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Bills expect Sunday’s home game to be at home
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Barring another act of God, the Buffalo Bills’ home game at Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday against Cleveland will go on as scheduled — at home.
After the Bills were sent packing to Detroit by a historic snowstorm last week, their game against the New York Jets moved out of Orchard Park, the snow has begun to melt, and the cleanup effort at the complex has gone exceedingly well during the past three days.
The Bills battered the Jets 38-3 and are enjoying a warm reception back here.
“The heat wave has certainly helped over the last 48 hours,” team president Russ Brandon said with a laugh, referencing the unusually warm temperatures Sunday and Monday in western New York that melted some of the record snow.
“The gates, the lots, the stadium grounds, the stands are in very good shape. We’ve had structural engineers in all week. We’ve had no structural damage which we feel compromises the building in any way.
“We’ve had pipes and some things that have had issues, but right now everything is being worked through. All indications lead to a full game-day experience on Sunday.”
The team enlisted the help of citizens to assist in the shoveling out of the stadium, about 500 strong, all of whom were paid and given tickets to the Browns game.
That went so well, the shovelers were not needed beyond Monday. The Bills flew home from Detroit on Monday night after their rout of the Jets, went through a walk-through practice in their facility on Tuesday and were expected to practice in full there Wednesday.
Coach Doug Marrone wasn’t sure what to expect from the crowd on Monday night at Ford Field against the Jets.
Marrone experienced only one “home” game at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, where the Bills played one game every year between 2008 and 2013. And that day, his team blew a lead and lost to Atlanta in front of a typically neutral gathering. But Monday in Detroit, there was no doubt who the fans – an announced crowd of 56,044 – were behind.
“Our fans were phenomenal,” Marrone said. “When I came out there, you don’t know what to expect. You get concerned whether it’s going to be a home crowd, but as soon as I came out and looked to the right and saw all the blue jerseys, I was like, ‘Holy cow, baby, here we go, we got the crowd’ and that was a little bit of a relief for me early in the game.”
Thousands of Bills fans from western New York made the trip, but the vast majority of people on hand were likely Lions fans taking advantage of free tickets who then adopted the Bills for a night.
“It shows what this league was built on,” Brandon said of the hospitality shown the Bills by the Lions organization. “I go back to what Mr. Wilson used to say: ‘We compete one day a week, and we’re partners the other six days.'”
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