NFL mulls what to do with Dolphins-Bills. And another notable storyline against 49ers

A six-pack of Miami Dolphins notes on a Thursday:

▪ The NFL continues to mull what to do with the Week 15 Dolphins-at-Bills game, with a decision coming early next week.

A league official confirmed that even though Dolphins-Bills was one of five games set aside for a potential move to Saturday, Dec. 17, it can and will be considered as an option for NBC’s prime time game Dec. 18, if NBC flexes out of Patriots-Raiders.

That’s one reason that unlike last season - when the mid-December Saturday NFL Network games were announced Thanksgiving week - the NFL has held off on a decision this year.

The Dolphins-Chargers game was flexed to NBC on Sunday night, Dec. 11. But it’s not unprecedented for a team to appear twice in a row on Sunday Night Football.

Unless the NFL decides to stick with Patriots-Raiders on Dec. 18, NBC’s best available prime-time options for Dec. 18 are Dolphins-Bills and Giants-Commanders.

A source cautioned that NBC could stick with Patriots-Raiders if New England beats Buffalo on Thursday and the Raiders beat the Chargers on Sunday.

Cincinnati-Tampa Bay would be appealing as an NBC game that night, but CBS - which has the doubleheader that day - is protecting that game for its 4:25 p.m. window.

CBS and Fox can protect a few games from poaching each season, and that will be one of CBS’ protected games, thus making it unavailable for NBC.

Titans-Chargers is CBS’ other 4:25 p.m. game that day, and that would be another NBC option, though seemingly less appealing than Dolphins-Bills or Giants-Washington because of Nashville’s market size and other factors.

What’s definite is this: Two among these five games will be moved to late afternoon or evening slots on Saturday, Dec. 17 on NFL Network and a free TV station in the home markets: Dolphins-Bills, Giants-Commanders, Baltimore-Cleveland, Indianapolis-Minnesota and Atlanta-New Orleans.

The games scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 18 – besides Tampa Bay-Cincinnati and Tennessee-Chargers - are Pittsburgh-Carolina, Philadelphia-Chicago, Kansas City-Houston, Dallas-Jacksonville, Detroit-Jets and Arizona-Denver.

The NFL could keep Patriots-Raiders as the NBC Sunday night game if it wants to do a favor to its league-owned network and give NFL Net both Dolphins-Bills and Giants-Commanders.

But the Patriots and Raiders likely need to win this week to make the NFL inclined to keep that game on Sunday night.

Incidentally, Fox is sending Sunday’s Dolphins-49ers game to 25 percent of the country.

▪ There are several fascinating subplots about Sunday’s Dolphins-49ers game, and here’s one:

The Dolphins offense does a lot of damage on intermediate routes, and the 49ers are the best in the league at defending those.

This season, Tua Tagovailoa is 60 for 86 for 1033 yards, five touchdowns and one interception on passes thrown between 10 and 19 yards, per Pro Football Focus. Those routes have produced his most passing yardage this season.

Per Next Gen Stats, Tagovailoa has 38 completions in the middle of the field on those 10-to-19 yard routes – 16 more than any other quarterback.

Next Gen Stats notes that “since drafting Fred Warner in 2018, the 49ers have allowed just 71 completions in that area, 15 fewer than any other defense.”

▪ Credit ESPN analyst Keyshawn Johnson for admitting he misjudged Tua Tagovailoa.

“He’s out there cooking,” Johnson said. “He certainly has proven me extremely wrong. I got to give Tua love.”

▪ Mike McDaniel has given Josh Boyer total control of the defense, and linebacker Duke Riley said last week that “Mike has never come in defensive meetings.

“Flo [Brian Flores] would sometimes whenever he felt like he knew a team well or a player or knew a coach well and how he was going to call it. He might come in and give us some extra tips or reminders.”

But McDaniel and Boyer talk frequently, and Boyer said Thursday that “Mike has been a great resource the whole season, not just this week, of things from an offensive perspective, how he sees things and the way that he perceives that we’ll be attacked, or things that we can do that will help us, or philosophically, things that he sees that may be a little bit different than what we were used to. So I think from that standpoint, it’s been awesome.”

▪ Quick stuff: The NFL changed one sack in Sunday’s Houston game from Riley to Melvin Ingram, giving him five for the season. “I feel like he’s playing his best ball right now and I think it’s only going to get better,” Boyer said…

Quarterbacks coach Darrell Bevell, speaking on Tagovailoa on Thursday, said: “He’s just a different guy [from when they met in the spring] in so many different ways and I’ve just been impressed with the effort that he has put in..

“If you were to ask him, I don’t think he was doing the same things in the years previous that he’s even doing now. He’s done a great job of really just assimilating the things that we’ve asked him to do, in terms of the preparation that he needs on his own, the time that we spend together.”...

49ers defensive end Arik Armstead, who had six sacks last season, told 49ers reporters that he will play on Sunday against the Dolphins; he has been sidelined since Week 4.

▪ Defensive line coach Austin Clark addressed a few of his players on Thursday:

He said of Christian Wilkins, who is rated 14th among 125 interior defenders by PFF this season: “I think the way he approaches his preparation is the best of anybody I’ve ever been around… He’s been very disruptive and most importantly it’s his motor.”...

He said Raekwon Davis - who is rated 106th among 125 interior defenders by PFF - “was dinged up a little bit early in the year. I think he’s come on strong and it’s helped us in the run game. Sometimes statistically, his impact, you may not see it in terms of number of tackles.”

And Clark said defensive tackle Justin Zimmer, who got 12 defensive snaps in his Dolphins debut against Houston, “plays hard. Quick twitch. Good lateral agility. On a short week, coming in Tuesday, I thought he did a great job.”