At a news conference today, Buffalo Bills president Russ Brandon said the team will play this Sunday’s home game versus the Cleveland Browns at Ralph Wilson Stadium, while updating the condition of the stadium and practice facility with VP of Operations and Guest Experience Andy Major alongside him.
“We’re looking forward to preparing for the Browns and playing Sunday here at Ralph Wilson Stadium,” said Brandon. “There has been an enormous amount of progress over the last few days and while we had a difficult hand from Mother Nature last week, Mother Nature certainly assisted this week with the heat wave that we somewhat had here in Buffalo and the great efforts by Andy Major and his staff over the last few days.”
Major said that the $130 million renovations to the stadium “helped”, as there were less “leaks” and “issues” than anticipated. The ring wall at the stadium is “damaged in different places from the snow removal”, according to Major,as well as pipes that “burst” in some of the concessions and restroom areas, as well as some damage to the practice facility, though Major and Brandon made clear it’s not enough to prevent the team from practicing.
“The Fieldhouse wall caved in a little bit in our practice facility which is not going to affect our team at all or our practices, said Major. “It’s already been repaired and a lot of minor damage some vent systems we’re kind of covered in snow or buried in snow which kind of damaged those areas as well and a lot of miscellaneous things in our suites and our club areas where we did have some leaks.”
“One thing I want to stress on that is that there is no structural damage to the facility from an engineering standpoint,” said Brandon. “We’ve had structural engineers in here throughout the process and this building, the training center, the field house and the stadium are fine structurally so there’s no issue on that end other than what Andy mentioned, a lot of repairs that we have to attend to over the next week in certain areas but nothing that would put the safety of the public, or our fans or our players or our staff in any trouble.”
In terms of parking spaces, Brandon said less than 5% of the spots would be “impacted” on Sunday, and the Bills controlled thoughts are “open and ready for business”, though he said satellite lots aren’t controlled by the team, and fans “need to be cautious that those lots may be unavailable”. There was six feet of snow at Ralph Wilson Stadium, with Major saying that 330,000 tons of snow needed to be moved, and contractors were on site to help, and the recent heat wave in Buffalo, including temperatures in the 60s yesterday aided as well.
Brandon said it is “great” for “everyone” in the organization to return to its home in Buffalo, and hopes to help an area that has suffered from dangerous weather return to some normalcy.
“Our game pales in comparison to what people have been dealing with here,” said Brandon. “We just want to be great citizens and help the community in any way we can. Last night certainly helped for people to watch television and watch Bills football which means so much to people. We take a lot of pride in what we give back to the community and we’re here to help in any way possible and it’s great to be sitting back in Orchard Park and we’re looking forward to preparing for Sunday.”
More stories you might like
