Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins

In the NFL’s playoff chase, every week matters—but few weeks carry as much hidden weight as a team’s bye week. For the Miami Dolphins in 2025, their mid-November rest period didn’t just pause their season; it tilted the entire AFC playoff race against them. Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins isn’t just a story of missed momentum—it’s about how a single week of inactivity, paired with a flurry of favorable outcomes for rivals, turned a promising playoff position into a desperate fight for survival. Before their bye, the Dolphins sat at 7-3, tied for first in the AFC East and holding a comfortable wild-card spot. By the time they laced up their cleats again, their path to the postseason had narrowed dramatically, forcing them to win nearly every remaining game to avoid elimination.

Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins began with a divisional blow: the Buffalo Bills’ dominant 31-14 win over the New England Patriots during the Dolphins’ bye. The Bills, who had lost to the Dolphins earlier in the season, used the game to assert control of the AFC East, improving to 8-3 and taking a one-game lead. What made the loss sting more was the Bills’ dominance: Josh Allen threw three touchdowns, the defense held New England to just 14 points, and Buffalo looked like the cohesive, championship-caliber team many expected. For the Dolphins, the Bills’ win wasn’t just a numerical setback—it erased their tiebreaker edge (earned in Week 4) and put them in a position where they’d likely need to beat Buffalo twice more to reclaim the division. “We watched that Bills-Patriots game as a team, and it was a wake-up call,” said Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill. “We thought we had control of the division, but the Bills used our bye to pass us by. That’s the harsh reality of the NFL—you can’t afford to take your foot off the gas, even when you’re not playing.”

Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins worsened as other AFC playoff contenders piled on wins. The Baltimore Ravens, who would later face the Dolphins in a critical Week 16 matchup, crushed the Cincinnati Bengals 34-17, moving to 10-2 and locking down the AFC’s top seed. The Cleveland Browns, meanwhile, pulled off an upset overtime win over the Kansas City Chiefs, jumping to 9-3 and leapfrogging the Dolphins in the wild-card standings. Even the Jacksonville Jaguars—who had been 5-5 just two weeks prior—won their bye-week game against the Tennessee Titans, pushing to 8-4 and adding another team to the crowded wild-card mix. By the end of the bye week, the Dolphins had gone from a team with 78% playoff odds (per ESPN’s Football Power Index) to one with just 52%. “Every game that weekend felt like a punch to the gut,” Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel said. “We knew the AFC was tough, but we didn’t expect every single contender to win big while we were off. It changed the math entirely—all of a sudden, we weren’t chasing a division title; we were fighting to hold onto a wild-card spot.”

Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins was compounded by the team’s own failure to capitalize on the rest period. The Dolphins had planned to use the bye to get key players healthy: tight end Darren Waller (calf strain) and defensive end Jaelan Phillips (ankle injury) were supposed to return to practice, giving the offense and defense much-needed boosts. Instead, both players suffered minor setbacks in rehab, forcing them to miss at least two more games. Without Waller, the Dolphins’ passing game lost its most reliable secondary target, leaving Tua Tagovailoa to rely too heavily on Hill and Jaylen Waddle—who defenses immediately began double-teaming. Without Phillips, the pass rush, which had already struggled to generate pressure, became even less threatening, allowing opposing quarterbacks extra time to pick apart the secondary. “We built our bye-week strategy around getting those two back,” said Dolphins offensive coordinator Frank Smith. “When that fell through, we had to scrap our game plan and start over. That’s not a position you want to be in when the playoff race is this tight.” The Miami Dolphins’ first game back from the bye—a 24-21 loss to the New York Jets—showed just how much those absences hurt, as the offense sputtered and the defense couldn’t stop the Jets’ running game.

Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins also exposed a cruel twist of scheduling: their bye week fell at a time when nearly every rival faced weak opponents. The Bills played the Patriots (a team the Dolphins had beaten twice), the Ravens faced a Bengals team missing Joe Burrow, and the Browns took on a Chiefs squad dealing with offensive line injuries. The Dolphins, by contrast, returned to a brutal stretch: back-to-back games against the Jets, Ravens, and Bills—all teams fighting for playoff spots. “It felt like the schedule was stacked against us,” Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard said. “Everyone else got to pad their records while we were off, then we came back to a gauntlet. It’s hard to stay in the playoff race when you’re playing nothing but must-win games right out of the gate.” The Miami Dolphins’ remaining schedule, which had looked manageable before the bye, now felt like a barrier to the playoffs. Even a single loss would push them further behind, and with key players injured, the team struggled to find consistency.

Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins wraps up with the team in a make-or-break position as the regular season ends. While they’ve since rebounded to 9-5, the damage from the bye week lingers: they’re still a game behind the Bills in the AFC East, and they face the Ravens (13-2) and Bills (11-4) in their final two games—two matchups they likely need to win to secure a playoff spot. For the Dolphins, the bye week serves as a lesson in the NFL’s unpredictability: momentum can shift in a week, and even the best-laid plans can be derailed by factors outside your control. “We learned that a bye week isn’t just a break—it’s a chance for the rest of the league to catch up,” McDaniel said. “Next year, we’ll approach it differently: more focus on staying sharp, more contingency plans for injuries, and no assumption that our position will hold.” In the end, Playoff Race Affected by Bye Results for the Miami Dolphins is a story of how quickly fortune can turn in the NFL. For the Dolphins, the bye week didn’t just pause their season—it changed its trajectory, leaving them to fight for a playoff spot that once seemed all but guaranteed.