Bills' newcomers are getting ready for their first Buffalo snowstorm

UPDATE:NFL moves Bills vs Browns game to Detroit as Buffalo snowstorm hits

ORCHARD PARK — Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott will never forget the afternoon of Dec. 10, 2017, the day of the infamous Snow Bowl at Highmark Stadium.

He’s not alone because anyone who was at that game against the Indianapolis Colts will never forget it, either.

“Yeah I remember vividly walking in after warm-ups and then walking back out for the game and I was next to our security director, Paul Sortisio,” McDermott recalled of that game that was played in his first season as head coach.

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“I saw the amount of snow already just in that amount of time that had lapsed between going in and coming back out and 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.’”

Thankfully that scenario — when the field was covered throughout the game by ankle to lower shin deep snow — isn’t expected to play out Sunday when the Cleveland Browns come to town. The massive snowstorm that is projected to dump not inches but feet in the Buffalo region Thursday through Saturday is expected to peter out by game time.

But these next few days will be challenging for the Bills as players — many of whom have never dealt with the kind of snow that is coming — have to make their way to and from One Bills Drive for practice.

McDermott joked that the team will be calling on area residents with snowmobiles and plows to help ferry the players back and forth, saying, “This is a resilient town … I’m sure they’ll chip in and lend a hand.”

Turning serious, he added that the team is working on contingency plans to help the players if need arises.

“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,” he said. “Our development team does a great job. They equip them with scrapers and de-icing mechanisms. We’ve already started to put a plan in place behind the scenes of what happens if we can’t get in Friday, what happens if we can’t get in Saturday, or to the hotel Saturday evening (where the team stays the night before games) with that being downtown.”

Rookie linebacker Terrell Bernard is from Houston and played college football at Baylor. He’s seen snow, but he knows he’s never seen what the forecast is calling for.

“No clue,” he said with a nervous smile. “The main thing they said was give yourself some extra time. The rookie staff, they kind of help us out a lot like getting our cars ready and making sure everything’s ready, but for the most part you got to just figure it out as you go.”

Rookie cornerback Christian Benford said he experienced a blizzard in his hometown of Baltimore and some snow at Villanova, but, “I don’t know about the inches that they’re talking about. They’ve prepped me pretty well and given me a good heads up of what’s going on. They helped me get a new car (an SUV); that was a big thing, getting a new car for the snow. Told me about the streets and what to get to help my driveway.”

There are only seven players on the current roster who were with the Bills in 2017 and experienced that wild game against the Colts — Shaq Lawson, Tre’Davious White, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Reid Ferguson, Matt Milano and Dion Dawkins.

The bulk of the rest of the team has played in occasional snowy conditions in the past few years, but nothing even close to that level.

Ferguson said of the Colts game, “Weather wise, it’s No. 1, and there’s not really a close second in terms of like the level of bizarreness, if that’s a word. Last year’s Monday night game against New England with the wind, that up there. But I would say the snow game is definitely No. 1.”

Ferguson said he has spoken to some of the newcomers and offered tips to guide them through what it will be like driving to practice the next couple days.

“Definitely talking to the young guys, making sure they know, ‘Hey, when you wake up in the morning your car might be under snow, you might have a couple inches on your windshield or a couple feet,” he said. “Making sure they leave yourself plenty of time. I guess a wakeup call would be the right way to put it, maybe a surprise to a few guys if this is their first winter here in Buffalo.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, McDermott said the Bills, the Browns and the NFL are monitoring the storm, but he said that as far as he knows, the game is still scheduled to be played at 1 p.m. Sunday in Orchard Park.

“Our team’s been in communication on that and I have no updates for you on that,” he said. “As far as I’m being told everything is heading towards normal game time, normal location. 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.”

Buffalo Bills injury update

Wednesday was a rough day for the Bills as they were unable to hold a typical practice due to injury and illness.

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds (groin), wide receiver Jake Kumerow (ankle) and defensive end Greg Rousseau (ankle) were all down because of injury, quarterback Josh Allen was limited due to his elbow, defensive end Von Miller, offensive guard Rodger Saffold were on veteran rest days, and fullback Reggie Gilliam, defensive linemen Jordan Phillips and Tim Settle, defensive back Cam Lewis and linebacker Matt Milano were all out sick, though McDermott said that wasn’t COVID-related.

“We’re going to adjust practice because we don’t have enough numbers to practice,” McDermott said before the session inside the fieldhouse began. “We’ll go out there and do some individual and then have to just service offense, service defense, so some of this is affected by that.”

Regarding Allen being limited, McDermott said, “It’s day by day. And I’m saying that not because anything’s changed, but we reassess and see where we’re at after today and what tomorrow looks like and how he is and maybe even what practice looks like.”

As for White, his continued inactive status has reached a puzzling point. He has been on the 53-man roster for three weeks now yet still has not played in a game. McDermott repeated Wednesday what he has been saying right along: “He’ll play when he’s ready.”

It just hasn’t made any sense, though. Why did the Bills activate him off the physically unable to perform list when they did, because once that happened, they had three weeks to put him on the 53-man roster or lose him for the entire season? He has taken up a roster spot since then and been deemed a game-day inactive each of the past three games.

“Next step is just getting him back ready to go,” McDermott said. “If this is the level that he feels like he needs to be at, then we’re working towards that. And I’m sure there’s not just conditioning but other things that factor into that. It’s like a team coming out of training camp, you’re trying to check enough boxes and then there’s still going to be a gap somewhere in there. And at some point, we’ve got to go.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.To subscribe to Sal's new twice-a-week newsletter, Bills Blast, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills preparing for snowstorm recall 2017 game vs Colts