Dolphins History Lesson: Rescheduled Games

The Miami Dolphins have had their share of games that had to be rescheduled, like the situation involving the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans this week

There was big news in the NFL on Thursday morning with the official postponement of the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans after reports of another positive test for COVID-19 among Titans players.

If there's one team in the NFL that knows about having games rescheduled, it's the Miami Dolphins.

The Dolphins' schedule disruptions, not surprisingly, pretty much all have been related to hurricanes, though there were a couple of instances where that wasn't the case as we look back.

1992 — Two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Andrew made landfall, South Florida still was recovering and their season opener against the New England Patriots was pushed back to Oct. 18 when both teams had their bye. The Week 2 Monday night game at Cleveland became the Dolphins' season opener and Miami pulled out a 27-23 victory on its way to a 6-0 start that included a 38-17 rout of the Patriots in the rescheduled game.

1997 — This one had nothing to do with a natural disaster, but rather the Dolphins sharing their stadium at the time with the Florida Marlins. In only their fifth year, the Marlins reached the World Series and they were playing host to the Cleveland Indians in Game 7. One night after the Marlins won 3-2 in 11 innings, the Dolphins also went to overtime, though they ended up on the wrong end of a 36-33 decision against the Chicago Bears.

2003 — Here's the one non-hurricane event that cause a schedule disruption. Instead, it was wildfires in Southern California that forced the NFL to move the Monday night matchup between the Dolphins and Chargers from San Diego to Tempe, Ariz. The change didn't bother the Dolphins, who recorded an easy 26-10 victory with Brian Griese at quarterback.

2004 — While Hurricane Jeanne didn't affect South Florida nearly as much as Andrew 12 years earlier, the Dolphins moved their 1 p.m. kickoff against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3 to 8:30 p.m. The Dolphins lost 13-3 in a game that will be remembered as being the first start of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's NFL career.

2005 — South Florida was bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Wilma on the weekend of Oct. 23, so the NFL moved the Dolphins-Chiefs game from Sunday at 1 p.m. to Friday at 7 p.m. The Dolphins dropped a 30-20 decision to fall to 2-4 in Nick Saban's first year as head coach.

2017 — The Dolphins were scheduled to open the regular season at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but with the threat of Hurricane Irma (which ended up sparing South Florida), the NFL made the decision to postponed the game to November on what was both teams' original bye. With the impending weather conditions still uncertain, the Dolphins moved their operation to Southern California for a week to prepare for their new season opener and defeated the Los Angeles Chargers, 19-17, in Week 2 on Cody Parkey's 54-yard field goal in the final minute. The Dolphins ended up losing the rescheduled game against Tampa Bay, dropping a 30-20 decision in Week 11.