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"Sacks Created" is a stat where we credit the player who earned the first pass rush win on a sack play, rather than the player who finished the sack (it can be the same person). Here are the 2022 leaders. pic.twitter.com/V5wP5zyD9u

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) January 2, 2023

Giants at Eagles: Five players to watch - PhillyVoiceIn the NFL Defensive Player of the Year discussion, it feels a lot like Nick Bosa is the heavy favorite, with Micah Parsons trailing behind him. But what about Reddick? His stats are right there with either player. Bosa does have an abnormal number of QB hits, so I would lean toward him. Still, Reddick has a chance to close out this season strongly and put himself in “prime Reggie White” territory in terms of single-season sacks.

Damar Hamlin injury highlights the incredible work by NFL medical personnel - BGNWe’ve always known football is a violent game. Gruesome bone breaks, torn ligaments, and traumatic brain injuries have all have long been unfortunate consequences of playing this brutally beautiful sport. Larger and faster-than-normal humans launch into one another at high rates of speed dozens of times a game, 17 games or more a season. An NFL game is shockingly fast and hard-hitting. Watching on television doesn’t do it justice. At field level, it’s a minor miracle someone isn’t carted off the field every game. On Monday night in Cincinnati, the entire NFL community held its horrified breath as Buffalo Bills (-7.5)

safety Damar Hamlin collapsed to the ground after tackling wide receiver Tee Higgins in what originally appeared to be one of the most normal plays one would see in a regular season contest. It turned out to be one of the most frightening moments in professional American sports history.

The Hurts Effect - Iggles BlitzThe minute Hurts steps on the field, teammates will start to believe again. There will still be issues to deal with. Hurts will make a bad throw. Someone will get called for holding. A receiver will drop a pass. But the players will believe Hurts can convert on 3rd and long. They’ll believe he can lead them to points at crucial parts of the game. They have seen Hurts play like an MVP this year. They know what he’s capable of. Hurts will make a huge difference.

Chiefs, Lions Rising in Weighted DVOA - Football OutsidersThere are bigger changes in the weighted DVOA ratings, since that sample stays the same each week now that an early game (Week 2) drops out as a new game comes in. San Francisco still has a healthy lead in weighted DVOA despite this week’s close call, with Buffalo second. The Kansas City Chiefs (-9)

moved up to third this week, climbing past the Bengals with the Eagles dropping to fifth. Dallas is sixth, and those are the big six teams everybody has as this year’s Super Bowl favorites.

2023 NFL mock draft: Jordan Reid’s early first-round predictions for 31 picks - ESPN+11. Philadelphia Eagles (via 7-9 NO). Jared Verse, DE, Florida State. The Eagles rely on strength in the trenches, and with Javon Hargrave, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, Robert Quinn, Ndamukong Suh and Linval Joseph all scheduled to become unrestricted free agents, they will need help on defense. Verse is primarily a 5-technique, so he wouldn’t be a true fix for the team’s biggest need of a defensive tackle alongside Jordan Davis, but his combination of powerful hands, first-step explosion and finishing ability would help keep the NFL’s best pass-rush unit strong amid the potential losses. Verse picked up nine sacks and 30 pressures this season for the Seminoles.

POLL: Should Giants play to win, or rest starters vs. Philadelphia Eagles? - Big Blue ViewSo what should the Giants do next Sunday? Rest their starters, avoid injuries, and have them fresh for a possible Vikings rematch? That would seem to be the prudent course of action. Or take their cue from the now-legendary decision by Tom Coughlin to have the 2007 Giants play their starters against undefeated New England in the final regular season game? That stirring game impressed John Madden and gave the Giants players confidence that they could hang with the Patriots. Brian Daboll doesn’t sound like a coach who is just satisfied to be in the playoffs. He apparently wants more. [BLG Note: Check out the poll results in this post.]

Cowboys news: Jerry Jones says “there’s too much to play for” against Washington - Blogging The BoysThe Cowboys don’t plan on resting players against Washington in Week 18.

How long has it taken new NFL owners to fire head coaches? - Hogs HavenAnxiously awaiting the prospect that a new owner of Washington’s football franchise absolutely cleans house once he (or she) takes over, I thought it would be worth a look back at how that process has gone the past several times that NFL franchises have changed hands. What follows below is a look back, in chronological order, at how long it took new owners to replace their head coach in the last five instances.

Report: Carson Wentz back to the bench in Week 18 vs. Cowboys - DraftKings NationThe Washington Commanders (+5.5)

have been eliminated from playoff contention and were helped in that elimination by Carson Wentz, who looked dreadful in their Week 17 loss to the Browns. Now, with nothing to play for in Week 18, Ron Rivera will go back to Taylor Heinicke with some of rookie Sam Howell sprinkled in, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. Last week was likely Wentz’s last game with the Commanders, as he helped end two team’s playoff hopes two years in a row.

NFL announces Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week - NFL.comMonday’s game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals (-7)

will not be resumed this week, the NFL announced in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. Bills safety Damar Hamlin, 24, suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during Monday’s game, which was postponed following the incident, and spent the night in the intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition, the Bills announced Tuesday. No changes have been made to the Week 18 schedule, the league said.

Taking a look at the options for proceeding with the 2022 regular season - PFT2. Play Bills-Bengals this weekend, and delay Week 18 by a week. This would ensure that every team plays 17 games. But it would compel the Bills and Bengals to play fairly soon, at a time when no one else is playing. It also would eliminate the bye week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. Yes, the NFL did that when rearranging the schedule in 2001 following 9/11. In those days, the Pro Bowl happened after the Super Bowl. This approach would necessitate cancellation of the reimagined approach to Pro Bowl weekend. (That definitely shouldn’t be viewed as an impediment.) This approach also would delay by a week the conclusion of the season for teams that have no chance to make the playoffs. The teams that are already eliminated surely don’t want their seasons to linger by another week. To remedy that approach, Week 18 could be played this weekend, with only Bills-Bengals played the following weekend and the playoffs starting the week after that.

NFL players are human - SB NationThis is what has been going through my mind since Monday Night Football. The immediacy of the event. The shock, confusion, helplessness, and how all-consuming it is to witness a medical emergency like that. Unless it’s something you experience with regularity it leaves you unable to think of anything else. These were NFL players — they’re accustomed to broken bones, torn ligaments, cuts, and scrapes — not a 24-year-old coworker, a brother, going into cardiac arrest.

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Fast food giant McDonald’s is facing a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois over alleged sexual harassment, hostile work environment, and retaliation. McDonald’s moved to dismiss the case and the Judge denied the motion.

Background

In July 2021, two female employees who worked at a Sanford, Florida McDonald’s location filed the lawsuit. This particular location is corporate owned and operated by the Illinois-based McDonald’s, which has more than 100 restaurants and employs over 6,000 workers in Florida.

Jamelia Fairley, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, claims that two male co-workers verbally and physically harassed her for several years, repeatedly asking inappropriate sexual questions and engaging in unwanted physical contact. Fairley claims her co-workers frequently witnessed the physical sexual harassment, as did a shift manager, who did not report it or take any steps to stop it. Fairley also complained to additional shift managers and the restaurant’s general manager. Several shift managers allegedly spoke to the two men accused of the harassment, but did not take steps to prevent or stop future acts.

Eventually, the restaurant’s general manager forwarded Fairley’s allegations to an operations consultant who supervised a group of McDonald’s restaurants. When confronted by the operations consultant, one of the men accused of harassment confessed and was terminated. But Fairley claims there was no meaningful investigation into the accusations against the other male employee. That worker was transferred to a different store for unrelated reasons. Fairley further alleges that, even after the two men were transferred or terminated, they continued visiting the Sanford, Florida restaurant where she worked and continued to confront and harass her. When Fairley requested a transfer, the operations consultant offered to transfer her to the same store to which one of the harassers had been transferred.

Ashley Reddick, the other plaintiff in the lawsuit, detailed similar allegations of harassment. Reddick claims that she was subjected daily to verbal and physical sexual harassment by a male co-worker, which was not addressed. Reddick claims that, when she reported the harassment to management, they made no attempt to discipline the male employee and the harassment continued. She also claims to have reported sexual harassment from customers to the general manager, who did not take action. Reddick claims she was terminated due to her opposition to, and reporting of, harassment by her coworker.

Fairley and Reddick are not the only employees suing McDonald’s for sexual harassment violations. Several teenagers have reported facing similar experiences while employed at McDonald’s. An attorney for the ACLU has noted that “the food service industry generally is one of the worst for sexual harassment claims." In fact, within the past year, a survey of roughly 800 female employees at McDonald's restaurants and franchises found that three-fourths allege they were harassed on the job.

And 71% of those women said that they suffered consequences for reporting the behavior. Id.

Reminders for Food & Beverage Employers

The allegations in this lawsuit underscore the importance of maintaining and complying with sexual harassment policies and procedures in the Food & Beverage industry. In light of, among other societal factors, the #MeToo Movement, employers have faced far more sexual harassment claims in recent years than historically. Food & Beverage Employers must have proper procedures in place to thoroughly investigate and combat sexual harassment or subsequent retaliation.

For example, Food and Beverage employers must have a sexual harassment training program and ensure that all employees receive this training – as required by New York State. Annual training aids in combating sexual harassment as it educates employees about the different forms of sexual harassment in the workplace. Likewise, aggrieved employees become aware of the process to file a complaint internally and with the requisite governmental agencies. One of the chief complaints noted in almost every claim against McDonald’s is that employees who raised sexual harassment concerns were retaliated against or their claims were not investigated thoroughly. It is imperative for Food & Beverage employers to have proper documented procedures in place that address investigations and inform employees that retaliatory conduct is prohibited under state and federal law, and to follow these procedures each time an incident is reported.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

© Hodgson Russ LLP 2023 | Attorney Advertising

Korbin Albert (Notre Dame, sophomore)

Albert scored 16 goals this year, more than any other midfielder in the country. Six were gamewinners, nine came against Top 25 teams, and 14 occurred in her team’s final 12 games. She helped the Fighting Irish earn their first No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament since 2008 and came one round short of reaching the final four.

She grew up in Grayslake, Illinois, where she played club soccer for Coach Mike Nesci with Eclipse Select and spent 2015-19 in the U.S. youth national team pool. She has two brothers who played college ball, at the University of Cincinnati and Indiana Wesleyan, and a sister who currently plays at Olivet Nazarene University.

Albert would be the fourth Irish women’s soccer player to win the Hermann Trophy, and the first since Kerri Hanks won it in 2006 and 2008.

Michelle Cooper (Duke, sophomore)

A previous Hermann Trophy semifinalist, the forward racked up 49 points, with 19 goals and 11 assists, in 2022 and is first women’s Hermann Trophy finalist from Duke. She broke eight school records, was the only player in NCAA Division 1 women’s soccer ranked in the Top 10 in points and goals, and was one of only two players with 10 or more goals and assists. She scored six NCAA tournament goals, a tally tied for most in this year’s tournament, to help the Blue Devils make it to the quarterfinals.

In addition to her success at Duke, Cooper scored eight goals for the USA at the 2022 Concacaf U-20 Championship to win to win the Golden Boot and Golden Ball. (She and Albert were teammates at 2022 U-20 FIFA World Cup).

The Clarkston, Michigan native, played club soccer with the Michigan Hawks ECNL team before switching to the IMG Academy. She recently declared that she is giving up her remaining two years of collegiate eligibility to turn professional.

Jenna Nighswonger (Florida State, senior)

The midfielder, also a Hermann Trophy semifinalist last year, wrapped up an award-filled career at Florida State with a career-best six goals and 16 assists. Her assist tally is the second most in a season in team history. Nighswonger helped lead the Seminoles to the College Cup for the third straight year, but they fell short in their quest to defend their title.

Nighswonger played youth ball for Southern California's Slammers FC and has been part of the U.S. national team pool from the U-14 to U-23 levels. In October, Nighswonger donated part of her NIL proceeds to breast cancer research.

• The 2022 trophy ceremony will be held on Jan 6, 2023 at the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis.

MAC HERMANN TROPHY 2002 -- Aly Wagner (Santa Clara) 2003 -- Catherine Reddick (North Carolina) 2004 -- Christine Sinclair (Portland) 2005 -- Christine Sinclair (Portland) 2006 -- Kerri Hanks (Notre Dame) 2007 -- Mami Yamaguchi (Florida State) 2008 -- Kerri Hanks (Notre Dame) 2009 -- Kelley O'Hara (Stanford) 2010 -- Christen Press (Stanford) 2011 -- Teresa Noyola (Stanford) 2012 -- Crystal Dunn (North Carolina) 2013 -- Morgan Brian (Virginia) 2014 -- Morgan Brian (Virginia) 2015 -- Raquel Rodriguez (Penn State) 2016 -- Kadeisha Buchanan (West Virginia) 2017 -- Andi Sullivan (Stanford) 2018 -- Catarina Macario (Stanford) 2019 -- Catarina Macario (Stanford) 2020 -- Jaelin Howell (Florida State) 2021 -- Jaelin Howell (Florida State)

HERMANN TROPHY 1988 -- Michelle Akers (Central Florida) 1989 -- Shannon Higgins (North Carolina) 1990 -- April Kater (Massachusetts) 1991 -- Kristine Lilly (North Carolina) 1992 -- Mia Hamm (North Carolina) 1993 -- Mia Hamm (North Carolina) 1994 -- Tisha Venturini (North Carolina) 1995 -- Shannon MacMillan (Portland) 1996 -- Cindy Daws (Notre Dame) 1997 -- Cindy Parlow (North Carolina) 1998 -- Cindy Parlow (North Carolina) 1999 -- Mandy Clemens (Santa Clara) 2000 -- Anne Makinen (Notre Dame) 2001 -- Christie Welsh (Penn State)

MAC AWARD 1991 -- Kristine Lilly (North Carolina) 1992 -- Mia Hamm (North Carolina) 1993 -- Mia Hamm (North Carolina) 1994 -- Tisha Venturini (North Carolina) 1995 -- Shannon MacMillan (Portland) 1996 -- Cindy Daws (Notre Dame) 1997 -- Cindy Parlow (North Carolina) 1998 -- Cindy Parlow (North Carolina) 1999 -- Mandy Clemens (Santa Clara) 2000 -- Anne Makinen (Notre Dame) 2001 -- Christie Welsh (Penn State)

Matt Rhule prefers to believe the transfer portal would not have rewritten the best individual player success stories of his career. But these days, the what-ifs can linger.

The Nebraska coach boasts a lengthy résumé of formerly little-known prospects who broke out late in their college careers under his tutelage on their way to the NFL. They came. They got better. Player and team reaped the rewards together.

Exhibit A for Rhule is unquestionably former Temple star Haason Reddick, originally a walk-on defensive back in 2012 who was told he wouldn’t have a roster spot the next year. Enter Rhule and Co., who moved Reddick to linebacker and then defensive end en route to fringe All-America status and being a first-round draft pick in 2017.

One of Rhule’s best Baylor examples was safety Jalen Pitre, the only holdover commit in the 2017 class and a relatively nondescript recruit when the coach arrived in Waco. The eventual second-round selection capped his run as Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year in his fifth season.

What if they and others could have entered the portal on a whim or a promise?

“I wonder — I don’t know but I wonder — if some of those guys would have just gone somewhere else along the way and maybe not had that experience,” Rhule said on the Carriker Chronicles show.

If free one-time transfers were an option back then, would such players have sought to finish on larger Power Five stages? Would their individual breakouts have ended as emphatically under different coaching staffs? Current trends — with more than 2,000 FBS scholarship players entering the portal in the 2021-22 cycle alone — suggest many might have experienced different final acts.

For a turnaround specialist like Rhule, the onset of an open transfer market is a potential detour on the road to top-25 rankings and meaningful November football. A coaching staff whose ethos is rooted in identifying and developing high-school talent can now add college players with limited eligibility clocks. Unheralded recruits who unlock their abilities under Rhule can move on whenever they choose.

What does a developmental program look like in the quick-fix era of the portal? Rhule said it starts with taking the “right guys” as transfers. Players with good mindsets from other programs. Players changing locations for the “right reasons,” like a coaching switch. Players who, ideally, will be on campus longer than 6-12 months.

“What I don’t want to do moving forward is have a bunch of kids that fight in my program for four years and I just bring a one-year guy in every year over top of them,” Rhule said. “If we need to, we need to — it’s competition. But we want to get guys here for at least two years, three years. That’s kind of the hope. But everything’s on an individual basis.”

Nebraska’s portal results have varied greatly in two years of annual free agency. One-and-done hits featured the likes of receivers Samori Touré and Trey Palmer along with edge rusher Ochaun Mathis. Other newcomers were barely around long enough for fans and media to know them at all.

Longer-term Husker adds that grew into contributors include linebacker Chris Kolarevic, receiver Oliver Martin and — so far from the 2022 cycle — quarterback Casey Thompson, receiver Marcus Washington, kicker Timmy Bleekrode and punter Brian Buschini. Others could add their names next season.

While college transfer standards are new for Rhule, the former Carolina Panthers coach said he learned valuable lessons in the NFL that will benefit the Huskers. Like a good pre-draft meeting, evaluating potential additions goes deeper than statistics and sprint times. Backgrounds are important. Psych tests and medical reports — or the college equivalents of them — factor in too.

“I come back to college football from the NFL way more focused and understanding what needs to be done with these guys from a football perspective,” Rhule said. “Hopefully we can help guys — even if we have them for six months — play their best football.”

Nebraska sits at seven incoming transfers as the calendar flips to 2023. Only receiver/running back Joshua Fleeks is guaranteed to be done after next season, and the former Baylor playmaker already worked under Rhule in 2018 and 2019. Quarterback Jeff Sims (Georgia Tech) has three years to play two. Center Ben Scott (Arizona State) has two years of remaining eligibility. Safety Corey Collier (Florida), linebacker Chief Borders (Florida) and defensive lineman Elijah Jeudy (Texas A&M) each have three.

Most came from situations where they were underutilized or underdeveloped. Scott started at tackle for two years before making a “business decision” to move to center last season with an eye toward his future in the NFL. He knows he’s joining a staff with a reputation of making players better.

“There are always a lot of factors but I think this place (Nebraska) will help me be ready for the next level more than any others,” Scott said.

Sims, a three-year starter at Georgia Tech, said choosing the Huskers wasn’t necessarily about getting faster or stronger but more about bringing out “the intangible pieces of a true NFL quarterback” in himself. Details matter on and off the field, and he’s ready to learn.

“Their main goal is to develop players and that will lead to winning,” Sims said. “That stood out to me.”

Jeudy was a four-star prospect with top offers from around the country in the 2021 class. He said the “glitz and glamor stuff” drew him in as a high-schooler seeing college programs for the first time. The 6-foot-3, 295-pound interior lineman — coming from the SEC and an A&M position group stocked with former high-end prospects — saw just 21 snaps across four games in his first two college seasons.

The clock is ticking, he said. Working toward a pro career begins now.

“I think this time around it made me think all this is not fun and games — it’s business,” Jeudy said. “So we gotta put our foot down and keep going because if we’re going to make it to the NFL we have to grind it out.”

Meanwhile, retention has become a bigger priority as coaches must constantly re-recruit their own rosters. During in-house radio interviews this week, multiple Nebraska assistants said they believe the family atmosphere of the staff will mitigate departures or, at minimum, prevent surprise ones. Defensive line coach Terrance Knighton said coaches will know the personal lives and academic situations of their players along with the football side.

Nebraska has seen 16 Huskers transfer since October and roughly the same number go in the previous cycle. The biggest December loss, unquestionably, was freshman inside linebacker Ernest Hausmann, who landed at Michigan a few weeks later. NU also saw promising third-year edge rusher Jimari Butler enter the portal only to withdraw after a couple of days.

The portal window for players to enter closes on Jan. 18. Another one goes from May 1-15.

Such an environment makes developing talent more difficult than three years ago, Rhule said. Ease of transferring and name-image-likeness considerations — while not necessarily negatives on their own — aren’t allies of continuity and stability. Maybe those elements are enough to push some programs to lean more on the whims of the market when building their teams.

For Rhule and the Huskers, it makes a culture of development and winning all the more valuable.

“I’d love to have all of our high school guys stay for four or five years,” Rhule said. “I’m really just kind of banking on believing in the fact that when players believe you’re coaching them and when players feel like you care about them, they usually want to stay there.”

SARASOTA, Fla., Sept 27 (Reuters) - Residents of Florida's Gulf Coast on Tuesday boarded up homes, packed up their vehicles and headed for higher ground as Hurricane Ian drew near, threatening to bring a deadly storm surge and more than a foot of rain to some areas.

Ian churned across the southeastern edge of the Gulf of Mexico headed for Florida after slamming into Cuba earlier in the day, leaving the entire country without power, forcing mass evacuations and swamping fishing villages.

More than 2.5 million Floridians were under evacuation orders or warnings with the sprawling storm on track to make landfall as a Category 3 or Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday evening somewhere along Florida's Gulf Coast.

A Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale carries maximum sustained winds of up to 129 miles per hour (208 km per hour). The latest 8 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) hurricane advisory put Ian's top winds at 120 mph (195 km per hour).

Ian was most likely to come ashore south of Tampa near Sarasota, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. That region - home to miles of sandy beaches, scores of resort hotels and numerous mobile home parks - is a favorite with retirees and vacationers alike.

"I know I should be scared of this one, but I'm too busy to be scared. I just know we have to go," said John O'Leary, a jazz pianist from Tampa, said as he and his wife loaded food, water and family photos into their car before heading to his mother's house in Palm Harbor, 25 miles (40 km) to the west.

O'Leary, 36, was one of the thousands of motorists to hit the road as they fled low-lying areas in hopes of avoiding a potentially life-threatening storm surge that, according to forecasters, could reach 12 feet (3.7 meters) in the Sarasota area.

While predictions remained imprecise for where the storm would come ashore, "the impacts are going to be far, far broader than just where the eye of the storm happens to make landfall," Governor Ron DeSantis said.

DeSantis warned of the potential for devastating Hurricane Harvey-like flooding that struck the Houston area in 2017, the result of a slow-moving storm piling up high water.

Parts of central Florida could see as much of 2 feet (0.6 meter) of rain from Ian, according to the National Weather Service. The NHC also issued extensive storm surge warnings for about half of western Florida's shoreline, with predictions of life-threatening coastal flooding up to 12 feet from wind-driven high surf.

Florida's director of emergency management, Kevin Guthrie, urged residents in evacuation zones to move to safety.

"The time to evacuate is now. Get on the road," he said.

To ease traffic congestion, authorities suspended toll collections along major highways in central Florida, the Tampa Bay area and the interstate stretch across the Everglades known as Alligator Alley.

Some residents, such as Vanessa Vazquez, 50, a software engineer in St. Petersburg, said they planned to ride out the storm at home despite evacuation warnings.

"I'm staying put," Vazquez said. "I have four cats and I don't want to stress them out. And we have a strong house."

If Ian strikes Tampa, it would be the first hurricane to make landfall in the area since the Tarpon Springs storm in 1921.

It also may prove one of the costliest as the latest simulations projected storm-related damages ranging from $38 billion to more than $60 billion, Enki Research said on Tuesday.

CLOSINGS, POWER OUTAGES

Nearly 60 Florida school districts were either closed Tuesday or planned to be closed by Wednesday, DeSantis said. Many of those schools were designated as shelters for the storm and its aftermath.

Commercial airlines canceled more than 2,000 U.S. flights due to the storm.

The St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport - located on a vulnerable peninsula east of Tampa Bay - ceased operations at midday, and the Tampa International Airport shut down a few hours later.

Tampa Electric warned customers to be prepared for "extended outages." The company will institute a "targeted interruption" of service to a part of downtown Tampa on the western edge of the city. That area has already been evacuated.

DeSantis said nearly 100 evacuation shelters had opened statewide.

“This is a mobile home community, and they really need this shelter,” said Fabiola Galvan Leon, a preschool teacher acting as a bilingual translator for hundreds of evacuees flocking to Reddick Elementary in Wimauma, Florida, southeast of Tampa, to ride out the storm.

The shelves at a nearby Walmart store had been stripped almost bare, though a contingent of shoppers wandered the aisles, hurriedly grabbing the last remaining boxes of water, canned goods and loaves of bread.

The Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) announced it was closing its Florida theme and water parks on Wednesday and Thursday while the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers relocated to Miami, where they will practice this week ahead of their game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.

Read more:

Reporting by Shannon Stapleton in Tampa and Brendan O'Brien in Washington; Additional reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona in Tampa, Tyler Clifford in Washington, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Writing by Brendan O'Brien and Steve Gorman; Editing by Frank McGurty, Lisa Shumaker & Shri Navaratnam