and how we can realistically forecast that, I think that’s going to really shape the answer to that question.

“It hasn’t ever been about Terron’s play, right? It’s been about how he’s been available, and he’s been straining to be more available for us than a counterpart would. He’s played through a lot of stuff.”

Based on McDaniel's comments, what Armstead has gone through, the drastic contract restructure, and Paul's presence, all signs would seem to suggest the Dolphins will have a new starting left tackle in 2025.

McDaniel said he expected a definitive call in the next few weeks, but it does seem as though the answer already has been provided.

ARMSTEAD'S NEW CONTRACT

Because the Dolphins likely wouldn't have carried him with a $22.9 million cap number at the start of the 2025 league year, Armstead agreed to bring his base salary down from $13.3 million to the veteran minimum of $1.2 million, in the process lowering his cap number for 2025 to a little under $9 million, according to overthecap.com.

Doing some quick math, that's a cap savings of almost $14 million as long as Armstead is on the roster.

Releasing Armstead now actually would bump his cap number back up to $18.5 million (because of his prorated signing bonus). If the Dolphins decided to release Armstead with a post-June 1 designation, his cap number would go down to $7.8 million, saving the team an additional $1.2 million of cap space (the amount of his new base salary).

It truly was a drastic pay cut, one that would suggest that Armstead really was leaning toward retirement but wanted to give himself more time to finalize his decision.

Really, if Armstead was thinking he'd want to return for a 13th NFL season, it's hard to believe he would have chopped his base salary to the veteran minimum because if the Dolphins ended up cutting him, he likely would have been able to make more than that on the open market given his credentials.

So this looked like a case of a veteran buying himself some time with his mind kind of made up or somebody who really, really just wants to play for the Dolphins for a fourth season.

Money clearly hasn't been Armstead's biggest motivating factor in the late stages of his NFL career because he took a pay cut last year as well when he returned to the Dolphins for a third season.

Like Calais Campbell, Armstead has had a great career, but one that's been missing a Super Bowl title.

During interviews on Radio Row at Super Bowl LXIX, Armstead kept talking about the Dolphins as someone who was planning to be with the team in 2025.

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