Irma and the Dolphins

The Sunday game may be rescheduled or relocated.

DAVIE — The Dolphins say they’re prepared to adjust if Sunday’s season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Hard Rock Stadium needs to be moved — to a different location or date — due to Hurricane Irma.

The Associated Press has reported that the NFL is considering moving the game to another site or switching it to Thursday or Friday because Irma could threaten South Florida over the weekend. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday.

“We will monitor the situation throughout the week and remain in close communication with both clubs and local officials,” said Michael Signora, vice president of football communications for the NFL.

Dolphins coach Adam Gase said he isn’t sure how much advance notice the team would need if the game is moved, and he didn’t seem overly concerned about the logistics Monday.

“If they tell us, whatever they tell us, we’re just going to do,” Gase said. “We’ll just go with the flow.”

Although the Dolphins and Buccaneers share a bye Nov. 19, moving the game to that weekend would mean both teams would play 16 weeks in a row.

If the game is moved to earlier this week, the decision must be made by Tuesday because of the logistics involved, a source told AP. The decision will be made by the league with input from the teams, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the league and teams aren't talking publicly about the options.

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Dolphins players, many of whom were aware the storm was intensifying into a Category 4 hurricane, took the same attitude as Gase.

“We play professional football,” wide receiver Kenny Stills said. “If they tell us to play tomorrow we’ll, play tomorrow. I’m good with whatever they’ve got.”

Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said he didn’t start paying attention to the storm until Sunday. Guard Jermon Bushrod said he remembers going through preparations for Hurricane Matthew last October ahead of Miami’s game against Tennessee.

“I remember putting my shutters up and we didn’t get any rain,” Bushrod said of Matthew, which hit northeast Florida. “There were some leaves blowing where I was living. But it is what it is.

“This one looks like it’s going to bring a little bit more with it, so you’ve got to take the necessary steps.”

Bushrod said playing on Thursday, Friday or Saturday would be a challenge, but not impossible.

“You’ve just got to speed your process up mentally and physically,” he said. “If that’s the situation then that’s just what we’ve got to do.”

Gase was asked about contingency plans before the team’s first practice of the week Monday.

“That’s kind of a little bit out of my department,” he said. “I’m being updated when I need to be updated about certain things, but that’s kind of not in my hands right now. And I’m just kind of going along with what I’m being advised with and when those type of things come up we’ll be ready to go.

“We always kind of have an idea of what we can do at this point and what we can’t do. And really things like that are

“We play professional football. If they tell us to play tomorrow we’ll, play tomorrow. I’m good with whatever they’ve got.” Kenny Stills,

really out of our control. We just kind of wait and see right now.”

Gase didn’t directly answer when asked if he’s more comfortable moving a game to earlier this week because the Dolphins aren’t coming off a regularseason game last week.

“It doesn’t matter what week it is,” he said. “They tell us they change the game ever we just go with it.”

As far as the game itself, Gase said the Dolphins have been preparing for the Buccaneers since training camp.

“We’ve done enough to where we’re just getting our guys ready without them really knowing about it,” he said. “It was really a situation to where you’re just repping plays that possibly come up, some of them make it, some of them don’t. I think a lot of teams do that in training camp just to kind of get the quarterbacks kind of a feel.

“It’s really a lot of situational work of things you think could come up. Our defenses aren’t exactly the same but they’re similar, we have a lot of the same strengths they do it feels like we have kind of been training for this game for a while.”

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