When the Bills played their first preseason game at their new stadium two weeks ago, a “massive clump” of sod went flying, “roots, dirt, and all.” One unnamed player even said, “The field is ass right now.”
So, basically, the grass is ass — and the Bills are getting out something more than a lawnmower.
Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News reports that the entire surface will be replaced before the Week 2 Thursday night home opener against the Lions.
It will be the first of three straight home games for the Bills.
The Bills aren’t conceding that the current field, which passed pregame inspection for Thursday night’s preseason finale against the Steelers, is enough of a problem to require replacement.
“You can be happy with the performance and playability and still make the change,” Bills chief operating officer Pete Guelli told Lysowski. “As an organization, we’re committed to having the absolute best possible playing surface for the players. If it’s even slightly better, we’re going to make the change and err on the side of performance.”
The issue was divots. The goal will be to reduce their frequency and size.
“It’s not a cure-all,” Bills senior director of grounds Aaron Ramella told Lysowski. “We’re still going to have divots. It’s a living grass field. We’ll be better than where we’re at now. There will be a random push or random divot. That’s football. We’re not playing on a rug anymore.”
That’s the best news. But one of the realities (and expenses) of a grass field is that it takes effort (and money) to make it high-quality. Although an overwhelming majority of players prefer grass to artificial turf, most would prefer a fake field to shoddy sod.
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