Hurricane Irma forces Buccaneers-Dolphins game to Week 11

Frank Schwab
·NFL writer

No matter what, the NFL’s solution for the Miami Dolphins-Tampa Bay Buccaneers game was not going to be ideal.

Hurricane Irma forced the NFL to decide Tuesday that the game wouldn’t go on as scheduled at 1 p.m. Sunday. Either the Dolphins were going to have to move a home game to a neutral site, or game would be moved to Week 11 and each team would then play 16 games in a row without a bye. The NFL settled on the latter. The Buccaneers and Dolphins will play on Nov. 19.

The obvious part of the decision-making process was that the game couldn’t happen on Sunday, with the storm hitting South Florida through the weekend. It seemed like the game might be played at a neutral site, but there are plenty of issues that go along with rescheduling an NFL game somewhere else with only a few days of preparation. It also would have also given Miami just six true home games this season. The Dolphins also have a designated home game in London.

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The fact that the Buccaneers and Dolphins coincidentally shared a Week 11 bye made the scheduling easy. They’ll both get a Week 1 bye now, which neither coach or any player seemed too happy about. That means 16 straight weeks of football for both teams, including the Dolphins’ London trip.

After a long offseason preparing for this game, the Buccaneers and Dolphins will just have to wait another week to get their 2017 season underway.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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