The Bills Are Already Replacing The Field At Their Brand New $2.2 Billion Stadium After Players Complained

The Buffalo Bills spent $2.2 billion building a brand-new stadium and managed to discover one problem with the seats before finding another one directly underneath the players. Highmark Stadium’s entire grass field is already being replaced after chunks of sod started coming apart during its first football games.

Buffalo will re-sod the surface before its Sept. 17 home opener against Detroit, with a team representative confirming the plan to Front Office Sports. Highmark Stadium only opened this summer, which means the Bills have reached the “replace the entire lawn” stage of homeownership before playing a single regular-season game there.

The Bills’ New Grass Did Not Survive The Preseason

There was a lot to like about Buffalo finally moving away from artificial turf.

Josh Allen has been publicly advocating for natural grass, and the new stadium gave the Bills a Kentucky bluegrass surface after more than five decades of playing home games on artificial turf.

Then actual football happened.

During the Aug. 15 preseason opener against Carolina, backup quarterback Kyle Allen was hit near the sideline, and a massive piece of grass came flying out of the ground, roots and dirt included. Players, including Josh Allen, actually tried stomping the displaced sod back into place.

That is generally not part of an NFL quarterback’s job description.

One anonymous player gave an even more direct review, telling Tim Graham of The Athletic that “the field is a— right now,” as NBC Sports documented after the game. Another described it as soft, but “not in a good way.” Bills linebacker Dorian Williams was more forgiving, acknowledging that a few areas had chunked up while still saying he preferred it to artificial turf.

The surface reportedly performed better during Buffalo’s second preseason game against Pittsburgh and passed the NFL’s safety and playability testing. The Bills are replacing it anyway.

Fans Already Found Another $2.2 Billion Problem

The grass would probably qualify as a normal first-year stadium headache if Highmark had not already spent August going viral for a completely different reason.

When fans first packed the building for Buffalo’s Blue and Red practice, photos began circulating of seats with portions of the field blocked by railings, glass partitions and other structures.

The Bills said fewer than 1% of personal seat license holders had raised sightline issues and planned to address complaints individually, according to the Associated Press.

That is a small percentage.

It is also probably not especially comforting if you are one of the people who spent serious money on a seat and discovered the railing received a better view of the end zone.

Now Buffalo has a stadium dealing with issues involving both what some fans can see and what every player is standing on.

None of this means Highmark Stadium is some $2.2 billion disaster. New buildings have problems, natural grass takes time to establish, and Buffalo still has weeks before its first regular-season home game.

But there is something objectively funny about a stadium so new that the old one is still being demolished next door already needing a complete lawn replacement.

Most homeowners at least make it through the first summer.