Jeff Mazurek, Bills' equipment staffers were unsung heroes during trying 2021 season

Whether it was the extreme cold for the playoff game against the Patriots, the crazy wind for the Monday night meeting against New England or rain that seemed to never end – home or away – the Bills couldn’t seem to ever catch a break.

As a result, Jeff Mazurek was an unsung hero.

Mazurek is the team’s director of equipment operations. He’s been with the team since 1997, and the native Western New Yorker said this past season provided the most challenging weather conditions of his career.

“Especially for home games,” Mazurek said. “I think it was the worst home-game weather we’ve had. I don't even know if there was a sunny day. The day before was always the nicest day, then you wake up and it's pouring out or the temperature drops.”

The Bills didn’t get much of a break on the road, either, especially early in the season. Each of the first two road games – at Miami and at Kansas City – featured heavy rain, necessitating a delay against the Chiefs.

“That game was wild,” he said. “I remember texting with coach (McDermott) and telling him I wouldn’t be surprised if we got delayed at some point. You could see the storm coming all day.”

In those situations, Mazurek plans ahead to make sure players have everything they need. That includes breaking in cleats, which could involve heating them up to stretch them out. In extreme circumstances, interns will even wear the cleats around the team facility to make sure they’re properly broken in for game day.

“It's a constant, day to day, checking the weather,” he said. “My assistants do a phenomenal job, whether it's gloves, cleats, apparel. Me and Coach McDermott's assistant, we kind of alert him of what's going on. That way we can prep if the weather is going to be bad out. If it will kind of be similar during the week to what it will be on game day, then we try to go outside or at least try to do a wet-ball drill inside if it's not raining out – as much as Josh (Allen) hates doing that during practice – just so the guys can get the feel for it. It's just constant communication with the whole support staff.”

Mazurek will also try to have the proper clothes picked out during the week so that players can wear them at least once during practice. That way, they’re not having to adjust to something they may not be comfortable in during a game. Before the Monday night game against the Patriots, for example, Mazurek had Allen wear a ski mask under his helmet, just to get the feel of it.

“Rain is worse than cold,” Mazurek said. “It’s even harder on the other end when we have to dry everything when we get back to the facility after a game. Keeping guys dry, their gloves, uniforms, socks or undergarments, it’s just a big challenge. It’s not just the players, too. Coaches and the other staff, we’ve got to make sure they’ve got the right jackets to wear.”

“With the wind, there's not much we can do. We've already got the heat benches out. At that point, you're at the mercy of the wind. With the cold, my younger assistants who have only been with us for a few years kind of laugh, because in our storage unit down in the stadium, I have so much old, cold-gear products that I've held onto. I'm not going to lie, some stuff probably goes back to the ’90s. I just save it.”

To get ready for the playoff game, McDermott dug deep into that stash.

“I told Spencer (Haws), my assistant who has been with me for a long time, ‘one day we're going to host a playoff game that's going to be cold. Being from here, we know it's cold in January and February,” Mazurek said. “We had to get the guys ready. ‘These are the shirts that we have,’ so they get comfortable wearing them for practice so when we go on Sunday, it's not the first time they're wearing it.”

That approach came in handy for a game that kicked off with a temperature of just 7 degrees.

“Our staff was fantastic tonight getting guys ready in preparation,” quarterback Josh Allen said. “Our whole (equipment) staff, they're on top of it. They're the best in the league, so I'm glad we have them, too.”

Allen used to wear a hand warmer, but Mazurek wanted to find a better alternative because, as a mobile quarterback, that provided another area for defenders to potentially bring Allen down. They came up with a creative solution, creating a jersey that had the hand warmers sewn in. That became so popular, safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, along with tight end Dawson Knox started wearing them.

“It’s about doing as much as we can to help these guys on the field in any way,” Mazurek said.

The preparation to face the Patriots started days before the game was played. Mazurek had daily meetings with the grounds crew to try and get a feel for what the turf conditions would be, so that players had the right cleats.

“They did a great job heating it up in the week leading up to it with heaters and tarps,” Mazurek said of the grounds crew. “The footing was pretty good. We knew the field was going to freeze over once the tarp was off. Then, as far as the gear, going through guys who don't wear sleeves, what's the warmest shirt that we have underneath that will help them? We busted out these old school, they look like oven mitts that we gave some of the linemen to wear on the sideline. They would come up to their elbows, just to kind of keep their hands warm.”

During the week, Mazurek and his staff cooked up a plan to freeze footballs overnight in an effort to mimic what Allen might have to deal with.

“That Monday or Tuesday, we were here until 5 or 6 o'clock trying to come up with ideas,” he said. “We came up with an idea on how to freeze them. Josh kind of looked at us (funny). … I think he used them for like 10 minutes. I don't think the ball ever got like that during the game.”

Mazurek, though, wanted to be better safe than sorry.

“We came up with one cool idea that I’m not going to share because I don't want other teams to steal our idea,” he joked. “It's what we do. Our main job is to keep not just the players, but the coaches warm. When they come up to us and say, ‘hey man, the stuff you gave me today, was awesome, I wasn't cold at all.’ At the end of the game, when we win, we want to know that we did a better job than their equipment staff, because our guys were warmer. We put in a lot of time. Obviously the season didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but those games that we did win, we feel like we helped out for sure.”

During game days, Mazurek’s staff is constantly on the move, getting jackets for players, providing hand and toe warmers as needed and being on the lookout for any equipment malfunctions.

It’s all a part of what goes into playing games in Buffalo in the winter.

“We had the craziest weather,” General Manager Brandon Beane said at his end-of-season press conference. “Whether it was Josh, keeping his hands warm, or all of our players. The field got frozen, we were trying to keep it tarped for that playoff game against New England and trying to make sure our guys had the right cleats. Those are things that people don't think about, but it's injury prevention and guys playing to their caliber and Jeff and his staff did a great job.”