The Buffalo Bills announced Saturday afternoon that they will be holding a portion of their 2022 training camp at St. John Fisher College.

This will be the first time the Bills have been back at the Pittsford campus since the summer of 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic kept the team in Orchard Park in 2020 and 2021.

“We’ve always enjoyed the set-up there and Sean and I both are strong believers in the camaraderie that you get and the bond you can build,” general manager Brandon Beane told the team website. “Guys aren’t feeling the pressure to get home or anything like that, and that’s important.

“Obviously, we’re getting ready on the field, but the trust that you build up with your teammates and coaches and staff is just as important, especially when you hit the rough patches, which every team hits at some point during the season.”

Earlier this week at the NFL Scouting Combine, both Beane and coach Sean McDermott addressed with reporters the talks that had been ongoing between the team and college officials.

“That’s certainly been talked about of going back to camp at St. John Fisher, and we’ll see where that goes,” McDermott said. “There’s pros and cons to both, really. I think we’ve documented those over the years and so we’ll just see where it goes.”

The contract between the Bills and Fisher expired during the pandemic, so it was always possible that the team would not return. The Bills conducted the last two camps at their home facility in Orchard Park, and didn’t miss a beat as they won the AFC East division title in both years.

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The comforts of home are obvious, not the least of which is sleeping in their own beds, plus having the use of the state-of-the-art strength and conditioning facilities there. However, they will likely only be in Pittsford and having to sleep in dorm rooms for a couple weeks.

This is a one-year deal, and this was something Beane talked about at the Combine, too. The Bills could get into a situation where they have camp in Pittsford one year, then go back to Orchard Park and perhaps continue rotating.

“(Fisher is) an easy one in the sense that we kind of know that set up; it’s not home, but it’ll feel like home,” Beane said. “If we were going somewhere totally new, I would want to say, ‘Hey let’s don’t just do this for one year and then leave.’

“But at this point, let’s say we went (to Fisher) this year, we could go up this year and then say, ‘You know what, let’s try it back (in Orchard Park) next year.’ We know that we can be successful doing it at Fisher. We also know we can be successful staying home in Orchard Park.”

The NFL just announced on Thursday that it is eliminating all COVID protocols, and that likely played a factor in signing the deal with Fisher because now fans will be able to attend the practices without proof of vaccination.

“We’ll also be able to have fans this year,” Beane said. “It doesn’t really work at Orchard Park, and we missed that the last two years as well. So, it gives our fans a chance to be up close and watch us get started in camp. We’re very excited that they’ll be able to come watch us practice. It’ll be a chance for us to, after two years away, kind of go back and get that true away training camp feeling.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills training camp returning to St. John Fisher College