Fans will be required to wear masks and abide by social distancing guidelines in Bills StadiumGETTY IMAGES
Saturday's Colts-Bills Wild Card game at Bills Stadium "will be a game like no other" for the 6,772 fans allowed in at the team's first home playoff game in 24 years, according to Georgie Silvarole of the ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE. The stadium "will be about 9% full." All attendees were "required to get a COVID-19 test in Orchard Park earlier this week, which they had to pay $62 for." Attendees will be "required to wear masks and abide by social distancing guidelines in the stadium," and on top of everything, there is "absolutely no tailgating allowed in either public or private parking lots outside the field." Silvarole: "If you're picturing a sea of people playing flip cup, smashing through plastic tables and all the other beloved Bills Mafia nonsense, none of that's going to be allowed or encouraged at all on Saturday." Bills VP/Communications Derek Boyko: "There is no tailgating or loitering permitted in the parking lots or any area of the stadium grounds. Once parked, fans should proceed to their assigned gate at the assigned time for stadium entry. That is our message." The Erie County Sherrif's Office and the Orchard Park Police "will be enforcing the no-tailgating policy in both the stadium and private parking lots" (ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE, 1/8).
PLAYING BY DIFFERENT RULES? A Jamestown POST-JOURNAL editorial wrote fans will pay for their own testing, but the problem "isn't who's paying for the tests," the problem is the "use of the tests for a football game when there are other uses for those tests by people who couldn't care less about football." Could rapid testing "allow people to mourn loved ones at a grave site?" Could rapid testing "be a way for families to visit loved ones at nursing homes or hospitals?" The editorial: "Why are the rules different?" (Jamestown POST-JOURNAL, 1/7).
