The Buffalo Bills tore out the grass at Highmark Stadium this week after just two preseason games, ending a short and troubled run for the field that was supposed to carry the team into a new era. The Kentucky bluegrass, installed in October 2025, never took root, and the club started over with replacement sod as the home opener against the Detroit Lions nears.
That matters now because the Bills are only two weeks from Thursday Night Football, the first of three straight Highmark Stadium games in 18 days, and the field has already failed once under live conditions. Large chunks of sod were gouged out during games against the Carolina Panthers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the damage was repeated during two open practices, leaving the surface in a state that drew sharp criticism from specialists who follow NFL fields for a living.
George Toma did not soften it. “That hurts me,” he said. “That’s terrible to happen at all, but so soon? Somebody fell asleep.” An anonymous award-winning sports agronomist was even harsher, saying it was the worst sod he had seen in the NFL in his career and joking that whoever explained it “probably ought to start their stories ‘Once upon a time.’”
The Bills had gone to grass this year for the first time since 1972, a move that fit a broader push around player safety. The NFL Players Association says 92 percent of players prefer grass, and some clubs manage natural turf with constant replacements, including the Miami Dolphins, the Denver Broncos and the Steelers. But Buffalo’s problem was not ordinary wear. The field sat unused for 10 months after installation, and the roots of the Kentucky bluegrass never took hold.
That is the part that makes the Bills’ decision hard to square with what was said before. Pete Guelli had described the field as performing to expectations, yet the team still ripped out all of the grass and began again this week. Tony Dick put the practical issue more bluntly after reviewing the film: “Yes, natural turf is safer in a perfect setting,” he said, “but if you have the situation like you have in Buffalo — and I went back and watched the film — you cannot tell me that field was safer than the artificial turf they just left.”
Dick drew the line where it counted most. “I’m never putting Josh Allen on a field in that condition,” he said. That is now the central question around Highmark Stadium: whether the new sod can settle quickly enough to hold through a demanding stretch that begins in two weeks, or whether the Bills will enter their first home games on another surface that still has something to prove.
