The Miami Dolphins should be good in 2025 — if you're going by the recently unveiled NFL regular season schedule.
If you're going by opening odds, they won't be good. Shoot, they won't even be average.
So what gives?
DOLPHINS FREQUENT UNDERDOGS
Not long after the schedule was released, DraftKings Sportsbook put out opening odds for every single solitary NFL matchup in 2025, from the kickoff game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys to the Week 18 matchups.
And those (very, very) early odds have the Dolphins as underdogs in 11 of their matchups. Yes, 11.
That means if the favorites win every Dolphins game in 2025, Miami will finish with a 6-11 record.
The Dolphins opened as underdogs for five of their eight games at Hard Rock Stadium — against the L.A. Chargers in Week 6, the Baltimore Ravens in Week 9, the Buffalo Bills in Week 10, the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 17.
The Dolphins' most likely win, based on those opening odds, is the Week 13 game against the New Orleans Saints where Miami opened as a 6-point favorite.
The Dolphins' biggest spread as underdogs comes — no surprise — in the game at Buffalo where Miami opened as an 8.5-point underdog for the Thursday night game at Highmark Stadium.
MIAMI'S GAME-BY-GAME OPENING ODDS
Week 1, at Indianapolis — Dolphins plus 1.5
Week 2, vs. New England — Dolphins minus 2.5
Week 3, at Buffalo (TNF) — Dolphins plus 8.5
Week 4, vs. N.Y. Jets (MNF) — Dolphins minus 5.5
Week 5, at Carolina — Dolphins minus 1.5
Week 6, vs. L.A. Chargers — Dolphins plus 1.5
Week 7, at Cleveland — Dolphins minus 1.5
Week 8, at Atlanta — Dolphins plus 1.5
Week 9, Baltimore (TNF) — Dolphins plus 5.5
Week 10, Buffalo — Dolphins plus 5.5
Week 11, vs. Washington (Madrid, Spain) — Dolphins plus 4.5
Week 13, vs. New Orleans — Dolphins minus 6
Week 14, at N.Y. Jets — Dolphins minus 1.5
Week 15, at Pittsburgh (MNF) — Dolphins plus 2.5
Week 16, vs. Cincinnati (SNF) — Dolphins plus 1.5
Week 17, vs. Tampa Bay — Dolphins plus 1.5
Week 18, at New England — Dolphins plus 2.5
READY FOR PRIME TIME
The NFL clearly doesn't view the Dolphins in the same light — or at the very least think they'll make for good television.
The five prime-time appearances match the total the Dolphins had last year — when they were coming off an 11-6 season — though one of those was flexed out when their Week 17 game at Cleveland was moved to the late-afternoon slot.
The Dolphins' five prime-time games on the initial schedule rank tied for third-most in the NFL, behind only the seven for the Kansas City Chiefs and the six for the ubiquitous Dallas Cowboys. The Dolphins are tied with Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco, Buffalo, Detroit and the L.A. Chargers.
Of the seven other teams with five prime-time games at the moment, five made the playoffs.
And the NFL wouldn't have put the other three at night so many times if the league thought any of them was headed for a really bad season like, say, 6-11.
As ESPN's Adam Schefter pointed out after the schedule release: "The league obviously feels pretty good about the Dolphins, because they scheduled them in prime time five times. So the league is telling us, we like the Miami Dolphins, and the Dolphins get to play the first game in Spain against the Washington Commanders. So it's kind of an interesting schedule for a team that no disrespect, I don't know that a lot of people outside of Miami are excited about the Dolphins. But the league seems to be right now."
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