“The field is ass right now. But it’s early.”
That anonymous quote from a Bills player, relayed by The Athletic’s Tim Graham after the preseason opener against Carolina, set off a real wave of concern about the new Highmark Stadium’s grass. Chunks tore up mid-play. Josh Allen himself was seen stomping divots back into place. Bills president Pete Guelli came out and defended the surface as safe. None of that fully answered the question everyone actually wanted answered: is this a real long-term problem, or is this just what a new grass field looks like in Year 1?
Anthony Macari, who runs Pro Football War Room and, notably, works in golf course construction as part of his day job, laid out the actual answer this week in a thread that picked up serious traction, including retweets from NFL reporters. And it’s a lot more grounded than either “disaster” or “nothing to see here.”
“Part of my job includes managing golf course construction, which requires turf to have 2 full grow in seasons (Fall + Spring) at minimum in colder climates before being playable,” Macari wrote. “The turf at Highmark is still young and the root zone in virgin sand will take additional time to fully establish.”
The Kentucky bluegrass was planted at Highmark in October 2025, grown at Tuckahoe Turf Farms in New Jersey. Macari’s two-season standard would mean the grass needs until next season to truly take hold.
“This is somewhat dependent on seed mix (reportedly Kentucky Blue Grass) and the amount of time it had to grow at the farm,” Macari wrote, adding that the heating coils installed under the field will help extend the grow-in window, but won’t shortcut the underlying biology. His prediction: “It will be better in November than it was in August and by next year it will be mint.”
He didn’t let the Bills entirely off the hook, either. In a follow-up post, Macari pointed to a scheduling decision that made things harder than they needed to be. “Ideally the Bills should have held off playing/practicing on the field in the pre-season and early September to give those roots some more time to establish before use,” he wrote, “but consistent turf management can overcome the issues.”
This isn’t a structural flaw in the stadium. It’s the predictable, well-understood growing pain of choosing a natural grass surface, the same tradeoff players have been asking for across the league for years, in exchange for a field that’s safer long-term than artificial turf. Guelli made almost the identical point in his own defense of the field this week, noting the surface “is going to take time for the foundation to build up.” Macari’s thread just explains the actual agronomy behind why that’s true, and gives it a real, specific timeline instead of a vague promise.
None of this means the next several home games will look pristine. Buffalo’s early schedule, including hosting Pittsburgh on Aug. 27 and its Sept. 17 home opener against Detroit, all falls squarely inside the window Macari flagged as less than ideal. But “manageable” and “unprecedented failure” are very different stories, and right now, the actual expert with actual turf-construction experience is telling Bills fans it’s the former.
