Bills receiver Chris Hogan walked to stadium through five feet of snow

By Friday morning, Buffalo Bills wide receiver Chris Hogan had only some Greek yogurt remaining in his refrigerator and some protein in the cupboard. Like all of Buffalo, he'd been snowed in for a few days. "I was not prepared for this," Hogan told Yahoo Sports. And on Friday, he had to get to Ralph Wilson Stadium to get on a bus to catch a team flight. He had few options, so he decided to walk.

This wasn't any normal walk. It was through five feet of snow.

“My neighborhood was completely snowed in. There were no cars getting in or out. The only way to get to the stadium was to walk the roads,” Hogan said. “There were some tracks from four-wheelers and snowmobiles that I had to follow. So I went through that.”

Buffalo has taken a pounding over the past few days as record snowfalls have besieged the area. That led to the cancellation of all Bills practices Wednesday and Thursday as well as moving their game against the Jets from Sunday to Monday, and from Buffalo to Detroit. In order to catch the team flight to Detroit, Hogan had to walk through unplowed streets to get to the stadium.

He's one of the closest players to the facility, as it's normally a two-minute drive to the stadium, which also serves as the team's practice facility. But on Friday morning, Hogan walked 25 minutes with a packed gym bag on his back through the snow just to get to the stadium.

There were no snowshoes or boots on his feet. Just sneakers. Hogan laughed at his lack of planning.

He admits after his ordeal that “I didn't think it was going to be that bad." He saw snowplows stuck on the side of the road, unable to get through. The Bills played last Thursday night and then had film review the following day before taking off for the weekend. They convened on Monday for a walk-through session and then had all the practices for the rest of the week canceled due to the storm. On Thursday night, the team found out the itinerary for the next couple days including the time of the flight. Hogan was excited, he said, “just to see other people” after being snowed in for more than three days.

“Luckily I had enough food and water. If I had known all this, I would have been prepared,” Hogan said. “There's a lot of snow. It's going to take awhile for people to get back to normal, to get stuff cleared away.”

Hogan is no stranger to snow, growing up in Wyckoff, N.J., which routinely gets blanketed with snow and ice during the winter. He's used to seeing snow he says, “but not all at once like this.”

After their flight on Friday to Detroit, the Bills had their first practice in over a week at Ford Field, something they desperately needed not just physically but also mentally. Hogan's walk to meet up with the rest of the Bills may have been treacherous and cold but he had teammates who had to be equally creative.

“A couple guys had snowmobiles, a couple guys got snowmobiles,” Hogan said. “A couple guys were having to walk out then get rides. It was a crazy situation what with all the snow.”