The Bills\u2019 home opener against the Detroit Lions on \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d is two weeks away \u2014 the first of three straight Highmark Stadium games in 18 days.<\/p>\n
While resodding an entire NFL field is relatively common, experts find the circumstances surrounding Buffalo\u2019s sudden tear-out disconcerting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw their press release and heard some of their rationale, and they probably ought to start their stories \u2018Once upon a time,\u2019\u201d said an award-winning sports agronomist who has helped install dozens of NFL and college football fields over the decades. He requested anonymity to protect professional relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the worst sod I\u2019ve seen in the NFL in my career. I can\u2019t even imagine how that could have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo switched to grass this year for the first time since 1972, when it left War Memorial Stadium, a bleak venue known as The Rockpile. The NFL Players Association has pushed owners to switch to grass stadiums. The union says 92 percent of its players prefer grass.<\/p>\n
The campaign gained further traction this summer. The FIFA World Cup demands grass for its matches. When the tournament held games in 11 NFL stadiums, seven were forced to replace artificial turf with grass. Those venues have since returned to artificial turf for the NFL season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, natural turf is safer in a perfect setting,\u201d said Tony Dick, a sports management professor at Baldwin Wallace University and former Cleveland Browns assistant head groundskeeper. \u201cBut if you have the situation like you have in Buffalo \u2014 and I went back and watched the film \u2014 you cannot tell me that field was safer than the artificial turf they just left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m never putting Josh Allen on a field in that condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
NFL clubs replace their grass based on several variables, the biggest being climate and the number of events.<\/p>\n
The Miami Dolphins resod eight to 10 times a year in the tropics, but Hard Rock Stadium simultaneously hosts University of Miami football and bowl games as well as soccer matches and major concerts year-round. The Denver Broncos resod twice a year \u2014 once in August after the summer concert season, and again in late autumn before the mile-high ground freezes.<\/p>\n
The Steelers traditionally resod Acrisure Stadium\u2019s entire field before the season, replace the grass between the numbers in October, and perform another full resod later that month. The University of Pittsburgh and local high school football also use their field.<\/p>\n
But the Bills installed their Kentucky bluegrass in October 2025 and didn\u2019t stage any events until a public practice on Aug. 8, one week before the Panthers preseason opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have consulted with the NFL and an independent expert who works with multiple NFL teams,\u201d the Bills said in a statement to The Athletic. \u201cThese consultants recommended utilizing this three-week window before the home opener to install the sod. The NFL inspects every field and determines whether it meets league standards. We are confident that they are the appropriate group to ensure the field performs at the necessary level.\u201d<\/p>\n
An NFL spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The agronomist acknowledged that he would know more about the field\u2019s issues if he had the chance to examine it himself, but several mistakes seemed obvious to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could see brown spots throughout,\u201d the agronomist said. \u201cThat looked like disease, probably dollar spot fungus or brown patch fungus because bluegrass is susceptible to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw signs of overwatering and said the Bills may have misread the new field\u2019s high percolation rate, a measurement of how fast water drains. He also suspected the grounds crew had not used enough wetting agents to slow the percolation rate and keep nutrients in the soil longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have been overseeding the heck out of it, trying to draw that sod down a little bit,\u201d the agronomist said. \u201cI also would have pounded the top of the field with sand (for the Panthers-Bills game). When players were getting tackled, you should\u2019ve seen plumes of sand coming off the grass. That at least would have held the field down, closed up the seams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matteo Bartolotta has worked with the Bills\u2019 director of grounds, Aaron Ramella, as recently as this summer, helping the Bills prepare St. John Fisher University\u2019s grass fields for training camp. Bartolotta owns and operates M&K Turf in Auburn, N.Y.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot more common to replace sod fields than people think,\u201d said Bartolotta, a Bills diehard and former season-ticket holder. \u201cWe do have the three-game stretch coming. If they wait, with that NFL test of playability, they might not have passed it if the conditions got worse. It\u2019s not cheap, but I think it was the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similar to a doctor who would be hesitant to diagnose a patient he hasn\u2019t examined, Bartolotta didn\u2019t want to say for sure what was ailing Highmark Stadium\u2019s ill field without having put his hands in the dirt.<\/p>\n
Bartolotta did find it germane, however, to share the time he was hired by Merion Golf Club, the prestigious course outside Philadelphia that has hosted five U.S. Opens. He was summoned to solve an ongoing mystery on the greens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were peeling like carpet,\u201d Bartolotta said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-08-15T184023Z_225057457_MT1USATODAY29591299_RTRMADP_3_NFL-CAROLINA-PANTHERS-AT-BUFFALO-BILLS-sc.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Carolina Panthers cornerback Chau Smith-Wade (26) hits Buffalo Bills quarterback Kyle Allen (11), as pieces of grass fly into the air during the teams\u2019 August preseason game at Highmark Stadium. (Gregory Fisher \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
The final green was the putting area next to the clubhouse. It looked marvelous. Bartolotta asked the course superintendent and an assistant what the difference was.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just kind of looked at each other and chuckled,\u201d Bartolotta recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018This one doesn\u2019t have the precision air system underneath that the other ones have installed.\u2019 So you\u2019re telling me the greens that have the ability to heat and cool and suck out excessive moisture, those greens have weaker root structure than the one that\u2019s just growing naturally with native soil?\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with all that money and innovation and pampering, the greens at Merion Golf Club weren\u2019t stimulated to thrive. They merely existed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have the ability to give the root anything that it wants, the root doesn\u2019t stress,\u201d Bartolotta said. \u201cIt just lays back like it\u2019s on vacation. You have to make grass work. When you give it everything \u2014 all the nutrients, all the fertilizer, all the grow lights \u2014 it doesn\u2019t have to go and search. It just hangs out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beneath Highmark Stadium\u2019s grass are ventilation, heating, irrigation and vacuum systems. Myriad sensors track oxygen levels, temperature and moisture to the decimal point. The Bills invested in the latest grow-light technology to roll onto the field wherever too much shade encroaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a control room that looks like the space shuttle control deck,\u201d the agronomist said. \u201cThey\u2019re practically God in how easily they should be able to grow grass. To lose that field is unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
You probably wouldn\u2019t be surprised to learn Toma, 97, prefers the old-fashioned methods. His famous \u201cand then some\u201d motto refers to adding extra effort or an extra touch to every job.<\/p>\n
The Sodfather believes some measures are gratuitous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen it all,\u201d Toma said from his home in Kansas, \u201cand sometimes in today\u2019s world we agronomists get too sophisticated in groundskeeping. They go overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toma\u2019s career began on minor-league fields as a teenager during World War II. In 1955, he was the Buffalo Bisons\u2019 groundskeeper at Offermann Stadium. Toma eventually went to Kansas City, where he tended Municipal Stadium for the Chiefs, Athletics, Royals and Spurs of the North American Soccer League. He recalled his annual budget was $960.<\/p>\n
Then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was so impressed with Kansas City\u2019s field, especially given its year-round usage, that he asked Toma to handle L.A. Memorial Coliseum\u2019s field for Super Bowl I. That budget was $500.<\/p>\n