BLIZZARD IN BUFFALO MEANS STEELERS MUST ADJUST TO NEW PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
The Steelers’ playoff matchup with the Bills has been postponed to 4:30 p.m. Monday due to extreme winterweather in Buffalo, N.Y.
The schedule change was announced by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday, a little more than 24 hours before the original kickoff time of 1 p.m. Sunday.
Forecasts call for blizzard-like conditions, making travel for both fans and the teams extremely difficult. Wind chills are expected to be in the single digits with 1-3 feet of snow expected to fall.
“Travel will be treacherous at times,” said Heather Kenyon, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Buffalo. “We have a winter storm warning in effect for the entire Western New York-Buffalo region and that starts 10 a.m. Saturday.”
Hochul also implemented a full travel ban in Erie County starting at 9 p.m. Saturday.
“The decision to move the game to Monday was made in consultation with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in the best interest of public safety, and with the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the region prepares for the storm,” the Bills stated in a release.
For fans, current tickets and parking passes will be valid for the Monday game.
The threat of the storm had been looming over the game all week. On Friday, the Bills actually offered anyone over the age of 18 a chance to help shovel snow out of the stadium for $20 per hour starting at 10 p.m. Saturday night, although the county’s travel banwould put an end to that.
The Steelers plan to fly to Buffalo on Sunday instead of Saturday, effectively bumping back their travel itinerary by aday. Otherwise, they’d be sitting around their hotel for an extra 24 hours and change. In addition, a “Steelers Road Warriors” event that was scheduled for Saturday night at Buffalo RiverWorks was canceled. And in related scheduling news, the Penguins moved their home game Monday from 6 p.m. to 1 p.m., which the team said was in response to the Steelers’ shift.
These types of fiascos aren’t new to the Steelers. In fact, they were part of the the most recent playoff game to get changed — a divisional round game against the Chiefs after the 2016 season, which was moved from the afternoon to night due to an incoming ice storm in Kansas City. That was also the last time the Steelers have won a playoff game.
A few years ago, in the season impacted by the pandemic, they were on edge multiple times to find out when they’d play. First they were dealt an unexpected and early bye, in Week 4, after practicing all week when their game at Tennessee was moved to Week 7 because of Titans testing positive for COVID-19. Then, they played a Wednesday afternoon game at home against the Ravens, giving them three games in 11 days.
All that led to Mike Tomlin’s famous “we do not care” line in response to the changes.
Even this season, they’ve been in circumstances in which they wouldn’t know the day, let alone a time, until about a week before the game. Tomlin was asked about playing Saturday in Baltimore for a must-win game in Week 18.
“We have no reaction,” Tomlin said then. “You give us a date, a time, a game location and an opponent, and we’ll be there.”
Well, they kind of got the courtesy he requests. They have it now. But it wasn’t exactly a lot of notice.
The Steelers are 9.5-point underdogs entering the weekend and have the worst odds to win the Super Bowl. They likely won’t have to change their weather-based game plan too much, as Monday’s forecast, according to AccuWeather, still calls for some snow showers and wind gusts in the 20-30 mph range in the afternoon-to-evening hours.