Alaina GetzenbergJan 2, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseAlaina Getzenberg covers the Buffalo Bills for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2021. Alaina was previously a beat reporter for the Charlotte Observer and has also worked for CBS Sports and the Dallas Morning News. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.Follow on X
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The enclosed tunnel is 192 feet long and 23 feet side to side, marked by a gray concrete floor that exaggerates the many wheels and shoes that go up and down it.
The visiting team trudges equipment up and out, venturing the incline that can get slippery with inclement weather outside. Loud beeps accompany trucks or carts driving through. Entrances for the Bills’ equipment room, an officials locker room, access to news conference and photographer workrooms, and a drumline dressing room all live in this one space.
On non-game days, former Bills player Steve Tasker (1986-1997) described the differing environment, “You may as well be on the moon surface when it was empty. And then when you come out there and 80,000, it seems like you’re standing in a crowded room.”
This type of tunnel, with its size and singularity, is not expected to ever be seen again. Its functionality is no longer logical for the modern needs of a stadium.
There is some romance to this. Every player who has put on a Bills uniform since 1973 has walked down that tunnel. Countless Pro Football Hall of Famers along with all sorts of personnel. Concert acts, high school football players and hockey players — including for the inaugural NHL Classic in 2008 — have all taken the walk.
The nostalgia for the old is effusive. Memories of improbable wins, “The Comeback Game,” 1990s AFC championships, the “perfect” playoff game by quarterback Josh Allen against the New England Patriots. The new stadium will open with state-of-the-art amenities.
There will be plenty to bring across the street to accompany those new luxuries. The memories, the noise and electricity of the packed stands, the “Hey-Ey-Ey-Ey” chant to start games, and the “Shout” musical cue after every Bills score.
A building can represent so much more than a physical structure. In the new stadium, there will be multiple ways in and out. But the journey up and down the old tunnel will forever be a hallmark to those who experienced it.
Here are some of the stories of those who have stepped or even rolled through it, including former greats in Tasker and Jim Kelly, today’s players, the people who make things go on gameday, and those in the stands.
That proximity to the fans can be bittersweet. For some seasons, a canopy was placed over the tunnel from the garage door to almost field level toward the side the visiting team exited to add extra protection. The clips that kept it up remained on the wall long after.
“As you’re going out in or out of the tunnel, [the fans are] right over you,” former Bills kicker Steve Christie (1992-2000) said. “They’re literally right over you on either side. So, if you had a good game, you’d hear it, and if you had a bad game, you’d hear it.”
Former Bills player Lou Piccone (1977-82) doesn’t recall much conversation between teams during his time, outside of a bit of overspill postgame. “There was nothing said because you let action speak much louder than words. So both in and out, unless there was personal vendettas, I don’t think anything really got too close.”
The tunnel space right outside the Bills’ locker room turned into a “front porch” of sorts, as Tasker recalled, making it a meeting place for teammates and personnel.
Tasker got his introduction to Bills fans’ hatred of the Miami Dolphins in the 1970s and 1980s via the tunnel in Week 11 of the 1986 season, his first with Buffalo.
“You got people hanging over the side of that tunnel for the Dolphins. The place is packed, too, which back then, it didn’t happen very often. But they were screaming at the Dolphins players, man,” Tasker said. “They hated those guys. And I got caught off guard by that the first time it happened.”
“You always got the tenor of the game from the fans when you came down that tunnel,” Tasker said. “You always knew exactly where the fans were that day emotionally.”
Deep-seated animosity against the Dolphins has come into sharp focus over the years. Goalposts were once taken down by Buffalo fans after the Bills ended a 20-game losing streak against Miami to open the 1980 season, and in 1993, Dolphins linebacker Bryan Cox walked out of the tunnel with his middle fingers up after claiming fans threw batteries and was then the target of racist messaging. Cox was fined by the NFL for his actions.
Current Bills defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, who has experienced Highmark on visiting teams, noted how opponents can hear cheering from the opposite locker room.
The feelings toward opposing players are made clear in what former Bills quarterback and current Jets quarterback Tyrod Taylor described as a college environment and rowdy atmosphere. “As the away team, it’s not as welcoming, obviously.”
Jets defensive lineman and former Bills player Harrison Phillips is a fan: “In the new stadium, please don’t get rid of this. Because that is one of the most fun, chippy things — win, lose or draw. I love it. I know it’s like an operations nightmare, but it is fun to be jawing with people.”
“First time walking down that tunnel, knowing that I finally made it to the NFL,” Kelly said. “[My family] being out in the stands and knowing that dream came true to take care of mom and dad and make my five brothers proud of me, right there in the forefront.”
Kelly, in what became a superstitious tradition, would walk down the tunnel with Tasker before every pregame and warmup. If one wasn’t ready, they waited for the other.
When Sean McDermott became head coach in 2017, the whole team ran out of the tunnel together, per his instruction, breaking the tradition of recent coaching staffs. Calling names individually was then brought back over the years and is now a staple once again. The honor of hearing their name announced became an important moment for some players.
“I’ll miss the tunnel just because of just the tradition and me running out of my first NFL game and me, the first time I ever got announced as an individual, because in college we didn’t do it,” current Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White said.
“Certainly 1 o’clock Sunday afternoon in Orchard Park, coming down the tunnel and walking out on the field, and because I was a kicker … we were usually the first ones out of the tunnel, and just the feeling of coming out and being cheered on by the fans,” Christie said.
Senior vice president of venue operations and fan experience Andy Major remembered receiving a call from an executive in the ownership box asking how the field was being prepared to ensure the Bills and Colts could play. Major reassured them.
“I addressed it very confidently to give our ownership some confidence that, ‘Hey, we’ve got this under control,'” Major said. “And after I hung up, I was like, ‘We better figure something out,’ because I had no idea what we were going to do.”
The lines on the field were shoveled whenever possible with the assistance of 20 snow blowers, as the volume of snow was more extreme than other snowy days. The referees informed the teams that the game could be played only if the yard markers were clear, and the Bills, in the heat of a race to break an 18-year playoff drought, wanted the game played that day.
“We left warmups and you could still see the field,” current Bills long-snapper Reid Ferguson said. “It was snowing, but not hard. And we went, we came inside for, I don’t even know how long it is, 25 minutes or so, before we came back out for the anthem, and it looked like Hoth out of Star Wars.
“You couldn’t even see the scoreboard coming out of the tunnel. So, it felt like we were in a snow globe, honestly, is what it felt like.”
Current Bills defensive end Shaq Lawson has been involved in his fair share of altercations during his on and off years with the team, six in total. During a regular-season game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2018, Lawson and then-Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette broke into a skirmish. Lawson shoved a Jaguars player, which Fournette then responded to by shoving Lawson. Both were ejected for throwing punches.
Lawson had to be held back as the players reached the tunnel with members of their respective teams, and the Jaguars contingent stood to one side outside of the tunnel, waiting for Lawson to walk up first.
“The tunnel is very interesting,” Lawson said. “You don’t know what you’re going to get from the tunnel, but it’s always good vibes. We all in the same tunnel. We go in the same tunnel, so it could be a fight.”
Fournette was suspended for the Jaguars’ following game for fighting. Lawson and Fournette became Bills teammates in 2023 and immediately took a video together saying that they were not “beefing” anymore.
“I love it. Cause the boys be talking junk,” Lawson said. “Come on, locker room, in the tunnel, your helmet off. Talk junk now. … That’s why I always leave my helmet on the sideline. I love leaving my helmet on the sideline, halftime, walk out and just talk junk.”
“I got fined for fighting in the tunnel because of a structure layout that somebody planned for the stadium. If they would’ve did a better job planning and directing traffic, none of that would’ve happened,” Dawkins said.
His most notorious fight in the space took place in 2023, with Jets defensive lineman Micheal Clemons. The fight started with the pair going back and forth on the field in the fourth quarter, an exchange Dawkins allegedly began because Clemons was trash-talking quarterback Josh Allen during a TV timeout.
After the timeout, Dawkins and Clemmons met on a run play, with Dawkins jumping on Clemmons, claiming he didn’t hear a whistle. Clemmons shoved Dawkins back to the ground after both got up. The left tackle was fined and penalized for unnecessary roughness.