Expiring contracts means players are lasting the length of their deals and Miami is not having to cut those players early and eat the all the dead money. Miami has contracts expire every year, granted there are a few more than usual in 2013, but the Dolphins sill are in great shape. I remember not real long ago when Miami had to cut players in February just to get under the league cap limit each year. Miami goes from being in cap hell to having some of the most room in the league starting in 2013. You of all people should be happy because according to you the current roster is just full of garbage to mediocre players, so who cares if their contracts expire after this season? Right?
If they re-sign Jake Long(I expect they will), he will likely have a cap hit between $12 million and $15 million in 2013. For comparison Joe Thomas signed an extension with the Browns last year and his cap hit this season is $11.9 million. So even after the likely re-signing of Long the Dolphins will likely still have over $40 million in cap space. I would assume Randy Starks and Brandon Fields get re-signed. Maybe Reggie Bush, Sean Smith, Chris Clemons and Brian Hartline and a handful of others. In the end, Miami probably will still have somewhere between $20-25 million to spend at the start of free agency, compared to the $11 million they had last year. On top of that, Miami currently has around $4.5 million in space this season and if that stays roughly the same, they can carry that over to next year. Which means even after re-signing some of the major players they could still have between $25-30 million.