The Miami Dolphins should have plenty of time this morning to digest the news that their schedule has been turned upside down amid the ongoing COVID-19 related league-wide rescheduling effort before they must take the field against the San Francisco 49ers at 4:05 PM EST. But when the clock strikes zeroes in San Francisco, the Dolphins will need to be willing to be flexible — because the NFL has left them little to no choice in the matter.
The Dolphins will not play the Broncos in Week 6, as originally scheduled. But when that game will be scheduled is yet to be determined — although ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler is speculating that the game may be pushed to the end of the season if the NFL hopes to avoid completely scrambling the schedule for teams that currently are not impacted by the positive cases across New England (and with the Tennessee Titans).
League wanted to keep schedule intact and avoid end-of-year makeup games, but Broncos-Dolphins could be a candidate for that.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) October 11, 2020
A fascinating subplot here will be if the league does indeed push Miami and Denver to the end of the year, will they hold firm to playing the game if both teams are mathematically eliminated from postseason contention by the time the teams are rescheduled to play? And furthermore, this would be a net loss for Miami from a travel perspective, too. The Dolphins are already on the hook for a January road game in Buffalo this season. But if the league pushes the Denver/Miami contest to the following week, the Dolphins will be potentially playing twice in the snow in as many weeks.
If you’re looking for a true test of the mental toughness of Brian Flores’ team, that would be the ultimate gauntlet. But it would sure be a rough draw for Miami given that they and their Week 6 opponent currently have no direct issues with playing next Sunday but ultimately will not be.