The NFL officially postponed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Miami Dolphins tilt until Week 11.
With Hurricane Irma gaining steam as it moves toward South Florida, the league announced the matchup will be moved from Sunday to Sunday, Nov. 19. Both the Bucs and Dolphins had a bye in Week 11.
The news means that Miami and Tampa will play 16 consecutive games to close out the regular season.
While the re-worked schedule isn't ideal, Miami was in a no-win situation with the Category 5 storm swirling toward its shores. Playing 16 weeks in a row will be rough, but on the flip side players will be able to be with their families this weekend, when the largest storm in the Atlantic in more than a decade is expected to make landfall.
Hurricane Irma is only the fifth Atlantic hurricane to reach maximum sustained winds of at least 185 mph or greater, per Phillip Klotzbach, a tropical scientist at Colorado State University. In 1980, Hurricane Allen set the highest recorded sustained max wind speed at 190 mph.
While the exact path of the storm currently battering the Caribbean is unknown days in advance, with local authorities bracing for the worst, football rightfully took a backseat.
On behalf of everyone at NFL.com and NFL Network, our thoughts and prayers are with all in the path of Hurricane Irma.
