'Whatever you heard is accurate': Here's what Buffalo Bills players said about their new grass field

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WKBW) — It’s safe to say the grass inside the new Highmark Stadium is a work in progress. On Tuesday, the Bills played on their new field for the second time in four days. There weren’t nearly as many issues as in their preseason debut on Saturday, but it was still a topic of conversation for players afterwards.

“That’s above my pay grade, but whatever you heard is accurate,” outside linebacker Bradley Chubb said.

For those wondering, what we heard was that the field was a problem. Tim Graham from The Athletic spoke with a player after the game who said “the field is a** right now.”

On Tuesday, nobody we spoke with was quite as blunt, but they weren’t shy to voice their concerns.

“I think we can make some improvements,” wide receiver Joshua Palmer said. “I think the grass is definitely soft; it's plush, it feels great to break on. It just breaks up a little bit, so I think once we get that dialed in, it'll be money.”

“It's alright. It needs to be compacted a little bit more,” defensive tackle Deone Walker said. “My first impression was I didn’t like it, but it is coming up a little bit; we're gonna get it fixed.”

The playing field isn’t perfect, but everyone we spoke with agrees this is a good problem to have. They’d rather play on natural grass than turf, like what was inside the new Highmark Stadium.

“I love grass,” defensive tackle Deone Walker said. “I feel a lot better after we get done with practice being on grass than I do on turf, and that's the honest truth. Like, even when we go and practice in our indoor facility, and we're on the turf, like your knees hurt for a couple of days, your back hurts. I'm a real believer in grass.”

As for Christian Benford, he believes these are champagne problems that will work themselves out.

“It's a great field. I love the grass. I'm not too fond of the turf,” Benford said. “Like it had like a bunch of divots in there. You had to like stomp on it, and that was interesting. I never saw that before. I was like maybe it's just a new field or something. I don't know, you know what I'm saying? But I mean, shoot, we grew up on a dirt field, so like you just do one of these and keep it pushing, you know what I'm saying? I ain't spoiled.”