There’s nothing quite like NFL speculation in the offseason, and it’s not limited to veterans who might switch teams or which draft prospects will wind up where and how early they’ll get selected. It also involves the upcoming regular season schedule.
It’s particularly applicable when it comes to international games, so here we are with the Miami Dolphins’ previously announced 2025 game in Madrid, Spain, where they will be the home team.
Social media has been busy in recent days based upon a social media nugget that the Dolphins’ opponent for that game would be the Cincinnati Bengals.
While the report was far from official, it didn’t stop Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow from posting on an Instagram Reel, “Dolphins v. Bengals, please be true.”
The Bengals indeed are among the nine Dolphins opponents they’re scheduled to face in a home game in 2025, along with the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Chargers, Washington Commanders, New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
There was some buzz at the scouting combine the opponent actually would be the upstart Washington Commanders, fresh off their NFC Championship Game appearance this past season.
Another social media post suggested the mayor of Madrid has let it slip the game Dolphins game would take place on November 16, which would be Week 11 of the 2025 season. As a point of reference, the Dolphins faced the Kansas City Chiefs in Germany in the 2023 season on November 5, which was Week 9.
Just don’t be surprised if we end up with a battle of 2020 first-round quarterbacks.
Here’s how we previously handicapped the “battle” for who would become the Dolphins opponent in Madrid:
Right off the top, it’s unlikely the Dolphins will face any of their AFC East opponents because, even though they faced the Jets in London in 2015, the NFL hasn’t scheduled a division game overseas since 2019.
There have been 17 regular season games outside the United States since then (none in 2020 because of COVID) but they haven’t featured a single division game.
We also probably can rule out the Dolphins facing the New Orleans Saints because the last time those teams were scheduled to play in Miami, in 2017, the game was played in London. It just would be strange to move this game overseas for a second consecutive time.
That leaves these five teams in the mix: Baltimore, Cincinnati, the Chargers, Washington and Tampa Bay.
Before last year, the NFL overwhelmingly favored intraconference matchups, but there were two AFC-NFC games (Jets-Minnesota, Chicago-Jacksonville) in 2024.
Tampa Bay played in Germany in 2022, so perhaps the NFL will look elsewhere.
Of the four remaining teams, Washington is the one that’s gone the longest without playing overseas. Washington last played in England in 2016, and that was against the Bengals, though the Bengals also played there in 2019.
The Chargers’ last European game was in 2018, while Baltimore played in London in 2023.
Facing either the Bengals or Chargers would mean a matchup between two of the four quarterbacks taken in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft, a group that included Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert and Jordan Love.
The Dolphins, of course, are no strangers to overseas games, having played six of those already.
The last one was the 2023 game in Germany against the Kansas City Chiefs when the Dolphins lost 21-14 as the road team.
The Dolphins have also played five games in England, starting with the first-ever regular-season international game in 2007, a 17-7 loss against the New York Giants.
The Dolphins also defeated the Oakland Raiders (38-14) in London in 2014, lost against the New York Jets (27-14) in London in 2015, lost against the New Orleans Saints (20-0) in 2017, and lost against the Jacksonville Jaguars (23-20) in 2021.
Additionally, during the 2008 regular season, the Dolphins defeated the Buffalo Bills, 16-3, in Toronto, Canada.
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