The Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers could see their Week 4 game on “Sunday Night Football” at Raymond James Stadium impacted by Hurricane Ian.
Ian recently was classified as a hurricane after intensifying from a tropical storm. The hurricane is strengthening rapidly and could become a deadly Category 4 storm by the time it reaches the United States.
Right now, the hurricane is currently located just south of Cuba. It’s still tracking toward Tampa Bay and the southern coast of Florida. Mandatory evacuations for coastal areas of the city are already in place and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency.
The current timeline from the National Weather Service has conditions worsening as early as Tuesday night and persisting through Friday.
There is still time to prepare for #Ian tomorrow and possibly the first half of Tuesday, but conditions could deteriorate as early as Tuesday evening. Weather conditions could then continue to worsen by Wednesday and Thursday as Ian approaches the #Florida peninsula. pic.twitter.com/Ol72n8J1yC
— NWS Tampa Bay (@NWSTampaBay) September 26, 2022
So, how exactly will this impact the Chiefs’ Week 4 game?
Right now, the Buccaneers are making contingencies for the practice week.
“We’ve talked about it, we have a lot of ideas,” Bucs HC Todd Bowles said after their Week 3 game on Sunday. “We’ll talk about it more in detail tomorrow.”
As for whether the NFL would consider moving or delaying the game due to weather or damage from the storm, there have been no official comments from the league yet. Commissioner Goodell is within his rights to move or delay the game if necessary.
The unique situation here is that this is a primetime game, so it feels like they’ll make every effort to keep the game in its scheduled time slot. Would they consider making a location change, though? Traveling NFL teams are required to keep their home stadiums unoccupied in the event a road game needs to be moved. The Kansas City Royals won’t be playing at Kauffman Stadium on Sunday either, so there are no conflicts at Arrowhead Stadium.
We’ll hear from Chiefs HC Andy Reid later today and he’ll likely be asked about the situation.
