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The Broncos will be paying Joe Flacco $18.5 million this year under the contract that officially will be absorbed via trade in 10 days. No one will be paying Ryan Tannehill $18.75 million this year under a contract that officially will be terminated in 10 days.

Yes, Tannehill has a base salary of $18.75 million for 2019. And that’s all anyone needs to know about whether someone will trade for Tannehill.

That isn’t stopping the Dolphins from trying to move him. As explained by Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald, however, the conversations consist of the Dolphins contacting other teams to see if someone/anyone is interested in the 2012 top-10 pick. A trade will happen if, and only if, Tannehill agrees to take a massive pay cut.

There’s no reason for Tannehill to do that, however. It makes more sense to be cut and to pick his next destination as a free agent, whether it’s in Washington as the starter, New York as the backup to Sam Darnold (Tannehill would be reunited with Adam Gase) or in Cincinnati as the backup to Andy Dalton (coach Zac Taylor’s father-in-law, Mike Sherman, has a history with Tannehill dating back to Texas A&M and continuing at Miami).

However it plays out, there’s no way the Dolphins will be keeping Tannehill. He has a cap number of $26.6 million for 2019. Cutting him with a post-June 1 designation eventually would clear his $18.75 million salary, but the Dolphins would still carry $7.861 million in dead money for 2019, along with $5.561 million in dead money for 2020. Cutting Tannehill without the post-June 1 designation would push the dead money charge to $13.422 million for 2019, but the Dolphins would still save nearly $13.2 million in cap space this year — and Tannehill would be off the books in 2020.

Whether he’s off the books in 2020, he’ll definitely be off the roster. And it won’t happen via a trade of his contract.