Stephen Ross: NFL denied request to move Dolphins game from London to Miami

The Miami Dolphins have seen their schedule thrown into turmoil thanks to the threat Hurricane Irma posed to south Florida, but the NFL can’t give them a bit of a break in the process.

The Dolphins likely won’t play their first home game of the season at Hard Rock Stadium until Oct. 8, as the opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was moved to the team’s Week 11 bye. The Dolphins had also been scheduled for a London trip, meaning they not only immediately lost their bye week, but will only play seven games in Miami in 2017.

Owner Stephen Ross confirmed that he had inquired with the NFL about moving the London game on Oct. 1 back to Miami, but was given a predictable answer.

“I asked,” Ross told the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson via email Monday. “It will be played in London.”

You can’t blame the Dolphins for asking, given that the team is already spending over a week away from home in southern California having been displaced by the hurricane. You also knew that this answer from the NFL was coming. They’ve invested a lot of time, money, and effort into staging these London games, and they’re not going to give one up, even to accommodate a difficult situation like the one Miami is in.

H/T ProFootballTalk