Tag: Hard Rock Stadium

LOOK: Painted Michigan State superfan spotted outside National Championship stadium

A certain painted Michigan State superfan was seen riding a bike outside the Hard Rock Stadium after the NCAA National Championship game.

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The NCAA National Championship is over and Alabama is your champion, knocking off Ohio State in a largely one-sided affair. One of my personal favorite moments of the night happened outside of the stadium, though.

After the game, a man painted in green who appeared to be a certain Michigan State superfan was seen riding a bike outside of Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida waving a Michigan State flag. The man resembled well-know MSU fan ‘Johnny Spirit’.

Take a look for yourself below:

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Watch: Hard Rock Stadium winds back clock as Dolphins wear throwbacks

Watch: Hard Rock Stadium winds back clock as Dolphins wear throwbacks

As the saying goes, one must look good to play good. You’ll have a hard time finding a better look than the one the Miami Dolphins are all set to sport this afternoon against the Los Angeles Chargers in the team’s Week 10 AFC clash. Because Miami is, for the first time this season, breaking out their retro uniforms and winding back the clock — hoping that the team can invoke some of the same dominance of Miami Dolphins teams of the early 1970s in the process.

Hard Rock Stadium will be ready, too — as they’ve released a teaser featuring the old team logo on the 50-yard line ahead of today’s contest. Needless to say, we’re just about ready for game time:

The throwback uniforms have become a hot topic for the Dolphins, as the push has become more and more prominent to see Miami return to the old look once and for all and re-adopt the classic look as the team’s default uniforms. There’s apparently quite a bit of momentum in the Dolphins’ building for that as well — but not from team owner Stephen Ross. And as a result, instances like today will instead remain an occasional treat instead of a weekly occurrence.

But the good news for Dolphins fans is that you’ll see the retro fits twice more this season after today; so while you should definitely enjoy the view while it lasts, rest easy knowing that they’ll be back soon once again.

Miami and Los Angeles kick off from Hard Rock Stadium at 4:05 PM EST today.

Miami Dolphins pass on chance for full Hard Rock Stadium

The Miami Dolphins will limit attendance to 13,000 despite an ok from the governor to fill Hard Rock Stadium.

Congratulations to the Miami Dolphins for showing common sense.

The NFL team was given permission to go to full capacity of 65,000 fans at Hard Rock Stadium for their next home game, Oct. 25, against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Team management wisely said, “Not so fast” during a coronavirus pandemic and it is reported will keep the limit at 13,000 fans so there can be social distancing.

Now that’s a perfect call

Weather forecast for Dolphins’ Week 2 showdown with Bills

Weather forecast for Dolphins’ Week 2 showdown with Bills

Tomorrow will be the very first Miami Dolphins home game of 2020, Dolphins fans! The Dolphins weren’t exactly able to get things off on the right foot last Sunday, seeing their season opener flop with an 11-point effort on offense against the New England Patriots. But in Week 2, the Dolphins welcome the Buffalo Bills to town and the Dolphins will try once again to get into the win column. The good news for Miami? Not only were there be fans in attendance at the game, Miami’s location offers them one of the stiffest home field advantages in all of football. And it will be in full effect for Sunday’s 1 PM EST kickoff.

Here is the current forecast for Miami’s Week 2 contest against their AFC East rivals, the Buffalo Bills.

Location: Hard Rock Stadium — Miami Gardens, Florida

  • High temperature: 90 degrees
    • Feels like: 102 degrees
  • Percent rain: 50%
  • Humidity: 65%
  • Wind: 10 mph

With all that South Florida heat, it sure feels like a great day for the Buffalo Bills to be wearing colors and for the Dolphins to be in all-white — which is exactly how Miami chose to tackle their uniform situation as the home team. Between the design of Hard Rock Stadium to keep the opposing team in the sun through most of the game and Miami’s experience working in the humidity versus the much more mild temperatures in Buffalo, there is a significant home field advantage to be had here for Miami. The high temperature this past week in Buffalo? 72 degrees. It only exceeded 70 on two days this past week.

So now it falls onto the Dolphins to keep this game close, let the humidity do its work and late in the game, Miami’s experience and conditioning in the heat can serve as a potential deciding factor. Miami will have to execute, but the avenue for success is there.

Report: Dolphins will allow 20 percent capacity at Hard Rock Stadium

Report: Dolphins will allow 20 percent capacity at Hard Rock Stadium

The status of fans attending NFL games across the league has been an area of focus in recent weeks. With the NFL’s testing protocols for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic keeping the league’s number of cases stable, the question has seemingly shifted from “will the NFL play” to “will the NFL play with fans?” For many teams, the answer is no — at least not early on. That includes Miami’s Week 1 date with the New England Patriots, who will have no fans in attendance at Gillette Stadium on September 13th.

Andy Slater of Fox Sports 640 in South Florida broke the news that the Dolphins will have fans in attendance when the team welcomes the Buffalo Bills to town on September 20th for their home opener. Slater is reporting that Hard Rock Stadium will be open at 20% maximum capacity this season, which will accommodate 13,000 fans.

The report has since been verified by the team, which released a statement and declared that all fans in attendance at Hard Rock Stadium will be required to wear a mask.

How the NFL finds a competitive balance with some fans allowed to attend some stadiums and others not allowing fans at all is a bit of an unknown — but for the Dolphins, they’re likely thrilled to be boasting a home-field advantage now that the likelihood of the 2020 NFL season feels more probable and less of a hypothetical.

Dolphins first in NFL to receive high end sanitation accreditation

Dolphins first in NFL to receive high end sanitation accreditation

With all of the focus across the world these days as it relates to sanitation and cleanliness, athletic facilities and stadiums are doing everything in their power to safely accommodate a return of fans to the stands — and the Miami Dolphins can hang their hat on being “first” in the NFL in achieving one gold standard accreditation on this front. The Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) has offered Hard Rock Stadium STAR accreditation for the facility’s efforts in cleaning, disinfection, and infection prevention strategies.

“As the first NFL stadium to be accredited by GBAC STAR, we are setting a precedent for how large venues should approach cleaning in the wake of the pandemic,” Dolphins & Hard Rock Stadium Vice Chairman and CEO Tom Garfinkel offered in a statement. “By following a credible third-party standard, we are confident that our facility not only meets, but exceeds, the expectations of our spectators and staff.”

Several NFL franchises from around the league have started to announce reduced capacities in stadiums across the league this fall — the most recent being Miami’s Week 3 opponent, the Jacksonville Jaguars. Reduced capacity is a must at this point in time due to the ongoing health crisis, adequate social distancing would simply be impossible in a maximum capacity arrangement. But for the Miami Dolphins, the team can at the very least hang their hat on ensuring that regardless of the number of fans in the stands, they’ll be put in the best position to successfully enjoy a day at the stadium and watch some football.

Miami was also on the cutting edge of plans to admit fans to the stadium several months ago when the pandemic first hit, with Garfinkel making an appearance on Good Morning America to discuss Hard Rock Stadium’s plans to adhere to social distancing while admitting fans into the stadium. When the time comes for kickoff, one thing we can be sure of is Hard Rock Stadium will be as ready as anyone.

Hard Rock Stadium announces drive-in theater events

Hard Rock Stadium announces drive-in theater events

Businesses everywhere are being charged with getting creative in order to provide opportunities for their local communities to participate in social distancing guidelines while getting out of the house — a complex, complicated proposition that hasn’t been easy for many. With that said, the home of the Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, might be on to something. The stadium’s social media account announced yesterday that the venue will be hosting an “open-air and drive-in theater”.

Hard Rock Stadium’s website details the future plans to host the public:

“The global entertainment destination will now feature both an open-air and drive-in theater that will showcase classic Miami Dolphins content from the team’s 54-year history, classic motion picture films, host commencement ceremonies and other events. The family friendly experiences will provide a unique environment while staying in accordance with social distance policies. The drive-in events will be held inside of Hard Rock Stadium and accommodate up to 230 cars, while the open-air theater can host small groups for an intimate viewing experience on the complex’s south plaza.”

Classic Dolphins content should provide plenty of interested fans, given that the team’s fanbase is desperate for a return to the glory days of Miami — and the chance to consume classic games from the confines of the stadium itself provides a cool novelty that is unlike something we’ve seen before. Kudos to the Dolphins for cooking up a creative solution to help keep the South Florida community involved with the venue throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic as it runs rampant throughout the United States (and the rest of the world).

Fans interested in partaking in drive-in showings at Hard Rock Stadium can sign up on the stadium’s website to be given notice when the first set of tickets are made available to the general public.

Report: 2020 schedule to includes 17 weeks; no international games

The NFL is set to release a full schedule for 2020, but will move four international games stateside as stadiums consider social distancing.

The 2020 NFL schedule is coming. It will look different than originally anticipated. It may not look as different as fans had feared. But there will be changes, and one team has already offered a virtual glimpse.

Although the NBA, NHL, NASCAR, the PGA, and Major League Baseball have all been forced to dramatically alter their seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic, the National Football League was granted the luxury of waiting the longest to make any sort of decision that would require asterisks in the record books of the future. Reports now indicate that the league will release its 2020 regular season slate of games by May 9. The schedule will be for a full 17-week campaign that starts on time on September 10.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be some tweaks to the initial plan.

ESPN is reporting that the league will scrap its International Series games for 2020, relocating the four planned contests to their home teams’ stateside stadiums.

As for the stadiums themselves, at least one is already thinking ahead to the logistics of hosting NFL games under current social distancing guidelines. The Miami Dolphins have released a mocked-up look at how the Plexiglas barriers, floor dots, and altered foot-traffic patterns that have suddenly become commonplace at the local grocery store might work on a much larger scale at Hard Rock Stadium on Sundays this fall.

As per ESPN:

“Hard Rock Stadium became the first public facility to earn the Global Biorisk Advisory Council’s STAR accreditation, the standard used for facilities to implement cleaning, disinfecting and infectious disease prevention work practices to control risks involved with infectious agents like the coronavirus. (The GBAC is a division of the ISSA, a worldwide trade association for the cleaning industry.)”

No official plans or standards from the league have been announced; the Dolphins sought help in crafting their plan early.

“When our fans, players and staff are able to return to Hard Rock Stadium, we want them to have peace of mind that we’re doing everything we can to create the safest and healthiest environment possible,” Dolphins president/CEO Tom Garfinkel said. “We didn’t want to create our own standard, we wanted to be accountable to the most credible third-party standard that exists. Working with the GBAC ensures compliances with critical guidelines for the highest standard of cleanliness and it is our hope that other venues will follow suit as we navigate through these unprecedented times.”

Such a strategy would also necessitate a reduced capacity for fans in attendance. Hard Rock Stadium seats approximately 65,000 fans for a Dolphins game, but may be able to hold just 15,000 or so under these guidelines.

AT&T Stadium’s normal setup for a Cowboys game accommodates 80,000. The same math used in the Miami scenario would equate to a home capacity of under 19,000.

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Poll: Who are you taking for Super Bowl LIV?

It’s about that time for the Battle for the Lombardi as the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. On one side, San Francisco will enter the game with a tenacious defense that ended the regular …

It’s about that time for the Battle for the Lombardi as the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

On one side, San Francisco will enter the game with a tenacious defense that ended the regular season first against the pass (allowing an average of 169.2 yards per game) and second in total yards allowed (allowing an average of 281.8 yards per game). All this success has come under defensive coordinator and former Jacksonville Jaguars assistant Robert Saleh, who has done a phenomenal job with the talent of Nick Bosa, Richard Sherman, and others.

Of course, on the other side is quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who is arguably the top player in the game right now. With offensive masterminds Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy by his side, Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense finished the regular season fifth in points (28.2 point average) and fifth in passing yards (281.1 yard average). They also have an elite pair of pass-catchers in Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce who combined for over 2,000 yards in the regular season.

Of course, the Jaguars only met one of these teams in the regular season, and that was the Chiefs. That said, which of these two teams will you be pulling for in the Super Bowl as a fan of the Cardiac Cats? Let us know in the poll below.

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Super Bowl LIV: Jags Wire staff picks and Predictions

How does the Jags Wire staff feel about Super Bowl LIV? Let’s just say we aren’t high on the favorites.

Super Bowl Sunday is amongst us, and while the Jacksonville Jaguars aren’t playing, we still felt it was only right to post our predictions on the big game. Heading into Super Bowl LIV, the oddsmakers over at BetMGM have the Kansas City Chiefs down as favorites by a margin of 1.5, however, the San Francisco 49ers have a very good defense that could cause some problems for them Sunday.

Here is how each of the contributors at Jags Wire envision this thing playing out:

James Johnson (@Sportsgrind_Don): 49ers 24, Chiefs 20

Heading into 2019, most knew what the Chiefs were capable of offensively but our Jags got to witness their greatness Week 1. After that game, I became even more of a believer in them more so because of how in sync they looked early in the season and their success continued from that point.

The 49ers are somewhat of a surprise on the other hand, but after evaluating the job that general manager John Lynch has done putting together their roster, it actually shouldn’t be a shocker. Additionally, coach Kyle Shanahan is a brilliant offensive mind, while defensive coordinator Robert Saleh is having even more success on the opposite end of the ball, which brings me to my next point. Saleh will be the X-factor here, however, I think he has to rely more on man-to-man coverage Sunday in hopes that his talented front four can get home quick. If he successfully does that the 49ers can keep this game lower than expected.

Phil Smith (@PhiltheFilipino): 49ers 34, Chiefs 30

In Week 1 the Jags faced this Chiefs team and they looked absolutely unstoppable. I had a feeling right then and there they would end up playing this Sunday when it was all said and done.

However, I did not see the 49ers coming.

This should be one of the best Super Bowl matchups we’ve had in a long time. What this ultimately comes down to, is which coaching staff do I trust more? Andy Reid notoriously comes up short in big moments and Kyle Shanahan has had two weeks to prepare for this game.

To me, this reminds me of the Seahawks-Broncos Super Bowl from a few years ago. A high powered offense against a top tier defense. And yes, Patrick Mahomes is a different dude, however, defense wins championships. San Francisco is the more complete team and will keep Andy Reid and Mahomes waiting.

Jacob DeLawrence (@_Jdela): 49ers 38, Chiefs 35

Well, it’s funny that we find ourselves here for another year without the Jags in the Super Bowl but alas we have a matchup that should ensure happiness for Jags fans because the Chiefs beat the deeply despised Titans.

This is a matchup between one high powered offense going up against a defense that has been causing issues for teams all year when healthy. While many believe a shootout would favor the Chiefs, I’m inclined to side with the 49ers who beat the Saints in NOLA in a shootout. Either way this game will be better than the previous Super Bowl.

Daniel Griffis (@DanDGriffis): 49ers 31, Chiefs 27

When the Jaguars were looking to hire a head coach a few years back, the one coach I was hoping they would hire was Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan. It turned out that he was developed into one of the league’s brightest offensive minds.

Patrick Mahomes is as talented as they come, however, I think Shanahan’s craftiness as a play-designer and play-caller has the 49ers destined to hoist the Lombardi trophy.

Robert Ricks (@rrickswriting): 49ers 38, Chiefs 31

This is going to be a Super Bowl worth watching as fans get to witness two teams with great play-callers in Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan. It’s extremely tough to bet against Patrick Mahomes, but the 49ers defense is on a tear, which is why it’s even tougher to bet against them.

Will Frost (@willfrost_): Chiefs 33, 49ers 24

What’s the only thing that could cap off Patrick Mahomes’ designation as the next king amongst NFL quarterbacks over the past two seasons? A Super Bowl title. It goes without saying Kansas City has been teetering on the edge of greatness under Andy Reid, and fans will be hoping this Sunday marks the end of his long wait for a title.

Despite the strides that the 49ers’ defense has taken this year, I think the Kansas City offensive unit just has too much firepower. Kyle Shanahan will likely rely on his run game for the majority of the game, as he has done for most of the playoffs, but if the Chiefs get ahead early, I don’t think Jimmy Garoppolo has the ability to win the game.

San Francisco has to hope their defense can keep Mahomes in check, otherwise this game might be fairly one-sided.