The Buffalo Bills have made their call on OJ Simpson, and it is a firm no.
When the Bills open the new Highmark Stadium this fall, there will be no mention of Simpson anywhere on the property. No display, no Wall of Fame plaque, no reference at all. The team confirmed the decision in a Saturday statement.
“We have made an organizational decision that he is not a fit to display inside our new stadium and family circle,” said Pete Guelli, the Bills’ chief operating officer, in a statement to WIVB.
Simpson was the first player ever inducted into the Bills’ Wall of Fame at the old stadium. That fact alone shows how big his football legacy was in Western New York. He rushed for over 11,000 yards in a Bills uniform, broke the single-season 2,000-yard barrier in 1973, and was a centerpiece of the team’s identity for nearly a decade.
Then came the 1994 murder trial. The Bills, like the rest of the NFL, slowly distanced themselves from Simpson over the next 30 years. The Wall of Fame plaque stayed because removing it would have created a media event nobody wanted. But the franchise quietly moved on.
Simpson died in 2024. That gave the Bills a natural reset point. The new stadium opens this fall. There was never going to be a better moment to draw the line and move forward.
The decision is not really about football. Everyone who watched him play knows what Simpson did on the field. He was a Hall of Famer in every sense, and that part of his record is in Canton, not Orchard Park. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has not removed him either, and the Bills are not pretending he did not exist.
What they are doing is choosing not to celebrate him inside their new home. That is a meaningful gesture for a fan base that has had to navigate decades of complicated feelings about one of its all-time greats. The 1994 trial, the civil verdict, the 2008 prison sentence for armed robbery, and the long pattern of legal trouble all weighed on the team’s reputation.
It also shows how much the franchise has changed under the Pegula ownership group. The Bills today are about Josh Allen, the Super Bowl chase, and a fan base that has been through too much to be defined by one figure from the 1970s. The new stadium is supposed to be a fresh start.
Some older fans will not love the decision. They grew up watching Simpson in red, white, and blue. They saw him become the first 2,000-yard rusher. To them, his football accomplishments stand on their own. There will be a Walt Disney version of this argument from former teammates and old beat writers, and that is fine.
But the franchise made its call. It is not unreasonable. Sports organizations get to decide who they want to honor in their own building. Simpson’s football legacy will live forever in record books and at the Hall of Fame. It just will not have a place at Highmark.
The Bills will open the stadium in the fall against a major opponent. Allen will lead the charge. Nobody will be talking about OJ Simpson on opening day. That, in the end, is exactly what the team wanted.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
