BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills’ wild-card playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers that was scheduled for Sunday was moved to Monday amid a forecast for dangerous winter weather, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Saturday.

Hochul and other officials said they were making the change for safety’s sake. “We want our Bills to win, but we don’t want 60,000 to 70,000 people traveling to the football game in what’s going to be horrible conditions,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference in suburban Buffalo.

Because the NFL playoffs are reseeded after the wild-card round, the Ravens won’t know their opponent until the outcome of Bill-Steelers is decided. The No. 7 Steelers could knock off the Bills, who are the No. 2 seed.

Baltimore, the No. 1 seed, will host the lowest remaining seed in the AFC at M&T Bank Stadium next weekend for the divisional round.

Earlier in the week, Ravens coach John Harbaugh said his staff will start preparing based on the outcome of Saturday’s game between the No. 4 Texans and No. 5 Browns. Kickoff is 4:30 p.m.

“Then, if it changes, then we’ll resnap into action for the new opponent,” he said.

Harbaugh suggested there might be a benefit to playing the Steelers, the opponent the Ravens faced in the last game of the regular season. Baltimore lost 17-10, but the Ravens also rested a handful of starters, including quarterback Lamar Jackson, with the No. 1 seed secured.

New York officials advised residents to stay off the roads starting at nightfall Saturday, with a driving ban taking effect at 9 p.m. The game will be played at Highmark Stadium at 4:30 p.m. Monday instead of 1 p.m. Sunday.

Hochul said she started talking with the NFL on Thursday about the possibility of having to reschedule the game. From her hometown of Buffalo, she closed her news conference by saying, “Go, Bills.”

The NFL and Bills issued a statement citing “public safety concerns” as the reason to push back the game a day.

The forecast for the Buffalo area called for heavy snow and winds gusting as high as 65 mph Saturday, with 1 to 2 feet or more of snow piling up. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning lasting through 7 a.m. Monday, saying “travel will be very difficult to impossible at times,” with the combination of snow and very strong wind causing near-zero visibility.

Much of the storm was expected to be concentrated in a narrow band of lake-effect snow hovering over Buffalo’s southern suburbs, which include the Bills’ home in Orchard Park.

The Steelers have pushed back their travel plans and will head to Buffalo on Sunday.

The Bills are familiar with weather-related schedule changes. In 2022, a lake-effect storm led to Buffalo’s home game against Cleveland being moved to Detroit in November. A month later, a massive storm delayed the Bills’ trip home, forcing them to stay overnight in Chicago on Christmas Eve.

Baltimore Banner editor Brandon Weigel contributed to this story.