New England’s Sunday night win over the Chargers guaranteed that the Bills will not play another game at their current stadium. When Buffalo next plays a home game in September 2026, it will be played on grass.
G.M. Brandon Beane recently spoke to Jarrett Bell of USA Today about the decision to go with real green, not fake green, in the new Highmark Stadium.
“We’re in 2025,” Beane told Bell. “You’ve seen places like Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Chicago using technology; that helped us put together a plan to be able to handle the weather here. We feel we have the right grass people and field turf people to help us manage this. And our players are going to benefit from playing on grass.”
While for plenty of teams the lower cost of the phony-baloney surfaces are more appealing than the expenses associated with maintaining a high-quality grass field, the Bills will pay for something better.
“The turfs have improved,” Beane told Bell. “No doubt, the stats have improved on artificial turf. But you’re never going to convince me that something’s better than the real grass.”
Beane credited ownership, and specifically co-owner Kim Pegula, for pushing the issue of grass.
“She was really behind, ‘How can we help our players thrive here and extend their careers?’” Beane said.
Players almost unanimously prefer playing on high-quality grass surfaces. The league defends the use of artificial surfaces by cherry-picking statistics that support the view that there’s no difference. There is, starting with how the players feel the morning after running around (and getting hit and tackled) on a surface that absorbs forces (grass) and one that ricochets them back into the human body (turf).
The overriding reality continues to be that it has become a matter of collective bargaining. Teams will be inclined to hold the rope on artificial turf in order to get something from the NFL Players Association in exchange for an agreement to retrofit all stadiums with grass. At some places, that will be much more expensive than others, given the use of the facility for other events that require different floor materials.
Regardless, Terry and Kim Pegula have decided to pay the money to protect the investment in their players. Hopefully more owners will choose to do the same thing.
