Insights into 2022 Dolphins Schedule
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The men in charge of putting together the NFL regular season schedule shared some details into how they arrived at the 2022 version and revealed some interesting tidbits about the Miami Dolphins.
In summary, the Dolphins volunteered to play a home game on Christmas Day, requested their games at San Francisco and Los Angeles (against the Chargers) be scheduled in back-to-back weeks, and requested to open at home.
Those were among the revelations during NFL Broadcasting VPs Onnie Bose and Mike North's Zoom session after the schedule was revealed.
Sunday Night vs. the Steelers
The Sunday night home against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 23 was scheduled in large part to mark the 50th anniversary of the Dolphins' perfect season, which included a victory at Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game.
But North said the game wasn't cemented until the Dolphins acquired Tyreek Hill in their big trade with the Kansas City Chiefs.
"I'm not sure Pittsburgh-Miami was heading for NBC for Sunday Night Football," North said. "But when Tyreek Hill joined a team that's been very good for a couple of years, right? I think there were nine wins last year 10 wins the year before Miami's played their way into prime time. Now with Tyreek Hill, one of the most exciting players in the league, and we had the opportunity with Pittsburgh going back there, remember, this is the 50th anniversary of the undefeated season for the Dolphins. So here's an opportunity for a Steelers-Dolphins game in prime time in October, where we'll make a big deal out of it. The Dolphins will make a big deal about it. I'm sure we'll see Larry Csonka and all the guys in the stadium that night, and that's a game that we probably only felt better about once the Dolphins went out and made the move for Tyreek."
The Christmas Possibilities
As we've already mentioned, the Dolphins volunteered to play at home on Christmas, but there was no guarantee that Green Bay was going to be the opponent.
“So they went into the mix as a possible landing site for a Christmas game," North said. "Didn't necessarily have to be Green Bay. I think we could have gotten some real good mileage out of New England in Miami on Christmas if we decided to do that. Buffalo-Miami would have worked. Pittsburgh-Miami would have worked. You probably saw we decided to do something differently with Pittsburgh that weekend. They're playing on Saturday night (on the) 50th anniversary almost to the day of the Immaculate Reception. So that one kind of fell out as an option once we kind of locked in on that but, again, we're fans like everybody else.
"I'm not sure we know anything more than anybody else. But we think the Dolphins are good and we think they only got better. And again, it's a team with double-digit wins or near-double-digit wins these last few years. We think they're gonna be in a playoff chase in December. So having them in the Christmas window felt like a real good opportunity."
As for Thanksgiving, while the Dolphins were an appealing option, North said Buffalo always seemed like the logical target, which is how it ended up.
Opening Against New England Again
The Dolphins open the season against the Patriots for a third consecutive year, but North said he wasn't even aware of that fact.
He was, however, aware of Miami's desire to open at home unlike 2020 and 2021 because of the possibility of Hard Rock Stadium hosting a Lady Gaga concert in Week 2 and a desire not to open with two road games.
'We looked at dozens of schedules where the Dolphins opened on the road for the first two weeks," North said. "I think they prefer this one. I think this is better for them to have that home game in Week 1. If they come back to us and say hey, listen, having New England in Week 1 isn't something we're looking for in the future, it's going to have to be something we're gonna have to consider looking forward. ... But for all the schedules that we looked at where the Dolphins started road-road, due in part to the fact that they really were hoping to accommodate this concert in Week 2, I think they prefer this one."
The Dolphins and Amazon
One of the reasons the NFL had no problem moving away from the Dolphins for the Thanksgiving Day game is the idea that they were going to get a Thursday night game at some point.
The only thing is that ideally it would have been a home game.
"As I'm sure you've all heard from Amazon, they're really interested in getting out into these markets where they're gonna be broadcasting games from and really trying to celebrate, not just the parking lot and the tailgating experience but also the whole market," North said. "Miami was one of the places where Amazon actually was really hoping to have a home game for them. So they were rooting for a Dolphins game on Amazon and they were rooting for it in Miami. We certainly looked at plenty of schedules where that happened.
"But again, once this schedule spit out and you see this Miami at Cincy and you can do Tua and Burrow, who know each other obviously, from their days in the SEC, it just felt like a really good use of that asset and a really good fan-friendly game that everybody's going to want to see.
"So they could have ended up on Thanksgiving. They didn’t. They could have ended up at home on Thursday. They didn’t. They could have ended up at home on Christmas. And in this particular schedule they did and they're also one of those teams that asked for, you know, their West Coast trips to be paired up so we knew they were going out to San Francisco and LA this year. They asked for them back-to-back; maybe in a vacuum they would have preferred that a little earlier in the season and we looked at ones where that kind of fell into the October/November range. But hopefully like all teams, when they look at their schedule, they got some of what they wanted and maybe didn't get everything. I'm not sure everybody should get everything they asked for, but I think for the most part, Miami got most of what they asked for.”
