The Bills are moving into a brand-new stadium this season, and they’re leaving part of their past in the rearview.
The team will not honor O.J. Simpson at Highmark Stadium in Western New York as part of the team’s family circle area outside the venue, the team confirmed in a statement Saturday.
“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 in a statement.
The family circle area will include American bison statues and plaques to honor past greats who donned the blue and red.
Simpson, who died two years ago, spent nine of his 11 years in the NFL with the Bills, leading the league in rushing four times, including the 1973 season in which he eclipsed the 2,000-yard plateau.
His on-the-field achievements that led to his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame have been infamously overshadowed by the murder “trial of the century” in which he was accused of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in the summer of 1994.
While Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in the high-profile case in Los Angeles, he was found liable in a civil trial in 1997 for the deaths.
He was ordered to pay $33.5 million to both Brown and Goldman’s families.
He later served nine years in prison over a robbery and kidnapping case in 2007, when he busted into a Las Vegas hotel room to confront memorabilia dealers.
He was released from prison in November 2017.
Simpson, who maintained his innocence in the murder case, died in April 2024 after a battle with prostate cancer.
He was 76 years old.
Through this, Simpson, the team’s first Wall of Fame honoree, was kept in his place at the team’s old home in Orchard Park.
ESPN reported that the Bills were considering honoring Simpson at the new stadium this spring.
The Bills will play their first regular season game at Highmark Stadium on Sept. 17 against the Lions.
