NFL: Bucs-Dolphins game postponed due to Irma.
The Miami Dolphins’ season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been postponed until Nov. 19 because of Hurricane Irma.
The switch Wednesday to Week 11 by the NFL was possible because that had been a bye week for both teams. League officials earlier announced the game would not be played in Miami this week, and then decided against moving it to a neutral site.
Irma is forecast to threaten South Florida this weekend.
Both teams resisted switching to Nov. 19 because it means playing the entire season without a break.
“Our guys kind of need that bye week to get healthy and kind of push through the second half of the season,” Dolphins quarterback Jay Cutler said Tuesday. “It’s not an ideal situation not to have a bye.”
The Dolphins will now open Sept. 17 at the Los Angeles Chargers, and their first home game won’t be until Oct. 8 against the Tennessee Titans. Their game at London on Oct. 1 against New Orleans is designated a home game for Miami.
Tampa Bay will open Sept. 17 at home against the Chicago Bears.
The Buccaneers planned to practice Wednesday, but the Dolphins canceled practice and gave players the rest of the week off to prepare for the hurricane.
“A lot these guys have a lot on their plate — moving their families, and you’ve got people coming in, and your house and your cars,” said Cutler, who joined the team a month ago.
“I’m one of the few lucky ones. I’ve got a car here and a bag full of clothes, and that’s kind of it. But you’ve got a lot of guys in that locker room that are going through a lot of things in their head, and we’ve got to be mindful of that and help them any way possible.”
No evidence: The NFL and the players’ union have found no evidence of deviation by New England’s medical staff from the league’s concussion protocol regarding Tom Brady last season.
League spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement that Brady released his medical records for review as part of the process.
McCarthy said the review also identified no evidence that Brady sustained a concussion or reported signs or symptoms consistent with one in 2016.
The NFL and the NFL Players’ Association completed an evaluation of film of every Patriots game last season, as well as reports from independent neurotrauma consultants and spotters assigned to those games.
Brady’s wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, told “CBS This Morning” in May that Brady played through a concussion on his way to a fifth Super Bowl title. Brady said in August he preferred to keep his medical history private, adding that he wasn’t blind to issues such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the debilitating brain disease that can cause a range of symptoms, including memory loss.
Vegas incident: Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett accused Las Vegas police of racially motivated excessive force, saying he was threatened at gunpoint and handcuffed following a report of gunshots at an after-hours club at a casino-hotel.
Bennett said on a Twitter message titled “Dear World,” that police “singled me out and pointed their guns at me for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Police later attributed a report of gunfire at Drai’s at the Cromwell resort to the sharp sound of velvet rope stands being knocked to a tile floor. It happened a few hours after the Aug. 26 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor.
Garrett hurt: Cleveland Browns rookie defensive end Myles Garrett sustained an ankle injury in practice, leaving his status for the season opener in doubt.