It's another Saturday game at Bills Stadium, and fans will be there again.
The same general rules will be in place along with the same cap on attendance, roughly 6,700 people, at the playoff game versus the Baltimore Ravens.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office made the announcement Monday.
Earlier in the day, during his virtual State of the State address, Cuomo said he liked what he saw of last Saturday's experiment in fan attendance.
"Early indications are that it was a great success," Cuomo said.
The Bills on Sunday began selling tickets for the Ravens game, set for 8:15 p.m. Saturday, even before receiving the final OK from the governor's office for in-person fan attendance. The team announced Monday the game is a sellout.
"The energy is going to be incredible, and we're going to be as loud as we can," said Ashley Petty, a season ticket holder for six years who managed to grab two tickets to the Baltimore game.
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The team earlier had said that fans who saw Saturday's Colts game would not be eligible to buy tickets to a later-round playoff game.
North Buffalo resident Nick Phillips, a five-year season ticket holder, tried to get into both the Colts and Ravens games but didn't have enough seniority to snag tickets to either one. He said about 200 people were in front of him in the virtual queue Monday afternoon before he got a message from the team saying the Ravens game was sold out.
"We were close both times but not close enough," said Phillips, who is holding out hope the Bills can host the Cleveland Browns in the AFC championship game.
The state previously agreed to allow up to 6,772 fans to attend the game against the Colts, the team's first home playoff game in 24 years. Fans were barred from Bills Stadium because of Covid-19 concerns for the entire regular season.
Fans were required to undergo Covid-19 testing and arrive at Bills Stadium with proof of a negative test. A private company, BioReference Laboratories, conducted drive-thru testing in a stadium parking lot in the days before the game and will do so again for the Ravens game.
"The Bills' play on the field earned them an opportunity to play again this weekend, and their fans' behavior in the stands earned them another opportunity to watch them," Dr. Howard Zucker, New York's health commissioner, said in a statement.
Jeffrey Hammond, a state Health Department spokesman, said officials would closely monitor and follow up on any reported virus infections among fans who attended the Colts game.
"If any game attendees are found to be positive, DOH will initiate a rapid response that will include using information from the game such as seating charts and timed entry to identify and trace contacts," Hammond said in an email.
About 6,200 Bills-Colts tickets were offered to season ticket holders who had opted in for tickets this season, with the longest-tenured fans getting first crack at the tickets.
Just under 600 tickets were held for guests of players and team sponsors. The stadium typically can hold as many as 70,000.
State officials said 1.9% of Bills fans screened before the game tested positive, a rate well below that for the general population here.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said following Saturday's game that he understands things went well inside and outside the stadium.
Bills officials had said they would strictly enforce rules requiring mask wearing, banning tailgating and other health regulations.
"There were security guards walking up and down the rows all throughout the game," said Carli Zielinski, adding her husband, Josh, received warnings just for letting his mask slip off his nose.
Carli Zielinski said she didn't recover her voice until noon Monday and she's thrilled for this second batch of fans.
"It's so exciting that they will get to experience it," she said.
Leslie Wille, a founder of the Bills Mafia fan movement, also attended the Colts game.
"For possibly the first time since we've had season tickets (17 years) I didn't see anyone warned, reminded or ejected," she told The News. "Whether this is attributed to the fact that no opposing team's fans were in attendance, or people were just happy to be back, I don't know."
Wille added she thought the team could let even more people into the next game by opening up the 300 level to fans.
Poloncarz spokesman Peter Anderson said 10 fans were ejected from the game, but neither he, the Erie County Sheriff's Office nor the Bills would say why the fans were removed from the stadium.
Asked whether the county executive supports allowing Bills fans to return to the stadium, Anderson said in an email, "Safe to say that the county executive’s focus remains on response to the Covid-19 pandemic."
The organizers of Saturday's "Playoffs on the Patio" watch party that took over a prime stretch of Chippewa Street in downtown Buffalo want to get the city's permission to do it again for the Ravens game.
About 270 fans sat at round tables spread across Chippewa between Delaware Avenue and Franklin Street, which was blocked off to traffic, and drank and ate while watching the game on large-screen TVs at either end of the block.
Soho Buffalo owner Jay Manno told The News during the Colts game that he hoped to block off a larger section of Chippewa to accommodate more fans for the divisional round.
Michael DeGeorge, a spokesman for Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, said Monday: "We are pursuing conversations with the state and county to determine what is viable."
News Albany Bureau Chief Tom Precious contributed to this report.
