The 82-Yard Punt

So, the Bills are looking for a punter.

Won’t be me.

I couldn’t kick a football out the room I’m sitting in. I have zero clue how anyone ever kicks one!

As a matter-of-fact, back in 1997, I worked with about 700 other guys at the rehab of the Bills Stadium and towards the end of the job the Bills let all the workers go to the field and attempt to kick a 35-yard field goal. 

A couple of hundred of us lined up to take one kick at it. I was about tenth in line. To the never-ending joy of some of the guys I worked with, my attempt was a little short.

The ball stopped spinning somewhere near the 25-yard line.

One guy. One! Made it through the uprights!

But this isn’t a kicking story.

It’s a sad, tragic, horrific story.

The Bills are searching for a punter because the guy they drafted to do the job was let go on Saturday because there are very credible stories out there about the rape of a minor.

A gang rape.

That is sad enough, but you know what’s worse?

Bills fans actually defending the dude!

“Why was she showing up to a party drunk when she was a minor?”

To even ask that question takes a special kind of man. Should the penalty for being drunk and underage be a gang rape?

“Sounds like a money grab. They should keep him on the team until he’s found guilty!”

1). The victim in the case immediately went to the police. The day after the encounter. That hardly seems to be an attempt to blackmail someone.

2). The public outcry of having someone accused of such a horrific crime is certainly not something an employer wants or needs.

I asked a president of a company what would happen at his company in such a situation.

“Immediate dismissal,” he said.

The Bills had to cut him.

Yet they aren’t off the hook either. They claimed to have done an ‘exhaustive’ search into the background of the men they drafted.

There was a news article about the alleged rape about six months before they drafted the guy.

The attorney for the victim stated that the Bills have never once tried to reach out.

‘Exhaustive?’

But in the end, he’s gone from the team, and most likely his promising career is over before it started.

(Although he will probably end up kicking in the league someday after his apology tour and rehab stint).

But the fans are still mad!

“He kicked the ball 82 yards! That gold digger robbed us of the best punter in the game!”

Nauseating!

Certainly I could never fathom kicking a ball 82-yards, but you know what?

I don’t find that something that should be admired.

Especially when the leg that kicked it is attached to someone with an allegedly empty head.