By the time night falls on Sunday and the Buffalo Bills’ home game against the New York Jets goes final, it will mark the end of an era. There will never be a regular-season game played at the old Highmark Stadium again, quite a sobering fact as the mammoth new Highmark Stadium towers across the street.
Unless some absolute playoff tomfoolery happens, it will likely be the last Bills game ever played at the old Highmark Stadium.
The Bills are treating it with ample revelry, having big plans for what is likely to be the final time fans pack into that stadium.
And there are many different ways to think about the Bills’ home of 53 years heading into Sunday’s final, and by now, you’ve probably read and watched your fill. But if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to add another one to the pile.
Rather than my usual notebook for the week, this game is bigger than a usual Week 18 matchup between a team that may rest many of their starters against a clearly tanking team. With due respect to the upcoming game, 53 years in one stadium calls for a bit more.
From an aesthetic perspective, the old Highmark Stadium was the last of its kind by NFL standards. It’s a completely unprotected stadium from an area that, when November, December, and January roll around, makes for some of the most unforgiving weather conditions across the league. The snow is one thing, but the winds are another. Winds swirl in one corner of the field, and it’s somewhat of a homefield advantage to specialists who know the secret.
Even with some facelifts to stay current, the facility has deteriorated over time. There is ample rust scattered throughout the structure. On a snowy or overly rainy day, random water pours out from overhangs as you enter through a tunnel to get to the seating areas. When a big snowstorm hits, the Bills have to put out a call for stadium shovelers, and fittingly, that happened one last time this week.
The Bills have sorely needed a new stadium for quite some time, though despite that, a nostalgic feeling is coming over the whole area. And for good reason.
Of course, there are the memorable Bills games over the years, and I’m sure many have random moments of games burned into their memories that have otherwise been forgotten. But in the moment, they felt so large and memorable, even if they weren’t through the test of time.
Though what I think makes the old Highmark Stadium, Rich Stadium, The Ralph, or whatever iteration you know it best as, goes far beyond just Bills games. It’s about the community. It’s about the shared experiences. It’s about the memories built with family and friends.
My experience is a bit different than most as a non-Bills fan growing up in Buffalo. I grew up one suburb over from Orchard Park. In my senior year, I lived just down the street from the stadium. My high school is five turns away. I graduated from a college only 20 minutes away. Then in 2010, I began covering the Bills full-time, only a year and change removed from college. I’ve missed only a handful of practices, and the only home games I’ve missed were during the COVID season in 2020 and for the birth of my first child in 2023.
And when I’ve sat back to reflect on the lead-up to this game, the memories have more to do with the people I was with, or adjacent to, than the games themselves.
My first memory was going to a Bills game with my parents against the Raiders. I don’t remember a single thing about the game, or even what year it was, but I remember it meaning a lot to my late father to have brought his son there for the first time and how happy I was to be there with him. I also remember the fans behind us getting the Bills pregame flu, a rite of passage to witness for most who have attended a game in the stadium.
The tailgate scene around the stadium gets talked up a lot, but it’s every bit true. The only thing rivaling it is a big-time college football tailgate, but even then, Bills fans are doing it in, at times, horrible weather, with a small fire as their only reprieve from the bitter cold.
As the years went by, I remember spending time with my best friends and their families tailgating in the same lot, every game just off Abbott with the stadium in view and just a bit away from bigger lots. It was their little secret, and a staple of their lives.
In high school, I watched some of my best friends create incredible memories in championship games at The Ralph. To this day, I’ll never forget one of them house-calling an interception the length of the field. Then, as my professional career was just getting started, I got to watch other high school kids and friends make lifelong memories while calling games for a local television station.
When I first met my wife, I was already covering the Bills, but she and her best friends had season tickets across the way from the press box. We never actually saw each other from our individual viewing spots, but I know I always looked her way when something big happened.
Many of you have seen me post the above picture on social media over the years in a joking manner, but this photo was her handiwork during one of the many ridiculous Bills tailgates. And the picture has been taken and repurposed by others, but it’s a funny part of our little story.
And then this past summer, just as my father was proud to bring me to the stadium, my son was able to attend the annual Blue & Red scrimmage that I was there covering this summer. We have a picture of me on the field, standing with him, sitting on the padding next to me as he had a mile-long smile and a waffle fry in hand.
It is a picture and a moment I will cherish forever, and it is not lost on me that this NFL stadium will be the only one I’ll ever have gone to, both with my late father and my son. The stadium is a connective tissue to my past, present and future.
I have grown up and evolved in every stage of my life with that stadium as a figure hovering in the distance. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
Of course, there are the Bills games, and the franchise is the reason for that stadium to become such a staple of the community. And while yes, it’s just an eroding building that has seen better days, its meaning to nearly every person who has lived in and around Buffalo is so much more.
Its structure is a representation of Buffalo. Hardened and true. No frills. Grit. Opponents would get to the stadium and know precisely what to expect, driving in and seeing the stadium and the scene.
As the world and all of us as individuals have changed, The Ralph has remained the same. That trusted old friend whose mere presence brought lifelong memories, even if it never said a word.
While the new Highmark Stadium across the street will bring about memories and shared experiences for generations to follow, because there’s no taking the Buffalo out of Buffalo, there will never be another NFL stadium like the one the Bills are leaving behind.
Even if the building itself is long gone, its legacy will continue for all those who grew up in and around it. For one last time on Sunday, The Ralph will have a chance to imprint memories into the hearts of those in attendance.
And, just as it always has been, it goes well beyond the game itself.
