The Dreaded Hair Injury

The Revolutionary writer Thomas Paine once said, "The living public feels first and reasons afterwards." This sentiment was later revisited in the first Men In Black film when Will Smith's character argues that people are reasonable and capable of handling the truth and Tommy Lee Jones character argues that perhaps they are on an individual basis but as a whole we are prone to hysteria. I may have paraphrased a bit there. My point is that the script for Men In Black clearly plagiarized Thomas Paine during the Revolutionary War.

Oh wait, that wasn't my point at all. My point was football related. (Naturally)

Today during the course of a magnificent Bills victory over a rival (the Jets), our boy Trent went down with a concussion. His poor Stanford-educated brain. I hope it's okay.

I'm not going to pretend that concussions aren't scary and serious. The New Yorker recently published an article citing the effects of injuries in the NFL, and concussions are a very big deal. But I think it's safe to say that the Bills nation has peaked on hysteria.

Our back-up QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick, came in and played reasonably well, and we won. It's only our second win of the year. Sad, I know. Anyway, back to my original point. Since Trent's been playing so poorly as of late ( I actually have a theory as to why but I've chosen not to share it since no one cares), and our back-up Fitzpatrick played in a game we won, many in the Bills nation are calling for Fitzpatrick to replace Trent. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Trent should retire before he gets another concussion. He's 25; clearly retirement is inevitable. Too many concussions can have a devastating effect, and this is his second one in the NFL. (He got the one pictured above last September)

While I'm sure that some of those calling for retirement could geniunely be concerned about his well-being, I guess my issue with the hysteria is that it shows a lack of patience. Some of the best minds in professional football have gone on record as saying it takes about three years for a quarterback to develop (learn his job) in the NFL, and Trent's only in his second year as a starter. I realize that I lose a lot of credibility here because I've also gone on record as saying how hot I think Trent is, but for those of you who don't know, the Bills organization has a habit of quitting on quarterbacks before they are developed, and I fear that the lack of patience will cause them to quit on Trent too soon.

Two weeks after last year's concussion, Trent gave this press conference (pictured here) and then took to the field against the Chargers and had what was arguably his best professional game to date. So let's just take the hysteria down a notch or two and see what the boy brings when he gets back onto the field. He's a good quarterback. I believe.

In the meantime, let's hope that Fitzy can hold down the fort and if Fitz turns out to be an incredible quarterback and leads us to the postseaon, I will do the following three things: 1) I'll eat my words about how only cute boys make good quarterbacks; 2) I'll learn to love him; and 3) I'll watch press conferences with my eyes closed.