By Ben Morse, Wayne Sterling and David Close, CNNUpdated 0834 GMT (1634 HKT) September 29, 2022 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice at the Miami Dolphins' facility. (CNN)The Tampa Bay Buccaneers practiced for the first time in Miami on Wednesday having relocated to south Florida as Hurricane Ian made landfall.
The team moved their football operations to Miami this week because of the impact Ian could have. It made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida near Cayo Costa as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday, but has now weakened to a Category 1 storm.
It's one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.After practicing at the Miami Dolphins facility in Miami Gardens for the first time — the Dolphins traveled to Cincinnati where they will face the Bengals on Thursday — Bucs players and coaching staff spoke about the effect the storm has had on them and on their families. «First of all, our thoughts and hearts go out to everybody in Tampa that's still there, hoping that they recover well and it doesn't hit them very hard,» head coach Todd Bowles told the media. «That's the biggest thing.
What we do is really small entertainment for people that go through a lot of rough things, and hopefully we can provide that. »It's bigger than just a football team, number one.