Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN/WGR 550) - As the Western New York region gets set for the first major snow storm of the winter season, the Buffalo Bills are game planning for what's to come on and off the field in the coming days in Orchard Park.
According to the National Weather Service, a Lake Effect Snow Warning has been posted from 7 p.m. EST Thursday to 1 p.m. EST on Sunday for Northern Erie and Genesee Counties. While Orchard Park is widely considered as Southern Erie County, the snow projections for the area continue to fluctuate as we inch closer to the storm's expected arrival.
Forecasters are expected heavy lake effect snow starting late Thursday night through Friday night with total accumulations potentially of 2-3 feet in the most persistent lake snow bands. In the heaviest of bands with this storm, snowfall rates could exceed two inches or more per-hour, which could see snowfall totals start to range up to four feet, especially if the main snow band is slower to push north late Friday night.
In addition to snow accumulations being a concern, wind could be a roll in visibility and conditions on the roadways with gusts potentially as high as 35 miles-per-hour.
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While the Bills are no stranger to having to practice and play in some less-than ideal conditions in Western New York, they are preparing for every possibility with the severity of this storm potentially impacting the area.
"I know our team is in communication with the NFL, they've been through it before, we've been through it before and handled it well. So full confidence in our team that's working behind the scenes on that, and then the football team has to get ready to play a game and execute," said head coach Sean McDermott during his Wednesday meeting with the media.
While McDermott has yet to hear from the team or other league officials on any potential changes with location or time of kickoff on Sunday, he knows that the week ahead of work will essentially be on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.
"You've just got to be on top of it. It adds a little bit of another layer to to the preparation, so you just got to be flexible, you've got to be on top of it. We'll adjust if, and when necessary," McDermott said.
As of now, preparations will continue this week as if the Bills will play the Cleveland Browns at Highmark Stadium at the originally scheduled 1 p.m. EST kickoff.
In recent memory, the Bills have had a pair of different experiences when it came to dealing with inclement winter weather before, or during a game day and game week experience.
In 2014, the famed "Snowvember" storm grinded most of Western New York to a halt with portions of the region totaling close to seven feet of snow. The area around Highmark Stadium took a direct hit as a result of the storm, which forced the Bills' scheduled home game that week against the New York Jets to be moved to Detroit and played at Ford Field.
Just three years later on Dec. 10, 2017, another Lake Effect snowstorm dumped around 8-9 inches of snow during a game between the Bills and Indianapolis Colts in Orchard Park. That game has been called the "Snow Bowl", as it featured workers continuously going onto the field to blow snow off the lines to help dictate where the play was.
McDermott was in his first season as head coach of the Bills that year, and he remembers that game fondly, as the win for Buffalo was a key factor in his team eventually breaking its long playoff drought spanning 17 seasons a few weeks later.
"I remember, vividly, walking in after warm ups and then walking back out for the game, and I was walking next to Paul Sortisio, our security director, and I saw the amount of snow already just in that amount of time that had lapse between going in and coming back out. I turned to him and I said, 'Is this normal?' Because you hear stories when you move here, and we're walking down, I'm getting ready for the game and he goes, 'No,'" McDermott recalled. "I didn't have time to be like, 'Well, tell me more.' And then the rest was the rest."
While a number of the players on that Bills roster are no longer with the team - only eight current players took part in that 2017 game - other members of the 2022 squad have played in some games in the past with inclement weather having a factor.
However, some rookies and others on the roster have yet to experience a game such as the 2017 "Snow Bowl", where both teams needed to brave the elements and duel it out on the field. For those who may not be so familiar playing in the winter conditions, McDermott says the team does its best to properly prepare those players for what's to potentially come when kickoff arrives on Sunday.
"This is a resilient town, all that people with snow plows and snowmobiles and all that type of jazz. I'm sure they'll chip in and lend a hand, but yeah, we've got a lot of guys from Florida, a lot of guys from down South, out West even that have never seen snow before," McDermott said. "I'll tell you, our development team does a great job. They equip them with scrapers and de-icing mechanisms, but we've already started to plan a plan in place behind the scenes of what happens if we can't get in Friday, what happens we can't get in Saturday, and/or with the hotel Saturday evening, being that it's downtown, how to handle that. So we're working on that also."
If the weather come Sunday presents itself as a challenge like it was in 2017 - forecasts are calling for the snow to taper off right around the 1 p.m. EST kickoff - both the Bills and Browns may have to rely a lot on the run game to be able to move the ball down the field and put up points on the scoreboard.
While the Buffalo run game has been a bit inconsistent this season, averaging 129.9 yards per-game led primarily by quarterback Josh Allen - Cleveland comes into Sunday's contest as one of the best running teams in the NFL.
The Browns' dangerous rushing attack is led by the two-headed monster that is Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. As a group overall, the Browns are currently fourth in the NFL with 2,471 yards on the ground, and are tied for the league lead with 5.1 yards per-carry.
As for Chubb, he's currently third in the NFL this season in rushing with 904 yards, only trailing the likes of Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley. McDermott knows trying to defend Chubb, regardless of the weather, will be a challenge for his team this week.
"I mean, turn the tape on and you're impressed," the Bills head coach said. "I mean, you watch their running game, I know Bill Callahan, coach Callahan does a great job. You watch people get population to the ball, and then all of a sudden he comes out of it and it's an explosive run for another 20, 30 yards. So he's as good as there is in the league."
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While Buffalo's run defense ranks in the top-10 of the NFL, only giving up an average of 109.6 yards per-game, the past few weeks has seen Buffalo getting gashed a bit on the ground. It started in Week 8 against the Green Bay Packers against the likes of Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillion, followed by Michael Carter and the New York Jets in Week 9, and just this past week by Dalvin Cook and the Minnesota Vikings in Week 10.
McDermott says it will come down to shoring things up in the run defense, having consistency down-in and down-out that will be key to avoid the likes of Chubb or Hunt from exploding on the ground against Buffalo this week.
"The run defense has got to be like defense overall, you've got to be consistent," McDermott said. Even though you stopped it, and that'll be the case this week - You watch Chubb and they're stopping, they're stopping, and all of a sudden, bang, one run pops and all of a sudden you got a problem on your hands. That's the nature of trying to be a good defense, in terms of against the run."
Hear more from McDermott's press conference with the media on Wednesday in the player below: