For the 15 or so teams who enter Week 17 already eliminated from the playoffs, the final Sunday of the regular season offers a choice: either step up and play with some pride, or check out and give up early. The Buffalo Bills, having already seen their head coach get the ax, apparently decided on the latter option.
The New York Jets throttled the Bills 30-10, with the final humiliation coming with less than four minutes remaining in the game. A routine kickoff turned into a catastrophic vapor lock on the part of the Bills’ special teams.
Even pee-wee football players understand what happens on onside kicks: as long as a kickoff travels 10 yards, it’s a live ball. That also applies if the ball travels 65 yards, as it did in this instance. The Bills’ deep men simply watched the ball drift their direction, skip past them, and roll into the end zone … whereupon only the Jets’ Doug Middleton had the presence of mind to fall on it.