Dolphins Opener Gets Secondary Treatment

Where the Miami Dolphins Week 1 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars will be shown

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) celebrates his touchdown against the New England Patriots with wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) during the second half at Hard Rock Stadium last season. / Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

There's good news for the Miami Dolphins when it comes to the television circumstances for their season opener, but there's also a puzzling aspect.

The good news is that Kevin Harlan will be calling the Dolphins matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars for CBS, and the Dolphins have been 7-0 the past two seasons with Harlan providing his customary great calls on big plays created by Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, just to name three Miami players. So if you believe in that kind of karma, this is good.

But then there's the flip side, and it's that the Dolphins-Jaguars game wasn't exactly given a lot of prominence by the good folks at CBS, making it more difficult for folks in certain parts of the country to watch the game on free television.

Based on the weekly chart on 506sports.com, the Dolphins game will be shown throughout Florida, most of Georgia except Atlanta (which will get the Falcons-Steelers game), almost all of Alabama and, of course, Tua's native Hawaii.

But in terms of geographic coverage, the Dolphins-Jaguars game looks like it's fifth among the six CBS games Sunday.

CBS' No. 1 announcing team of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will call the late-afternoon game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers, and one would guess the Chargers debut of head coach Jim Harbaugh would be the attraction there.

In the early window, it's the New England at Cincinnati game that is getting the biggest geographical coverage with the No. 2 team of Ian Eagle and Charles Davis calling that one. While Joe Burrow is among the biggest NFL stars, that game has the makings of a blowout given that the Patriots are in rebuilding mode.

The Dolphins-Jaguars game is one of only two Sunday afternoon to feature two teams that finished last season with a winning record, the other being the Houston at Indianapolis matchup.

In the grand scheme of things, it obviously doesn't matter how big of a television audience the networks gives to the Dolphins, though one would think their national appeal would be well established by now.