Kelly: Here’s what makes Dolphins’ 2025 schedule favorable | Opinion
Schedule release day is the dumbest, and most annoying thing we do in sports.
Why do we need this unnecessary build-up for the night announcement of a schedule? Only the NFL, which intentionally tries to upstage the NBA at every possible turn, makes this a thing.
Think about it, why is the NFL Draft right in the middle of first week of the NBA playoffs? It’s not an accident.
It’s intentional, and so is Wednesday night’s official release of the NFL schedule, which has been finalized for a couple of weeks now, and begins trickling out before the 8 p.m. announcement shows (how ridiculous).
And we already knew each team’s opponents.
This isn’t like college athletics, where we can sprinkle in a new opponent by doing some home-and-home series. The schedule is predetermined by how each teams finished in the division the previous season.
All we’re missing is when and where, and the time, then 32 fan bases play the win-loss game based on how the schedule sets up, and where the bye week falls. If they knew who would be healthy each week, which is what really determines the outcome of most NFL games, the prediction would be more accurate.
We already know the Dolphins will play their usual three AFC East rivals — the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and New England Patriots.
The Bills, which have won the AFC East for five consecutive years, are the new juggernaut of the division. They are carried by Josh Allen, the league’s reigning MVP.
No matter when and where Miami plays Buffalo — reportedly Sept. 18 in Buffalo for a Thursday night game, and at home against the Bills on Nov. 9 — those will be two of the toughest games on the schedule.
The Patriots, who Miami reportedly hosts in week 2 on Sept. 14, and close out the season with on the road on Jan. 4 — have a new coach in Mike Vrabel, who will install a tough and physical team based on his track record in Tennessee, and the Jets are under new management (former NFL player and Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn is the head coach), and have a new quarterback in Justin Fields.
If Fields, a former first-round pick who is on his third team, and Patriots second-year quarterback Drake Maye turn up the volume on their output the Dolphins could be in for a long season.
But Miami had Tom Brady in the division for nearly two decades, and regularly split the series with New England, so let’s not pretend like Fields and Maye improving would be the end of the world, because it isn’t.
The Dolphins’ season will be determined by the team’s health — not the schedule and how it’s planned out — like it has been for the past two-plus decades.
Keep in mind that Tua Tagovailoa is still a young quarterback, and is still trending upwards. He hasn’t produced a losing season in his five-year NFL career, so all the Dolphins need to do is keep him healthy, which is more difficult than it sounds.
The Dolphins will also have home games against the Los Angeles Chargers (Oct. 12), Baltimore Ravens (Oct. 30 on Thursday Night Football), New Orleans Saints (Nov. 30), Cincinnati Bengals (Dec. 21), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Dec. 28) and the Washington Commanders.
Miami’s “home game” against the Commanders will officially be played in Madrid, Spain, on Nov. 16, and it’s followed by Miami’s bye week.
The Ravens and Bengals have had Miami’s number of late, so expect those AFC North opponents to present the toughest home challenges, and Miami benefits from one of those games potentially being played during South Florida hot and humid season.
The Buccaneers and the Chargers are all comparable teams to Miami, which means those games will likely come down to who is healthier at the point in the season they face one another.
Who doesn’t like a Justin Herbert versus Tua match up? For the record, Tagovailoa is 2-1 against Herbert and the Chargers.
It doesn’t hurt that Tyreek Hill keeps naming Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield as one of his top five quarterbacks while excluding Tagovailoa. That should make the intrastate game extra spicy.
Outside of the normal AFC games at Buffalo, New England and New York, which all but two come early so Miami can avoid cold weather and snow games, Miami has road games slated for Atlanta, Carolina, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis.
Two of those — the Falcons and Colts — are dome teams, so the weather won’t be a factor in how the game is played. Miami opens the season in Indianapolis on Sept. 7, and played in Atlanta on Oct. 26.
The Cleveland road game is on Oct. 19, which is the peak of fall in Ohio, but the Dec. 15 Monday night game against Pittsburgh could provide some challenges from the elements. So could the Dec. 7 game against the Jets and the season finale against the Patriots.
Why is this important? You saw the Green Bay game on Thanksgiving last year, the one where some Dolphins players openly (and some privately) admitted they were cold, and the weather might have been a factor on why the team played “soft” during that 30-17 loss.
Miami closes out the season with two home games, and two road games, and its 16th season finale against a division rival (the Patriots on Jan. 4).
Overall, the schedule makers were kind to the Dolphins, which only has two back-to-back road games in 2025.
That means Mike McDaniel and his team should have a fighting chance to deliver double-digit wins if health doesn’t decimate the team.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 12:22 PM.
