Dolphins lose their only Sunday night football appearance, against Bengals
The Dolphins lost their only Sunday Night Football appearance of the season on Monday, when their Dec. 21 home game against the Bengals was moved from a national prime time game to an afternoon game with a regional audience.
In a move that was hardly a surprise, the NFL shifted the Dolphins-Bengals game from 8:20 p.m. on NBC to 1 p.m. on CBS. A New England-Baltimore game replaced the Dolphins game in the Sunday night slot.
The fate of the Dolphins-Bengals game seemed to be cemented when Cincinnati lost at Buffalo on Sunday to fall to 4-9. The Dolphins (6-7) have won four in a row entering next Monday’s game at Pittsburgh (8:15 p.m., ESPN, CBS-4).
Between Weeks 14 and 17, the NFL’s deadline to flex games out of Sunday nights is six days in advance, compared to 12 days from Weeks 10 to 13. But the NFL flexed out Dolphins-Bengals a week before the deadline on Monday to enable fans and employees of the Dolphins, Ravens, Patriots and Bengals to make accommodations.
After the Bengals game, the Dolphins will play at home against Tampa Bay at 1 p.m. on Dec. 28 in a Fox regional telecast.
The Dolphins’ finale at New England will either be played on Sunday, Jan. 4 at 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. or be shifted to one of two ESPN slots on Saturday, Jan. 3. The dates and times of all of those Week 18 games will be set on Sunday night, Dec. 28.
This marked the second year in a row that a late-season Dolphins game was flexed out of prime time. That also happened with last season’s Week 17 Dolphins-Browns game amid disappointing seasons for both teams.
Unless the Dolphins’ finale is moved to Jan. 3, then Miami will end the season with five full national TV games: Thursday games against Buffalo and Baltimore, Monday night games against the Jets and Steelers and a Nov. 16 game in Madrid against Washington.
