Dolphins Featured in "Top 10 Games of 2022"

As we continue to anticipate the unveiling of the full 2022 NFL regular season schedule, the conversation already has started as to the best upcoming matchups.

NFL.com, in fact, published a story Friday listing the top 10 games of 2022 and among the teams mentioned were the Miami Dolphins.

With a caveat that he limited himself to one AFC West matchup (Chargers at Raiders), writer Nick Shook's list included the Dolphins game at San Francisco.

The appeal of the matchup should be pretty obvious, the return of new Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel to face his longtime colleague Kyle Shanahan and the team for which he worked the previous five seasons.

"Mike McDaniel rose from 49ers offensive whiz kid to head coach of the Dolphins in a rather short span of time," Shook wrote, "and he'll face his old squad and boss in Kyle Shanahan in 2022. McDaniel is tasked with turning Tua Tagovailoa into a franchise quarterback and will run into one of his greatest tests as a novice head coach when he meets the club that knows him best. Will Miami's busy offseason and new-look offense be enough to outperform DeMeco Ryans' defense at Levi's Stadium? Or will the mentor get the best of the mentee?"

The Dolphins' Marquee Matchups of 2022

The game at San Francisco clearly has the biggest storyline of any Dolphins matchup in 2022, but there are others as well:

-- The two games against Buffalo: Have the Dolphins closed the gap on the Bills?

-- The two games against New England: Can the Dolphins continue their impressive run against the Patriots?

-- The home game against Pittsburgh: Brian Flores returns to Miami as a defensive assistant for the Steelers.

-- The game at Cincinnati: A battle between two of the top five picks in the 2020 draft, Tua Tagovailoa and Joe Burrow.

-- The home game at Cleveland: The Dolphins defense faces the quarterback the organization investigated acquiring (though the matchup loses a lot of appeal if it takes place while Deshaun Watson is serving his much-anticipated league suspension).

-- The game at Los Angeles against the Chargers: Another battle between 2020 high picks, this time Tua vs. Justin Herbert.

-- The game at Detroit: It's been six years, but the Dolphins chose Adam Gase over Lions head coach Dan Campbell to become their head coach in 2016 and you can just imagine the Campbell is going to be fired up for this one. Maybe not to the point where his players will be biting kneecaps, but maybe close.