The Miami Dolphins have much more pressing issues at hand than their 2021 schedule — which is a yet to be determined order of confirmed teams. The NFL typically releases the team schedules in April as a part of a continuous strategy to command the headlines in the sports world, even in the offseason. So we’ll have a few months before there’s any more clarity on what teams fall on what weeks this fall for the Dolphins.
But a surface level inspection of Miami’s confirmed opponents gives Miami some optimism that there will be some advantages for the Dolphins this fall regardless of how the schedule falls. The Miami Dolphins will only play one football game on the west coast this season after a brutal gauntlet of travel wore on the Dolphins down the stretch in 2020.
Of Miami’s confirmed road opponents for 2021, only the Las Vegas Raiders push further west than New Orleans. Miami’s full list of confirmed road opponents are as follows:
- New York Jets
- New England Patriots
- Buffalo Bills
- Tennessee Titans
- New Orleans Saints
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Las Vegas Raiders
There is also an unconfirmed 17th game looming, which reportedly would send the Dolphins back to northern New Jersey to play the New York Giants.
When you consider the west coast travel Miami took on in 2020, with trips west to play the Raiders, Broncos, Cardinals and 49ers, only having to load up for one long-distance flight certainly sounds like a desirable scheduling tweak for 2021. Of course, Miami won’t be immune to travel and there’s a chance the team could even be called upon to play overseas as the International Series looks to return after a year off in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But unless Miami sees a home game plucked from their schedule this year, the Dolphins will play 10 of their games in the state of Florida between their own eight home games and the two road games versus Tampa Bay and Jacksonville. Add in short distance trips to Nashville and New Orleans and the Dolphins don’t appear to be destined for jet-lag a year after traveling 24,424 miles in 2020.
We’ll count that as a win this early in the process.