Each NFL team has a couple of headlines or narratives attached to them… essentially at all times.
For the Buffalo Bills, here’s two: The team is going to start building a new stadium soon and it’s an organization that has been close to making a Super Bowl that past few years.
ESPN NFL insider Dan Graziano combined those two and created an interesting twist this week.
Last week, the NFL’s 2022 combine went down in Indianapolis. While there, Graziano discussed the “buzz” going on from around the NFL and the Bills had some attached to them–you guessed it, involving these topics.
Recent reports suggest that an announcement could soon come which confirms a new stadium will be built for the team in Orchard Park. The site and some details have been made public already, now we’re waiting on the finances to be agreed upon.
Involved in that will be taxpayer money. If the community needs to fork up a nice chunk of dollars for the construction, a “distraction” could happen around the same time that’s announced, Graziano suggested.
Something like a “big-splash move” which keep the team in Super Bowl contention, and maybe even gets them there.
Here’s how he explained it:
Buffalo Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula were visible presences at the combine, and that team could make a big off-field headline in the next couple of weeks regarding a deal with Buffalo and Erie County for a new stadium.
That project would include a great deal of public financing, which is one reason a lot of people here are eyeing the Bills as a team that could make a big free-agent splash. Billionaires asking the taxpayers to help fund their new stadiums is a tough proposition all the time, but if you’re going to do it, it’s best to keep enthusiasm for the team as high as possible.
The Bills have been knocking on the Super Bowl door the past couple of years, but don’t rule out a big-splash move aimed at getting them over that hump and making sure Bills fans’ excitement remains at a froth.
If the team does take such a route–Could you blame them?
Easier to ask for money when you can see results in front of your face.
A new addition, whether in free agency or via a trade by the Bills, would distract from a stadium agreement.
The stadium dollars would be celebrated a bit since Buffalo would like to keep their team. Naturally, fans would want to do so in the cheapest way possible.
If it’s going to cost something, which it will, how about an elite pass rusher? A top-tier playmaker for quarterback Josh Allen sound good?
You get the picture and it’s something that might be a reality western New York has to soon face–on both fronts.
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