Flexing and the Remainder of the Dolphins Schedule

The NFL announced Friday the first-ever Thursday night game to be flexed, with the Week 16 game between the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals switched out in favor of the Denver Broncos at Los Angeles Chargers.

This, of course, is the week before the Miami Dolphins are scheduled to face the Browns at Huntington Bank Field in a Sunday night game Dec. 29.

Logic would seem to suggest the NFL wouldn’t hesitate to sub out the Dolphins-Cleveland from Sunday night football, though there’s an important factor at play here that precludes it from being an automatic move.

The rule for flexing out a Thursday night game is that the decision needs to be made 28 days in advance, whereas a Sunday night flex needs to be decided upon no later than six days before the game.

As it stands right now, a matchup between the 4-6 Dolphins and the 3-8 Browns doesn’t seem very appealing, but it would look a lot different if the Dolphins were, say, 8-7 when the decision on the game needs to be made.

There’s also something to be said for the visual appeal of snow games, such as the one we saw at Cleveland last night when the Browns defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-19.

The snow possibility could explain why the NFL decided not to move the rather unappealing Monday night matchup featuring the Browns at Denver in Week 13 before the deadline to flex the game.

So maybe snow in the forecast in Cleveland on the night of Dec. 29 would convince the NFL to keep the Dolphins-Browns matchup at its current 8:40 p.m. kickoff.

What also could keep the Dolphins game in place is the lack of marquee matchups that weekend, which also has three TBD slots to fill for Saturday among five games, including Denver at Cincinnati, Arizona at L.A. Rams and Atlanta at Washington.

Dallas at Philadelphia currently is set as the national doubleheader game on FOX at 4:25 p.m. ET, but the Cowboys are a mess and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the NFL swap out that game for Green Bay at Minnesota.

That would leave few attractive alternatives for the Sunday night matchup because Kansas City at Pittsburgh and Baltimore at Houston already are locked in for Christmas Day and Detroit at San Francisco will be the Monday night game.

As a quick review, Monday night flexes for Weeks 12-17 need to be made no more than 12 days in advance; for Sunday night flexes in Weeks 14-17, it’s six days in advance; and, again, it’s 28 days in advance for Thursday night flexes.

Here’s a quick look at the remainder of the Dolphins schedule beyond this week in terms of potential flexes:

— Nov. 28 at Green Bay — The Thanksgiving night game at Lambeau Field is set.

— Dec. 8 vs. N.Y. Jets — The only flex option for this game would be to Sunday night, and the NFL is not swapping out the Kansas City Chiefs playing host to the L.A. Chargers.

— Dec. 15 at Houston — The Sunday night game at the moment is Green Bay at Seattle, which we don’t see getting flexed, but there are two Monday night games scheduled, and neither is a gem (Chicago at Minnesota, Atlanta at Las Vegas). If the Dolphins win against New England on Sunday and at Green Bay to move to 6-6, we could see this game getting consideration for a MNF flex before the decision has to be made Dec. 3.

— Dec. 22 vs. San Francisco — This is currently scheduled to be the national doubleheader game at 4:25 p.m., so it’s not moving to prime time.

— Dec. 29 at Cleveland — See above.

— Jan. 4-5 at N.Y. Jets — The NFL again will select two games for Saturday, January (4:30 and 8 p.m.), plus one game for Sunday night. Because the league is looking for games with playoff implications and the Jets are 3-8, the Dolphins are looking at a Sunday afternoon matchup.

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