The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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O.J. Simpson erased from Bills’ new stadium — fans fight to put him back

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BS BULLETIN:

  • The Buffalo Bills left O.J. Simpson out of the new Highmark Stadium’s displays honoring franchise greats.
  • Former Erie County legislator Betty Jean Grant is leading a campaign demanding that Simpson’s name be restored.
  • Grant says the effort has collected nearly 5,000 signatures — and wants the Bills to explain what suddenly changed.

The Buffalo Bills have a shiny new stadium, a new place to honor the legends who built the franchise — and one very conspicuous missing name.

O.J. Simpson.

Now a group of Buffalo fans wants him put back.

Former Erie County legislator and longtime community activist Betty Jean Grant is leading an effort demanding that the Bills restore Simpson’s place among the franchise greats honored at the new Highmark Stadium. Grant says the campaign has collected nearly 5,000 signatures.

And she has a question for the Bills. What changed?

“What does not fit mean?” Grant asked, referring to the team’s explanation for excluding Simpson.

Grant pointed to Simpson’s 2,003-yard rushing season in 1973, his 1985 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the fact that Buffalo made him the very first member of its own Wall of Fame in 1980.

Most pointedly, Grant noted that Simpson’s name remained on the old stadium’s wall throughout the murder trial and the decades that followed.

“His name was on the wall for 46 years and now, it’s gone,” Grant told WBEN.

The Bills made the decision official in June as they prepared to move across the street into the new Highmark Stadium.

“We have made an organizational decision that he is not a fit to display inside our new stadium and Family Circle,” Bills President of Business Operations Pete Guelli said at the time.

The Family Circle is the new stadium’s outdoor area honoring prominent figures from Bills history.

Simpson won’t be among them.

He spent nine seasons with Buffalo and became the first NFL running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a season, gaining 2,003 yards in just 14 games in 1973. He was NFL MVP that year and entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

But Simpson’s football legacy was permanently intertwined with the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman.

A criminal jury acquitted Simpson of the murders in 1995. A civil jury subsequently found him liable for the deaths and awarded the victims’ families $33.5 million in damages. Simpson later served about nine years in prison after an unrelated armed robbery and kidnapping conviction in Nevada. He died in 2024 at age 76.

Grant isn’t arguing those events didn’t happen. She’s arguing that none of them prompted the Bills to remove Simpson’s name before now.

“O.J. is a big part of the Buffalo Bills’ history and will be forever,” Grant said. “You can’t change that.”

The dispute is getting fresh attention just as Buffalo opens the new stadium in earnest. The Bills host the Detroit Lions Thursday night in the first regular-season game ever played there.

Simpson’s records remain in the history books. His name just didn’t make the trip across the street.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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