Kelly: 2023 Schedule Sets Dolphins Up for Success
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The most overblown day on the NFL calendar has finally come and gone.
Time to celebrate the fact we finally have the dates and times to the NFL games we’ve known about for months.
Now we can officially book those trips (Los Angeles is the best road trip of the season), buy those tickets (sit on the Dolphins sideline for the shade), and put hypothetical wins and losses next to our projections.
My bar for the Miami Dolphins has been 10 wins in 2023, and there’s nothing that Thursday's schedule release revealed that motivates me to change that standard.
From my perspective of covering the league for 15 years, the schedule can annually be evaluated based on five components.
How and where does the season’s first month start?
Does the schedule set the Dolphins up for early success?
How many of those games are at home in South Florida’s heat and humidity, which teams annually admit becomes a challenge.
Miami starts the season playing three of the season’s first four games on the road. Ouch!
The Dolphins begins the season Sept. 10 against the Los Angeles Chargers, playing a rematch game for Tua Tagovailoa against his draft mate Justin Herbert. The Dolphins then travel to New England to face Bill Belichick’s team in Foxborough on Sept. 17 for a nationally televised Sunday night game.
Miami’s first home game is Week 3 against Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos.
That’s a solid spot for the Broncos because Miami should have a good enough understanding of Payton’s offense by then. Dolphins fans should hope Russell Wilson needs at least a month to gain solid footing in Payton’s offense.
And then the Dolphins face Buffalo on Oct. 1, which is ideal because that means the odds of Miami playing in a blizzard later in the year are slim. Believe me, almost everyone associated with the team is celebrating this.
Three of the next four games — New York Giants in Week 5, Carolina in Week 6, at Philadelphia in Week 7 and then hosting the Patriots in week 8 — are at home.
That softens the degree of difficult a bit.
Where are the nationally televised games?
This is always an indicator of how the television networks view the Dolphins.
Are they a team that will draw viewers? Do the networks view Miami as a playoff contender?
I’m not surprised the Dolphins got five nationally televised games since Miami produced its third straight winning season, and advanced to the AFC playoffs last year.
Miami was given two Sunday night games, an international game to be played super early (9:30 a.m.) on NFL Network, the Black Friday game against the Jets, which will be aired at 3 p.m. on Amazon Prime, and host a Monday Night Football game against the Tennessee Titans in Week 14.
Where does the bye week fall?
The bye week's placement is important because it can’t come too early, and shouldn’t come too late.
You also don’t want it close to the Thursday night game because that’s like a bye week as well since players typically don’t practice during the week of a Thursday night game, and get three days off following it.
The Dolphins don't have a Thursday night game this year, so there's that.
This year's bye is perfectly slotted.
An ideal bye week falls right after an international game, and does this year, coming right after Miami's trip to Germany to face the Kansas City Chiefs on Nov. 5.
What road games are snow possibilities?
Because of how the schedules shakes out, there are only three possible snow games.
Week 12 against the New York Jets, which will take place on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving Day.
Week 13 in Washington on Dec. 3, and Week 17 in Baltimore, on New Year's Eve.
How does the final month of the season look?
December is the point where the Dolphins should be making a playoff push, and I’m not talking about limping into the postseason like Miami did last year, losing six of the season’s final seven games before qualifying with a 11-6 victory against the Jets in the season finale.
Tagovailoa critics often throw his December record in the face of his supporters, and they have a valid claim.
December games are when the contenders separate themselves from the pretenders in the NFL, and if the Dolphins want to live up to this season’s expectations the team will have to put their big boy pants on.
All four of Miami’s final games are against franchises that most expect will be contending for a playoff spot. There's Aaron Rodgers and the Jets on Dec. 17; Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys on Christmas Eve; and then a road game against Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens on New Year's Eve.
Thankfully the season ends in South Florida, at home against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, the three-time reigning AFC East champions.
The best way to become the king is to cut off his head.
The Dolphins could get their chance.
