NFL moves Bills-Dolphins game to 4:25

To ensure that all games with playoff implications that impact each other are played at the same time, the NFL is has announced schedule changes for Week 17.

This Sunday’s BuffaloMiami, Cincinnati-Baltimore, and JacksonvilleTennessee games will all move from 1 p.m. to 4:25 p.m. starts and remain on CBS.

The Carolina-Atlanta and New Orleans-Tampa Bay games will both move from 1 p.m. to 4:25 p.m. and remain on FOX.

There also will be no Sunday night game on the final week of the regular season.

The Dolphins (6-9) were mathematically eliminated from the AFC wild-card picture with their Christmas Eve loss to the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, but the Bills still have a shot at making the playoffs.

“We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all Week 17 games in either the 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. ET windows,” said NFL Senior Vice President of Broadcasting Howard Katz.

“This ensures that we do not have a matchup on Sunday Night Football on New Year’s Eve that because of earlier results has no playoff implications for one or both of the competing teams.”

The Dolphins began play Sunday at Kansas City with slim playoff hopes. If they beat the Chiefs, and had a few other things happen, they could have entered the regular-season finale against the Bills with a chance to earn a second consecutive wild-card berth.

But it never got that far as the Dolphins struggled and lost.

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