Dolphins Among Travel Leaders in 2025 (With an Important Caveat)

No Miami Dolphins player, coach or staff member would trade flying a team-chartered plane over commercial, but oh, the frequent flyer miles they could have racked up this year.

For the third time in five years the Dolphins are traveling overseas, this time flying the farthest south and west that a game an NFL game has been played in Europe. Madrid, Spain, and its remarkable Santiago Bernabéu Stadium — the new home of Real Madrid FC — will host the Dolphins and Washington Commanders in Week 11, November 16, at 9:30 a.m. ET.

The website Bookies.com posted a list of NFL teams ranked by how many miles they will be traveling during the 2025 season and Miami ranked eighth. The Dolphins will fall 492 miles — about the distance between the Florida Keys and Jacksonville — shy of having logged enough miles (24,901) to circle the globe.   

This year, the NFL schedule has each AFC team with eight road games and each NFC team with nine. The 32 NFL teams will cover a total of 625,947 miles this season, averaging 19,561 per team, and 2,301 miles per trip.

The Los Angeles Chargers are scheduled to travel more miles this season than any NFL team in history. The Bolts, who will open their season in Brazil, will cover 37,086 miles this season, traversing 42 time zones. On the other end of the spectrum are the Bengals, who will travel 8,753 miles, their longest trip being to Denver.

FROM THE 305 TO THE 34-91

The Madrid game being Miami’s home game drastically changes how it would have ranked if the game had remained a natural home game at Hard Rock Stadium.

A roundtrip flight from Miami (MIA) to Madrid (MAD) is 8,880 miles. Make that mileage zero with a game in Miami Gardens and the Dolphins would have traveled 15,529 miles this year, a number which would ranked them 23rd as opposed to eighth.

The trip to Madrid is the only one the Dolphins will make outside of the Eastern time zone.

As fans in America have become accustomed to the NFL International games, it’s been clear that the home team gains no advantage in terms of a home crowd. What’s troubling for Miami, though, is what having the game as one of its designated home games does to the rest of its season.

Since playing their first regular season game overseas at Wembley Stadium in 2007, a trend has seemed to show up for the Dolphins. In seasons where Miami was the home team in an international game, they have an overall record of 13-37. In seasons where the Dolphins are playing against a team designated the home team, they have a 39-27 overall record.

Miami also is 18-22 in the remaining games of their seasons played after an international “home” game, and 23-11 closing out seasons after playing as the international “away” team.

THE DOLPHINS IN INTERNATIONAL GAMES

2007: London, England (vs. New York Giants) - 17-7 loss (Dolphins home team; 1-7 after)

2008: Toronto, Canada (vs. Buffalo Bills) - 16-3 win (Bills home team; 5-1 after)

2014: London, England (vs. Oakland Raiders) - 38-14 win (Raiders home team, 5-4 after)

2015: London, England (vs. New York Jets) - 27-14 loss (Dolphins home team, 5-7 after)

2017: London, England (vs. New Orleans Saints) - 20-0 loss (Dolphins home team, 6-8 after)

2021: London, England (vs. Jacksonville Jaguars) - 23-20 loss (Jaguars home team, 8-3 after)

2023: Frankfurt, Germany (vs. Kansas City Chiefs) - 21-14 loss (Chiefs home team, 5-3 after)

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