NFL Canceled 16 Week 2 Games After 9/11, Pushing Season Back 1 Week

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 11

Sept. 13, 2001, brought the NFL’s decision to scrap Week 2 and resume on Sept. 23, after players and union chief Gene Upshaw pushed back against owners who largely wanted to play five days after 9/11.
Nearly 3,000 deaths, ongoing rescue work and fears over air travel and family safety drove the pause; Michael Strahan’s account of smoke still visible from the Giants’ practice site helped sway the NFLPA.
31 teams complicated the rescheduling: canceling the week outright would have left San Diego playing 16 games while others played 15, so commissioner Paul Tagliabue moved Week 2 to the end of the regular season.
The shift squeezed the postseason calendar and initially threatened playoff cuts or midweek wild-card games, but owners instead paid to move New Orleans hotel bookings, creating the first Super Bowl played in February.
Twenty-five years later, the episode is remembered less for the eventual schedule fix than for players overriding owners and insisting the attacks were bigger than football.