Buffalo Bills fans shovel Highmark Stadium shirtless, slide down snow chute

Highmark Stadium needs a lot of snow maintenance before it can host fans, along with players, employees, media and more, for Monday’s Wild Card round matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers. Luckily, there were Bills fans eager to answer the team’s call for aid on Sunday. After waiting out an initial travel ban on the roads on Sunday morning, a brigade of fans showed up at Highmark Stadium with shovels in tow.

Although the Bills requested that shovelers come properly attired for the frigid temperatures, once fans got inside the stadium, all bets were off. Clips from the shovelers inside showed men going shirtless and sliding down the snow chute.

Buffalo bills fans shoveling inside the stadium 🏟️ getting paid $20 to do it. The bills stadium is in a residential neighborhood. So these guys walked there. Follow me for more cool posts pic.twitter.com/AYLAWPC3vc

— The wonder of it all (@wonderofitall7) January 14, 2024

The Bills offered $20 an hour to the shovelers if they could arrive with a photo ID on Sunday. Along with the $20/hour rate, the workers were also offered breaks in a warm area and complimentary food and drink.

Initially, the Bills wanted to get shoveling going on Saturday night but conditions weren’t safe. The team posted a video from down on the field last night and the gusts made visibility very poor.

Bills-Steelers game set following reschedule

The Buffalo Bills-Pittsburgh Steelers AFC Wild Card game will be played as scheduled Monday at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Originally, the game was slated for 1:00 p.m. ET Sunday, but a large snowstorm pushed the game back. Basically, travel conditions were not safe for all parties as the area was in a state of emergency.

But, things should be good to go tomorrow to play the final AFC game of the playoff weekend.

“Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says Bills-Steelers will be held tomorrow at 4:30p in Orchard Park as planned,” NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe tweeted. “New York Governor Kathy Hochul says conditions should be much better than would’ve been this afternoon. The temperature will be in teens but not as much blowing snow.”

The Steelers planned a flight to Buffalo following a team walkthrough at 12 noon on Sunday. They were able to make that flight, according to NFL insider Ian Rapoport.

In her speech earlier this week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul basically used the weather as an excuse to tell the Steelers fans to stay home, and decided to antagonize them even more by saying, “It’s going to be a tough game for you anyhow.”

On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report.