Cancelled NFL games The following is a list of regular season games that have been canceled by the National Football League since 1933 . While canceling games was extremely common prior to this date , since that year , the NFL has only seen four instances in which games have been canceled and not been rescheduled . In the first case ( 1974 ) and , to date , the most recent ( 2011 ) , only one preseason game was canceled , while seven weeks of regular season games were lost in 1982 and one week of regular season games was lost in 1987 . In all four seasons , the cancellations were the results of labor disputes between the league and the National Football League Players Association . In addition to this game , one other game ( albeit an exhibition ) was canceled for reasons other than a labor dispute : the China Bowl , which was originally scheduled to take place in 2007 , was postponed to 2009 and eventually canceled due to an economic recession . 1920s and 1930s . Canceling 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 . When 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 , is listed in modern records as a cancellation . The November 17 , 1935 Boston Redskins at Philadelphia Eagles game was canceled due to rain and snow . 1974 Players Strike . 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 . 1982 Players Strike . In 1982 , players began a 57 - day strike following the completion of the second week of the regular season . As a result of the impasse , games were simply canceled until a settlement was reached . Upon reaching that settlement , the NFL announced that the games originally scheduled for the third week of the season would be played following the completion of the resumed regular season , which saw weeks 11 - 16 played as scheduled . This meant the 1982 shortened season would include only nine regular season contests played by each club . This was followed by an expansion of the playoffs from 10 to 16 teams . The games that were played as ' Week Nine ' that season , in the first weekend of January in 1983 , was a hodgepodge of games from canceled weeks . In the grid below , those selected games to be played in this new 9th week are highlighted in bold and italic . To accommodate television , the Monday Night Football game in that ' relocated ' week was decided upon with the Cowboys - Vikings in the Metrodome . 1987 Players Strike . In 1987 , the players walked off the job 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 player s for Week 4 . By the time Week 6 had rolled around , enough players had crossed the picket lines and forced an agreement . The canceled games of Week 3 simply weren ' t 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 . 2011 Owners Lockout . On July 22 , 2011 , the NFL announced that that year ' s Pro Football Hall of Fame Game ( originally set for August 7 of that year between Chicago and St . Louis ) had been canceled , due to an ongoing lockout that had been in place since March of that year . 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 game . 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 . The league did not have to implement the plans , since the players association agreed to terms with the NFL on July 25 , ending the lockout . Other instances of postponement . Games have been postponed in the modern era of the league have been rare instances in which severe weather hampered the ability for a team to host a home game . But in all of those cases , those games either saw a switch in the location of the games or the moving of the game to a different date in the schedule . 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 this has happened 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 . One other notable instance saw the NFL postpone the games for Week 2 of the 2001 season until the end of the regular season . This was because of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks on New York City and Washington , DC . The American Football League also canceled week 12 of its 1963 season due to the John F . Kennedy assassination ( all games were later rescheduled ) ; the NFL did not follow suit and played its full slate of games that week . In December 2010 , a " Sunday Night Football " game between the Vikings and Eagles in Philadelphia was postponed to a Tuesday due to a snow emergency . It was the first Tuesday NFL game in 64 years .