Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Miami Dolphins
As of Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) estimated it is more likely than not that Miami will be hit by winds of at least tropical storm force by Sunday, with the “earliest reasonable” arrival of such winds being Friday evening and the most likely arrival being Saturday morning. Furthermore, a significant proportion of the various computer forecasting models have Irma making landfall in South Florida, presumably as a major hurricane
While there is no guarantee Miami will be hit – just a slight deviation from that forecast track could see Irma slam into mountainous Cuba by Friday morning and rapidly weaken, at least temporarily, thereafter – it soon became clear that a Sunday afternoon game in Miami was untenable with that kind of forecast.
There is precedent for a Dolphins home game to be moved to earlier in the week; the last major hurricane to hit South Florida, Hurricane Wilma in 2005, also happened to be forecast to hit on the weekend of a Dolphins home game. The NFL received special permission to move the game to Friday, when it is normally forbidden to host games to protect high school football.
However, Irma presents a more problematic evacuation process than for Wilma, because that storm moved from west to east and left Florida quickly, whereas Irma will likely move north and drench what would normally be viable evacuation locations.
The good news is that the Dolphins and Buccaneers happen to share a Week 11 bye. The bad news is that moving the game to that week would force the teams to have to play 16 consecutive weeks, which is certainly bad news for two teams with legitimate playoff aspirations. Jenna Laine of ESPN reported that the game could be moved as early as Thursday, and that both teams added a Monday practice session when they would normally start practicing on Tuesday for a Sunday game.
However, the NFL decided – after temporarily leaving their options open by simply announcing the game would not be played on Sunday in Miami – to move the game to that shared bye. Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald reported that the two teams involved both hoped to play the game on a neutral field. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were both floated on Tuesday – “but that plan apparently was not deemed viable.”
NCAA games at risk
There is also an FBS college game intended to take place in Miami this weekend. Florida International’s home game with FCS school Alcorn State is nobody’s idea of a big game to begin with, but that Saturday night clash will now surely be moved.
More significant on the NCAA front is UCF’s home game with Memphis in Orlando, which was earmarked for national broadcast. The two teams do not share a bye week, and Orlando could certainly be in line for at least a soaking from Irma depending on its path. UCF have announced that game will now be played early on Friday evening, and there will be no tailgating.
There’s also a Florida State home game, but Tallahassee is in the north of the state and will be hit later by Irma if it is hit badly at all. Their cupcake home game with Louisiana Monroe might theoretically be cancelled on the grounds of security with emergency personnel from across the state likely to be on guard for Irma, but there is no news yet and no hint of a postponement. The Miami Hurricanes and South Florida Bulls both have road games.
Other NFL games at risk?
Florida is the state most obviously in line to take the force of Irma, and two of its teams are playing each other (or not playing each other, as will likely be the case). The third, the Jacksonville Jaguars, have a road game. (With supreme irony, it is in Houston. That game has been confirmed to go ahead there.)
However, there are other states that might be affected by Irma. Just as a deviation from the forecast path in one direction would send the storm into Cuba, a small miss the other way would lead to a track similar to Hurricane Matthew last year, churning along the Atlantic coast with intent and likely causing the same response of multiple state governors declaring states of emergency.
Fortunately, the teams of those states are on the road too. The Atlanta Falcons – one audible away from getting the Thursday home opener instead, not that Irma would have threatened that either – are in Chicago to start the season, and the Carolina Panthers have a cross-country trip to Santa Clara to face the 49ers.
The Cuban alternate path for Irma would potentially open up the frightening prospect of an eventual landfall close to New Orleans, but even if that does happen, it wouldn’t be until perhaps the middle of next week, and the Saints happen to have a road opener (Monday night in Minnesota) too.
What if the worst happens to Miami?
At the time of writing, it is not implausible that Irma could hit Miami as a Category 5 hurricane. Adam Beasley, the Dolphins beat reporter for the Miami Herald, summed up that scenario in a tweet…
The last time an NFL stadium was significantly damaged by a hurricane was in 2008, when Hurricane Ike took out five panels in the retractable roof of NRG Stadium (then Reliant Stadium) and forced the Houston Texans to postpone their game with the Baltimore Ravens that weekend until midseason. It was later determined that Ike (which had stronger winds in the Houston area than Harvey, though nothing like the associated rainfall because it moved much quicker) did not do any other significant damage to the stadium, which was able to be used for the rest of the season with the roof fixed open.
Three years earlier, of course, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and the Superdome was by no means spared. The Saints lived out of a suitcase for the entirety of that season, which would also presumably be the worst-case scenario if Irma were to cause major damage to Hard Rock Stadium.
Were Irma to instead cause damage significant enough to temporarily render the stadium unsuitable, the Dolphins helpfully aren’t scheduled to play in Miami again for around a month. They have two road games in succession – against the Chargers and Jets – before their trip to Wembley to play the Saints. Their next true home game is on October 8 against the Titans.
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