Every year, there are a handful of signings from NFL Free Agency where you just sit there and stare at your phone for a few seconds. Not because the player is bad. Not because the money is crazy by NFL standards. But because the fit is so obviously wrong that you wonder if anyone in that building watched the same games the rest of us watched.

This year had three of them.

Miami Is Drowning in Dead Cap and Somehow Made It Worse

Start with the number. The Miami Dolphins are paying Tua Tagovailoa $99.2 million to play for the Atlanta Falcons. That is the largest dead cap hit in NFL history, spread out over two years through the June 1 mechanism. And then, while that bill is sitting on the table, they turned around and gave Malik Willis three years and $67.5 million.

Stop and hold that thought for a second.

Willis completed 78 percent of his passes over two seasons in Green Bay. Six touchdowns. Zero interceptions. Those are genuinely elite numbers and the national media ran with them like they proved something. What they actually proved is that Matt LaFleur’s system is very good at protecting backup quarterbacks who are smart enough not to wreck the car. Willis started three games in two years. Three. He played against defenses that had a week to gameplan for Jordan Love, not for him. He played with one of the best offensive lines in football behind him and Aaron Jones and Josh Jacobs running the ball.

Denver cut Russell Wilson and handed their future to Bo Nix on a rookie deal. That was a real reset. Miami cut Tua and handed $45 million guaranteed to a guy who has never survived an NFL season as the starter. That is not a reset. That is paying two quarterbacks a combined $100 million-plus while the roster around them is held together with duct tape and good intentions.

Jeff Hafley does not run LaFleur’s system. That familiarity angle between Willis, Hafley, and GM Jon-Eric Sullivan from their Green Bay days is real. But familiarity does not mean the situation transfers. The Dolphins are not the Packers. Not even close to the Packers. And by the time this team is ready to compete, that contract is going to look like a rounding error on the way out the door.

Washington Paid $100 Million for Khalil Mack’s Leftovers

Odafe Oweh had zero sacks in five games in Baltimore. The Ravens shipped him to Los Angeles for a fifth-round pick and a safety. Then he put up 7.5 sacks in 12 regular-season games with the Chargers, added three more in the playoffs, and Washington gave him four years and $100 million with $68 million guaranteed.

Here is what Washington also did. They paid for a player who was lining up across from Khalil Mack every single week. Defenses could not double Oweh without leaving Mack free. They could not double Mack without leaving Oweh free. That is a two-man problem. Washington signed one of the two men. Mack re-signed with Los Angeles. The problem is now a one-man problem. Oweh’s problem.

The Commanders’ defensive coordinator Daronte Jones runs a blitz-heavy system and Daron Payne can eat up interior blockers. There is a world where this works out. But there is also a world where Washington just paid $68 million guaranteed for the version of Oweh that only existed because of a supporting cast he no longer has. This is the second straight offseason Washington paid a defensive lineman based on recent production rather than track record. Last year it was Javon Kinlaw for $45 million, who gave them almost nothing. Same logic, bigger number. The stove is still hot.

The Chargers Had $99 Million and Bought a Center Washington Cut

This is the one that actually makes me laugh.

The Chargers came into free agency with over $99 million in cap space. Justin Herbert is 28. The offensive line was genuinely one of the worst units in football last season. Their biggest move was signing Tyler Biadasz to a three-year, $30 million deal. Biadasz is a center. He was cut by Washington as a cap-saving move. They also signed Charlie Kolar, a tight end who had ten catches last season while buried on Baltimore’s depth chart.

And they still have $52 million sitting there.

Zion Johnson walked to Cleveland. The Chargers watched it happen and did not chase. They went 3-16 in the Wild Card round and scored 3 points in the second half while Herbert stared down the field and waited for someone to get open. And the offseason answer was a center and a backup tight end.

Slater and Alt coming back is not an offseason win. That is keeping the furniture from catching fire. That is the floor, not the ceiling. The Chargers had the ammunition to actually change what this team looks like and they sat on it. Every year Herbert does not have the pieces around him is a year that does not come back. He is not a young quarterback with unlimited runway. The window is now. It has been now for three years.

Three teams. Three different ways to spend real money on the wrong thing. The players will cash the checks and good for them. The fans are the ones left explaining it.