Miami Dolphins opponents 2026: Who’s on the schedule, how easy or hard will their schedule be

The Miami Dolphins’ had extremely wretched vibes heading into the 2025 season and that played out with the team missing the playoffs for the first time in three years. An embarrassing 33-8 loss to the Colts in Week 1 set the tone for a dismal 1-6 start that included Tyreek Hill dislocating his knee and Tua Tagovailoa creating controversy by calling his teammates out for missing team meetings. The team did manage to stick around the playoff race by winning five of their next six games, but a loss to the Steelers before Christmas killed those hopes.

Head coach Mike McDaniel will in all likelihood be back next season and he will have a new general manager after the team parted ways with Chris Grier in the middle of the season. Questions like the future of Tagovailoa at QB will be addressed in the offseason, but they at least know their opponent matchups for 2026.

Miami Dolphins list of opponents

Home opponents

• Buffalo Bills
• New England Patriots
• New York Jets
• Kansas City Chiefs
• Los Angeles Chargers
• Chicago Bears
• Detroit Lions
• Cincinnati Bengals

Road opponents

• Buffalo Bills
• Denver Broncos
• Green Bay Packers
• Las Vegas Raiders
• Minnesota Vikings
• New England Patriots
• New York Jets
• Indianapolis Colts
• NFC West (Rams/49ers)

Miami Dolphins schedule analysis

The Dolphins will have eight home games and nine road games next season pending the announcement of the matchups for the 2026 international games. The rotation will include matchups against the entire NFC North and AFC West, along with their usual six divisional games within the AFC East. Since they finished third in the division, they will be matched up with the third-place finishers of the NFC West (Rams/49ers), AFC North (Bengals), and AFC South (Colts) to round out the 17-game schedule.

The Dolphins will have one of the most difficult schedules in the entire league next season with nine matchups against 2025 playoff participants. Four of those games will be in division with them facing the Patriots and Bills, so they’ll have a steep uphill climb to try to claim their first AFC East title since 2008. And that doesn’t even include the likelihood that opponents like the Lions and Bengals should improve after their respective disappointing campaigns this season. Considering that Patrick Mahomes will spend the offseason and possibly the start of next year rehabbing his ACL/LCL tears, the level of difficulty for the Chiefs game will depend on where they are slotted on the schedule. It could be another long season at Hard Rock Stadium for the ‘Phins.