Canceled NFL games

Cancelling games was far more common in the 1920s and early 1930s, in the founding years of the league. When a team did not want to play a game, they could cancel without any punishment or penalty. Several years after league schedules were standardized in 1933, cancellations were effectively banned, and teams would have to forfeit the game or postpone if a cancellation was due to issues outside the team's control. There have been no forfeits in the league's history; a 1921 game between the Rochester Jeffersons and the Washington Senators is occasionally listed as a forfeit, but because of the lax cancellation rules of the time and uncertainty over which team (if either) was at fault for the game not being played, the game is listed in modern records as a cancellation. The last unpunished cancellation of a regular season NFL game is believed to have been a November 17, 1935 contest between the Boston Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, which was canceled for severe rain and snow.

Several games were removed from the schedules of the NFL teams of the early 1940s, but because the issues (namely, World War II, the loss of marquee talent to the war effort, and restrictions on resource usage) were already foreseen by the start of the 1942 season, the league was able to issue shortened schedules from the start without having to cancel already scheduled contests.

The 1974 College All-Star Game, an exhibition game that pitted the most recent Super Bowl champion (Miami Dolphins) against a team composed entirely of rookies, was canceled as a result of a players’ strike. The strike was resolved before any further games were canceled; the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, along with the rest of the 1974 NFL season, went on as scheduled, although at least one game was held with the Denver Broncos using a squad of rookie replacement players.[4]

In 1982, players began a 57-day strike following the completion of Week 2 of the regular season. As a result of the impasse, games were simply canceled until a settlement was reached (ultimately, Weeks 3 to 10). Upon reaching that settlement, the NFL announced that Weeks 11 to 16 would be played as scheduled, and the games originally scheduled for Week 3 of the season would be played following the completion of the resumed regular season as a new Week 17, with the playoffs pushed back one week. Later, the NFL decided to use the final week 17 to hold various intra-division games from canceled Weeks 3 to 10 instead of merely playing the Week 3 games. This was done to increase attendance and to allow some teams to balance out home and away games, to the extent possible (either five home and four away, or four home and five away). Because the 1982 shortened season would include only nine regular season contests for each team, the NFL announced that the three divisions in each of the two conferences would be eliminated for the purpose of determining playoff qualifications, and the regular season would be followed by an expansion of the playoffs from 10 to 16 teams. With this, each conference had 14 teams competing for 8 playoff spots, with division standings being disregarded in favor of overall conference standings. Each of the first three rounds of the playoffs was pushed back one week in order to make room for the new week 17, which was originally scheduled as the Wild Card weekend. This was possible because there was an idle week between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl and Pro Bowl were held as originally scheduled.

In 1987, the players went on strike for a second time in-season, again following the second week of the campaign. However, unlike 1982, the owners took the bold step of using replacement players. After missing just one week of action, the NFL resumed with replacement players for Week 4. By the time Week 6 had rolled around, enough players had crossed the picket lines and forced an agreement to let the regular players play again. The canceled games of Week 3 were not made up, and the league counted the three weeks of game results featuring the replacement players as regular season games toward each team's final standings. By Week 7, the teams had all players back in action, with all teams completing a 15-game schedule. Also unlike 1982, there was no change to the playoff format that season.

An August 19, 1995 preseason game between the San Diego Chargers and the Houston Oilers was the first game in NFL history to be canceled before kickoff after an NFL official determined that the Astrodome's artificial turf endangered the players.[1]

An August 13, 2001 preseason game between the Ravens and the Eagles was canceled because of an unplayable playing surface at Veterans Stadium.

Because the multi-purpose stadium was shared by both the Eagles and the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, the new artificial surface, NexTurf, and previous artificial turf installations before it included cutouts that covered up the dirt infield around the bases. After examining the turf, Ravens coach Brian Billick discovered a trench around the area where third base was covered up by one of the cutouts, and refused to let the Ravens take the field for warm-ups. Later, players from both teams reported that they sank into the turf in locations near the infield cutouts.

City crews unsuccessfully tried to fix the problem, forcing the game to be canceled. Team president Joe Banner was irate after the game, calling the stadium's conditions "absolutely unacceptable" and "an embarrassment to the city of Philadelphia."[7]

City officials, however, promised that the stadium would be suitable for play when the regular season started. The Eagles would move into Lincoln Financial Field in 2003, and the Phillies would move into their own separate ballpark, Citizens Bank Park, in 2004.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFL postponed its Week 2 games of the 2001 season, originally scheduled for September 16 and 17, until the end of the regular season. All playoff games following the 2001 regular season, including Super Bowl XXXVI and the 2002 Pro Bowl, were similarly rescheduled one week later.

This was in contrast to the wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963 when the NFL went ahead and played its full slate of games that week, a decision that then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle later regretted,[8] though he also stated that Pierre Salinger, Kennedy's press secretary, had urged him to allow the games to be played.[9] Meanwhile, the American Football League canceled week 12 of its 1963 season and later rescheduled those games.

On July 22, 2011, the NFL announced that this year's Pro Football Hall of Fame Game originally set for August 7 of that year between the Chicago Bears and the St. Louis Rams had been canceled, for an ongoing lockout that had been in place since March of that year.[10] The league approved a new collective bargaining agreement on July 21, but at the same time announced the cancellation of the game, citing the fact that the players would not have enough time in training camp to prepare before the game.[11][12]

The NFL also had contingency plans to cancel and/or postpone regular season games (up to eight) if a labor agreement could not be reached by the start of the regular season.[13][14] The league did not have to implement the plans, since the players association agreed to terms with the NFL shortly before the start of the season proper on July 25, ending the lockout.

The 2016 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Green Bay Packers and the Indianapolis Colts was canceled at the last minute due to poor playing conditions at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.

Mike Silver of NFL.com reported that on the morning of game day, officials discovered the logos at midfield and in the end zones had been painted using paint which was not intended for use on the newly installed FieldTurf. Subsequently, the paint had not fully dried, and officials heated the field to speed up the drying process, causing the turf's rubber to melt; the affected areas were described as being slick and "like cement," making it impossible to get decent footing. Stadium officials attempted to address this by applying paint thinner to the turf, but a Packers employee noticed a label warning that the paint thinner could result in severe burns when exposed to skin, and alerted them to the discovery. When officially canceling the game, both the league and the Players Association cited safety concerns.[15][16][17]

Both teams were told at 6:40 p.m., an hour and 20 minutes before kickoff, that the game was going to be canceled. However, fans in the stadium only learned of the pending cancellation via social media, and no official announcement was made until just before the scheduled 8 p.m. kickoff, which was greeted by boos and jeering.[18]

The 2017 Governor's Cup, an annual preseason matchup between Texas' two NFL franchises, the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, was canceled by the effects of Hurricane Harvey. The game, originally scheduled for August 31 in Houston, was initially moved to Dallas, as Houston was severely flooded as the result of the rains from Harvey and the team had temporarily relocated to Dallas until the storm passed. The Texans opted instead to cancel the game to allow the team more time to relocate back to Houston.[19]

All 2020 preseason games and the 2021 Pro Bowl were canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the end of the regular season, no games were canceled outright, although several were postponed or rescheduled due to COVID-19 positives within teams.[20]

Restrictions on team sports implemented by Santa Clara County, California forced the San Francisco 49ers to relocate two of their home games during the regular season: the December 7 game against the Buffalo Bills and the December 14 game against the Washington Football Team. Both games were moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. [21]

In the modern era, severe weather or natural disasters have affected some games, but only the aforementioned case of Hurricane Harvey has a game been canceled outright. Others were either switched to a different location, or to a different date in the schedule.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged Candlestick Park, forcing the San Francisco 49ers to play their next home game on October 22 against the New England Patriots at Stanford University's Stanford Stadium.[22]

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew forced the September 6 opening-day game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins at Joe Robbie Stadium to be rescheduled to October 18, when both teams originally had a bye week.[23]

In the wake of the October 25, 2003 Cedar Fire, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to assist in the disaster relief process. Because of the soot and particulate matter in the air from the fire two days earlier, the NFL was forced to move the Monday Night Football game on October 27 between the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.[24]

In 2004, the Cincinnati Bengals at Tampa Bay Buccaneers preseason game, scheduled for Saturday, August 14, was rescheduled to Monday, August 16, because of Hurricane Charley.[25]

During the 2004 regular season, the Tennessee Titans at Miami Dolphins opening-day game, scheduled for Sunday, September 12 at 1 PM ET, was rescheduled to Saturday, September 11 at 1 PM ET because of Hurricane Ivan,[26] and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Miami Dolphins game scheduled for Sunday, September 26, at 1 PM ET was moved to 8:30 PM ET because of Hurricane Jeanne. The latter game became notable as the first NFL start of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.[26]

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 damaged the Louisiana Superdome. The NFL decided that the New Orleans Saints' first regularly scheduled home game against the New York Giants be played in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, with the Saints the home team in name only.[27] For the rest of the season, the Saints home games were split between the Alamodome in San Antonio and Louisiana State University's Tiger Stadium.

In 2005, the NFL moved up the Kansas City Chiefs at Miami Dolphins game from Sunday, October 23 at 1 PM ET to Friday, October 21 at 7 PM ET because of Hurricane Wilma.[28] Respecting a longstanding policy not to schedule games in conflict with Friday night high school football games that dates back to a 1960s federal antitrust law, the NFL televised the game on CBS affiliates only within 75 miles of Kansas City and Miami.[29][30] It also forced the Chiefs to travel to Miami on the day of the game, a violation of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the National Football League Players Association which requires a visiting team to arrive in the host city no later than 24 hours prior to kickoff.

Hurricane Ike forced several changes to the 2008 schedule. The Houston Texans’ Week 2 home game against the Baltimore Ravens was first postponed to Monday, September 15, before Ike made landfall; damage to Reliant Stadium forced a further postponement, to Week 10, on Sunday, November 9, giving the Texans and the Ravens their bye weeks in Week 2. Furthermore, to accommodate this move, the Texans’ home game against the Cincinnati Bengals was moved forward from November 9 to Sunday, October 26, pushing the Bengals’ bye week from Week 8 to Week 10.[31]

In 2010, a severe storm in Minnesota deposited over 17 inches or 0.43 metres of snow on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which caused the venue's inflatable roof (a form of dome now mostly obsolete for major sports) to collapse about 24 hours later, early in the morning of December 12. The Minnesota Vikings had been scheduled to host the New York Giants that afternoon. Prior to the collapse, the game had already been postponed to Monday night, December 13, over concerns of stadium officials. The game was relocated to Ford Field in Detroit, still played Monday night.[32] The game would be notable as the ending of Brett Favre's NFL-record 297 consecutive starts streak. The Vikings’ December 20 game against the Chicago Bears was moved to TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus.[33] The collapse affected no further NFL games, as the rest of the Vikings’ 2010 season consisted of road games, and the team had already been eliminated from playoff contention. The roof collapse was a factor in the Metrodome being demolished and replaced with hard-roofed U.S. Bank Stadium a few years later.

On December 26, 2010, a Sunday Night Football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia was postponed to Tuesday, December 28, by a severe snowstorm. It was the first Tuesday NFL game in 64 years.[34] In 2014, a severe snowstorm that hit the Buffalo area forced a New York Jets–Buffalo Bills game, originally scheduled for November 23, to be moved to Detroit's indoor Ford Field on November 24.[35] In both cases, concerns about fan safety prompted the postponements.

Hurricane Irma prompted the postponement of a game between the Miami Dolphins and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, originally scheduled for September 10, 2017, to November 19; both teams coincidentally were scheduled for the same bye week, leaving the latter date available for the game to be made up.

There have also been rare occasions in which games had to be pushed back one night because of a last-minute scheduling conflict in the facility of those games, most notably when an NFL team has shared a home stadium with a team from Major League Baseball and the baseball team has needed the building for a post-season game. This was a frequent occurrence when there were several shared stadiums across the country, but after 2012 only one such venue remained: Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, home of the NFL Raiders and the MLB Athletics; this arrangement ended in 2020 when the Raiders moved to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Most of the stadiums listed required day-long conversions from a football gridiron to a baseball diamond and outfield, or vice versa, including the maneuvering of stadium seating designed to be angled for each sport, the building of temporary stands, and the marking of the field for either sport, along with removal of the pitcher's mound and bases. Additionally until the FieldTurf era, an additional step taken was the filling or covering of the base sliding pits on artificial turf fields.

Although no NFL/MLB-shared stadiums remain, there are eight teams whose current NFL stadiums share the same parking lots and other ancillary facilities with an adjacent MLB ballpark (Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Seattle Seahawks), thus also preventing both teams from playing simultaneously.

On October 12, 1964, the St. Louis Cardinals were forced to move their scheduled home game against the Baltimore Colts to Memorial Stadium, since St. Louis' Busch Stadium I was being used for the 1964 World Series by the baseball team also called the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though game five of the World Series was played that day at Yankee Stadium, the football Cardinals could not use the stadium until the baseball team, the stadium's owner, had completed its season.

The Minnesota Twins' 1965 World Series appearance led to the Sunday afternoon October 10th New York Giants at Minnesota Vikings game to be moved back to Saturday night, October 9th.

The Atlanta Falcons were forced to move their October 5, 1969 home game versus the Baltimore Colts from Atlanta Stadium to Grant Field at Georgia Tech because the Atlanta Braves hosted the New York Mets in Game 2 of the 1969 National League Championship Series. The same day, the Minnesota Vikings moved their home game versus the Green Bay Packers from Metropolitan Stadium to Memorial Stadium at the University of Minnesota because of an American League Championship Series game between the Minnesota Twins and the Baltimore Orioles. One week later, the Philadelphia Eagles’ game in Baltimore against the Baltimore Colts was pushed from Sunday, October 12, to Monday night, October 13, to accommodate Game 2 of the 1969 World Series between the Orioles and the New York Mets. The following week, the World Series prompted the American Football League to move the game at Shea Stadium between the Houston Oilers and the New York Jets from Sunday, October 19, to Monday night, October 20.

In 1973, the New York Jets faced the same situation as the 1964 Cardinals. The New York Mets unexpectedly reached the 1973 World Series, and under the terms of the Jets’ lease at Shea Stadium in place at the time, there could be no football games at the stadium in Queens until the Mets’ season was complete. Thus, the Jets were forced to move their October 21 game versus the Pittsburgh Steelers from Shea Stadium to Three Rivers Stadium, even though the final game of the Series at Shea Stadium was played October 18 (games six and seven were played at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics).

In 1979, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins switched the dates of their two games with the Eagles hosting the Redskins on October 7 (instead of October 21) and the Redskins hosting the Eagles on October 21 (instead of October 7). This was due to the visit of Pope John Paul II to Washington on October 7. A similar situation happened to the Eagles in 1983 where they were forced to switch the dates of their games with the Dallas Cowboys because the Philadelphia Phillies were playing in the 1983 World Series. The Eagles were originally scheduled to play the Cowboys at Veterans Stadium on October 16, 1983; however this game conflicted with Game 5 of the World Series. The game was moved to Texas Stadium and the November 6 game was moved to Veterans Stadium.

In 1987, Game 5 of the 1987 National League Championship Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants was held at Candlestick Park, prompting the San Francisco 49ers and the Atlanta Falcons to switch home dates for their two games that season; the 49ers visited Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on October 11, and the Falcons went to San Francisco on December 20. The October 11 game in Atlanta drew only 8,684, the lowest ever for a Falcons home game up to that point; the game was played during the player strike, so replacement players were used.[36]

In 1987, Game 2 of the 1987 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Minnesota Twins led to the Minnesota Vikings and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to switch home dates for their two games that season.

In 1987, the next week, Game 7 of the 1987 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Minnesota Twins on October 25 led the NFL to reschedule the Denver Broncos at Minnesota Vikings game to the following Monday night, October 26.

In 1989, the Sunday, October 8 New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers switched home dates (October 8 originally in San Francisco and November 6 originally in New Orleans) to accommodate the 1989 National League Championship Series Chicago Cubs at San Francisco Giants games on October 7, 8, and 9.

In 1997, Game 7 of the 1997 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Florida Marlins on October 26 caused the NFL to reschedule the Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins game for the following Monday night, October 27.[26]

In 2001, a potential Oakland Athletics baseball playoff game forced the Oakland Raiders to play their contest against the Dallas Cowboys two weeks in advance to avoid a possible conflict, when both clubs originally had their bye week (as it turned out, the Athletics ended up getting eliminated a few days before the originally scheduled date of the Cowboys–Raiders game).[37]

In 2009, the New York Giants–Philadelphia Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field was moved from 4:15 pm to 1:00 pm to accommodate the Philadelphia Phillies hosting Game 4 of the 2009 World Series at adjacent Citizens Bank Park.[38]

In 2013, the Oakland Athletics playing in the 2013 American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers forced the Oakland Raiders to postpone their originally scheduled Sunday afternoon game against the San Diego Chargers from 4:25 pm Eastern/1:25 pm Pacific to a late-night start time of 11:35 Eastern/8:35 Pacific, though it was moved to a national NFL Network broadcast to compensate.[39]

The opening game of the 2013 season on September 5, which would traditionally have been hosted by the Baltimore Ravens as the defending Super Bowl XLVII champions, was instead a road contest at the Denver Broncos. A Baltimore Orioles home game against the Chicago White Sox was scheduled for Oriole Park at Camden Yards that night. The Ravens' M&T Bank Stadium is next door to Camden Yards, and the Ravens and Orioles were unable to resolve issues which centered on parking and traffic.[40]

In 2020, the Kansas City Chiefs, the defending Super Bowl champions, and the Kansas City Royals, Kansas City’s MLB team, both playing games on the same day, September 10th. The Royals play at Kauffman Stadium, which is next door to the Chiefs’ home stadium Arrowhead Stadium, with both teams sharing the same parking lots. The Royals, Chiefs, NFL, and MLB had agreed to have the Royals move their game to September 8th, as part of a doubleheader against the Oakland Athletics. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced MLB to redraw their schedule, and the revised schedule put the Royals in Cleveland against the Cleveland Indians.

• "1982 NFL Strike Stuff". crief.posterous.com.
• "Previous NFL Game Schedules". NFL-schedules.com.