The Buffalo Bills played a home game yesterday in freezing temperatures with high winds and snow, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Buffalo winters. Still, with the team losing, and debates over a new stadium ongoing, and Twitter being Twitter, this naturally enough turned into a fan throwdown over whether it’s necessary to build a billion-dollar-plus dome because the team’s quarterback threw a bunch of interceptions:
We’re not wasting Josh Allen’s career with an open air stadium.
Build the dome.
— Gogi Gupta (@gogigupta) January 2, 2022
Not good when a NFC South DOME team plays better in the icy snow than the #Bills
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) January 2, 2022
the bills do not and have never needed a dome if you don’t like the cold you’re a baby put a coat on grow up
— guy really getting into game of thrones in 2024 (@hucklebuckets) January 3, 2022
To all my fellow Bills fans who want a dome, my 9 year-old nephew seems to be handling the elements just fine. pic.twitter.com/o5ktuGSInz
— Uncle Wil (@WilDaBeast_22) January 2, 2022
This is an extremely Buffalo debate, and normally shouldn’t be taken seriously — the average career length of an NFL quarterback is a little over four years and Josh Allen is already in his fourth year, so odds are decent that he wouldn’t even be a Bill by the time a dome opened — but, sure, let’s take them seriously for a second. Are the Bills especially bad at playing at home in inclement weather?
Since Allen arrived in 2018, the Bills are 20-12 at home, and 19-13 on the road, which is 3% better at home; home-field advantage has been basically nonexistent in the NFL the last three years, so if nothing else we can say the Bills aren’t any worse at home than the rest of the league, despite whatever may have happened on Sunday. At least, it doesn’t seem worth basing a billion-dollar decision on; though even if Allen were terrible at home, the obvious solution would be to get a new QB, since that would be a whole lot cheaper than building a dome.
As for the actual stadium news, there may or may not be some today when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul gives her State of the State address, with one Albany lobbyist saying a Bills stadium would be “high profile” in her speech while Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said any deal was “not imminent.” Tune in at 1 pm to see who’s right!
Personally, I think they should only test home field advantage in stadiums where it actually matters like Arrowhead & Qwest Field. Not even the backup QB is intimidated by a bunch of indifferent Californians in an airy place like SoFi, haha.
It sometimes feels like there are more former Western New Yorkers living here in Florida than there are people left in Western New York. Maybe their love and embrace of harsh, nuclear winters is at least a little bit overblown?
Considering Buffalo won the game by 14 (Atlanta didn’t score in the second half), I presume the tenor of the comments changed in the second half. https://www.nfl.com/games/falcons-at-bills-2021-reg-17?active-tab=watch
Until the Patriots build a dome, the Bills will be playing their playoff game(s) outdoors.
Ouch!
It was 71 degrees in Greensboro last Sunday. I’m just saying…