(WBEN) - Forget the players, all eyes may be on the field itself on Thursday night in the Bills home opener after the team ripped up the sod at the new Highmark Stadium and replaced the entire playing surface just two weeks before the first regular season game.
It may seem like a tight timeline, but those in the know said it can be done.
"It's not unprecedented. Grounds crews learn how to adapt to doing it," said Frank Rossi, who specializes in Turfgrass Management at Cornell University.
Rossi works with the crews at Yankee Stadium, where the Yankees share the filed with New York City FC of the MLS. He told WBEN that playing surface has to be changed over a dozen times per year, often just 48 hours before it has to be played on again.
He chalks up the fact that the entire field had to be re-done so quickly to the learning curve of working in a new stadium.
"I think in Buffalo we have a little bit of a wait and see. You have a new growing environment with things that are limiting grass growth."
While it's not standard for the entire playing surface to be swapped out more than once or twice a season, Rossi said that the areas between the hash marks in the center of the field may be re-done three or four times in a season.
