The Buffalo Bills have a new home.
Now they have to figure out how everything works.
The Bills will hold their annual Blue & Red practice Saturday night at new Highmark Stadium, giving players and coaches their first opportunity to practice inside the $2.2 billion stadium before games begin for real.
Joe Brady has a lot he wants to learn.
“I mean, shoot, I can probably take the whole press conference answering that question,” Brady said Friday before the Bills’ final training camp practice at St. John Fisher University. “There’s so much that comes with it, right? It’s our first time in the stadium. I mean, it’s all of our first time in the stadium.”
Where are the play clocks when Brady is calling plays?
What’s his vantage point under the lights?
How does the wind move through the stadium?
What does the field look and feel like from the coaches’ booth?
How easy is it to communicate from the sideline?
Those are some of the questions the Bills want answered Saturday.
“For everybody, it’s kind of a trial run,” Brady said.
Bills treating Blue & Red practice like a night game
The learning process will start well before the Bills take the field.
Brady said the Bills are structuring Saturday to resemble a night game. Players will report in the morning for a walkthrough before returning later for the 7 p.m. practice.
They’ll even get a taste of something Bills fans already know they’ll have to navigate around the new stadium: traffic and parking.
“I want the guys to kind of get a feel of, all right, there’s going to be traffic tomorrow,” Brady said. “And when you show up to the game, go through all the emotions of trying to figure out the stadium, look at all the things. And then now we’ve got to go practice.”
That’s the important part for Brady.
Saturday won’t simply be a tour of the Bills’ shiny new home or an opportunity to put on a show for fans.
Brady wants a real practice.
“This isn’t going to be a, ‘Hey, we’re just putting the ball down and scrimmage the whole time,'” Brady said. “There’s going to be enough emotions of figuring out all the environment and with all of that. So I still want the intentionality behind it. It’s another install day.”
The Bills will also work through some of the less glamorous details that matter on game days.
Coaches will get accustomed to their locations in the booth and on the sideline. They’ll practice sideline communication and personnel changes. Players will learn where they need to be and how to navigate an unfamiliar stadium.
“We’ve had more meetings about this Blue & Red than probably anything,” Brady said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Joe Brady watched new Highmark Stadium rise
For Brady, Saturday will also mark the culmination of something he’s watched happen almost literally outside his window.
Construction on new Highmark Stadium began in 2023, across Abbott Road from the Bills’ longtime home.
Brady has watched it rise along with his own career in Buffalo, from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator and, this now, head coach.
He wasn’t always certain he’d still be around to see the finished product.
“It’s been incredible to see it kind of go up,” Brady said. “The whole time I was just hoping that we’re going to get to coach in it, right? I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how this profession kind of works.”
Now Brady will be the first head coach to coach in it.
He believes Saturday’s practice is important partly because he doesn’t want the novelty to linger.
The Bills need new Highmark Stadium to start feeling like home before the regular season begins.
“Every time you go in there, you notice something else,” Brady said. “It’s incredible. I think it’s going to be such a special place for everybody in this community and the city, and I think it’s going to be a stadium that people don’t want to come play at.
“But it’s important for us early to get a lot of exposure to it where we’re not wowed by it when we walk in it come regular season.”
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: The Bills have a brand-new home. Now they have to learn how to use it
Reporting by Ryan Miller, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ryan Miller, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
