2020 Schedule Breakdown: Dolphins Going West

It's one of those years where everything aligned, and that's why the Dolphins will be doing so much traveling in 2020.

The NFL has rotated in-conference division opponents every three years and out-of-conference opponents every four years, and it just so happened that this was the year the Dolphins landed with the AFC West and the NFC West.

That means teams on the West Coast or, in the case of the Denver Broncos, in the Mountain time zone.

As a result, the Dolphins will be playing a franchise-high four games in 2020 that will be at least two time zones away, including back-to-back games at San Francisco and Denver on Oct. 11 and 18, respectively.

The other two faraway games will be at Arizona on Nov. 8 and at Las Vegas on either Dec. 26 or Dec. 27.

Only three previous times have the Dolphins played three games two or more time zones away in the same season, in the inaugural year of the franchise in 1966, in 2004 and in 2016.

In the three previous instances, the Dolphins also had back-to-back games on the West Coast.

The 2016 schedule put the Dolphins at Qualcomm Stadium to face the San Diego Chargers followed by a game at the Los Angeles Coliseum against the Rams.

Then-head coach Adam Gase had the team stay in California between the games, and the Dolphins ended up winning both games on their way to earning a playoff berth.

Both games featured late dramatics, with linebacker Kiko Alonso scoring a game-winning touchdown on a pick-six at San Diego and wide receiver DeVante Parker catching a touchdown pass from Ryan Tannehill in the final minute to cap a rally from a 10-0 deficit in the final five minutes.

The Dolphins also had consecutive West Coast game in 2004 after Jim Bates replaced Dave Wannstedt and became interim head coach, and they lost at Seattle before winning at San Francisco.

The Dolphins were among eight teams that asked the league to schedule games far away on back-to-back weeks to eliminate one long trip, according to Peter King.

The 49ers, of course, went to the Super Bowl, while Denver closed out a 7-9 season by going 4-1 in its final five games with rookie quarterback Drew Lock leading the offense.

The Dolphins won't be the only AFC East team with four games out West because Buffalo will be doing the same thing.

New England has three games on the West Coast, including games against the Chargers and Rams on a Sunday and Thursday in the second half of the season.

Because of geography, the West Coast teams always have it worse in terms of travels.

For example, every team in the NFC West will play five games at least two time zones away in 2020 and the same goes for the Raiders.

The Chargers will play six games at least two time zones away, four in the Eastern time zone and two in the Central time zone.

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Alain Poupart has covered the Miami Dolphins on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @apoupartFins.