Dolphins 2022 Schedule Breakdown: Starting and Ending at Home

As we continue dissecting the Miami Dolphins' 2022 regular season schedule, we examine the significance of starting and finishing at Hard Rock Stadium.

It's actually a rare occurrence for the Dolphins — this will be only the third time since 2003 the Dolphins will start and end at home. The other two times this happened were 2011 and 2014.

It should be pointed out that the Dolphins also were scheduled to start and finish at home in 2017, but their regular season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was pushed back to November because of Hurricane Irma (each team's bye had been scheduled for the same week making the rescheduling simple).

Here's an interesting twist here: the Dolphins opening at home against New England and ending at home against the Jets was actually the same schedule for the Dolphins in 2011 and 2014.

In both cases, the Dolphins went 1-1 in those games, although they won the finale in 2011 and won the opener in 2014.

By contrast, the Dolphins have opened and closed on the road four times since that 2003 season — in 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2020.

AROUND THE NFL

The Dolphins are one of six teams around the league that will open and close at home in 2022, along with the Atlanta Falcons, Cincinnati Bengals, Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders.

There will be six teams that will open and finish on the road, one of them being the New England Patriots.

Among the AFC East, the Bills will open on the road in the NFL kickoff game against the L.A. Rams and will close at home against the Patriots. The Jets will open at home against the Baltimore Ravens long before they finish off at Hard Rock Stadium.

THE 2021 PRECEDENT

The six teams starting and ending at home (and conversely six starting/finishing on the road) is down from 2021 when eight teams were in either of those situations.

But here's the thing: Based on who made the playoffs, starting/ending at home or on the road didn't make much of an impact.

Of the eight who started and finished at home, four of them made the playoffs — Buffalo, Las Vegas, Tampa Bay and the L.A. Rams.

That was the same number of teams that made the playoffs after starting and ending on the road — Pittsburgh, Dallas, Green Bay and San Francisco.