The Miami Dolphins’ schedule reveal came on Thursday night — and there’s plenty of challenges to await the Dolphins this upcoming season. The structure of the team’s schedule this season has some unforgiving stretches but also provides the team with some optimism for good fortune as well. Where is the schedule best for the Dolphins in 2020?
Here are three key areas that the schedule makers provided the Dolphins with a favor.
Drawing New England in Week 1
The Patriots will be playing at home without quarterback Tom Brady for the first time in nearly twenty years as their franchise quarterback. And with Miami owning confidence after their Week 17 win in Foxborough the last time around, it should not be hard for the Dolphins to be ready to play this game. A season opening win would be a huge boost to Miami’s hopes of playing for the postseason late in the year — a road division win to open the year would be about as good as it gets.
The facing the west coast teams at 1 PM
The Chargers, Rams and Seahawks all must travel across the country to play the Dolphins and do so with a 1 PM EST kickoff time. Pair the South Florida humidity with early kickoffs and the Dolphins have advantages in each matchup that could play a factor late in the game.
If the Dolphins can keep these contests close, their conditioning and body clocks could serve as the deciding factor in one or more of these contests.
The season’s 3rd-Quarter
Weeks 9-13 for the Dolphins are as follows:
- @ Arizona Cardinals
- vs. New York Jets
- Bye week
- @ New York Jets
- vs. Cincinnati Bengals
2020 is a new year, but the Dolphins’ opponents for this stretch of the season had a combined 2019 record of 21-42-1. The Cardinals are an improved roster with the addition of WR DeAndre Hopkins and notable improvements on defense via the 2020 draft but if Miami can steal that road game to start the season’s third quarter, this team may be looking at a critical stretch to push above .500 as the season moves into December.
