By Knuckles Runyon
December 14, 2025
3:16 p.m.
Game over. Kansas City is eliminated from the playoffs. Holy Moly Cannoli.
3:14 p.m.
A man named Gardner Flint Minshew II throws an inexplicable interception when Kansas City is near game-tying field-goal range already.
3:07 p.m.
CBS shifts us to Kansas City. Perfect. There is 1:53 to play. The Chargers have also come back and now lead 16-13. Patrick Mahomes rolls out and throws an incomplete pass. He falls down; he's injured. He holds his knee. He leaves the game.
I root less for Los Angeles and more against Kansas City but, of course, you never root for injury.
3:04 p.m.
Time expires. Color analyst J.J. Watt, who is growing on me, says it: "What a game."
3:03 p.m.
First down. It's all over but the crying. Victory formation.
3:02 p.m.
All Buffalo needs to do is run out the clock. They are already in field-goal range. There is 1:38 to play. Third and 4.
3:01 p.m.
The apparent answer to Question No. 2 is also "no." Pats go nowhere. Bills turn them over on downs.
2:52 p.m.
Bills go three-and-out. It's talking to the TV time.
2:49 p.m.
Maye holds the ball too long. Sack. Three-and-out. In honor of the late Stuart Scott: Boo-Yah!
2:44 p.m.
There is 6:48 remaining with the Bills about to kick off. This will be a highly interesting series. How will Maye respond?
2:43 p.m.
The early answer to Question No. 1 is "no." Actually, the Patriots can't stop Allen and they also can't stop Cook, who runs another one in from 11 yards out. That's five straight series in which Buffalo has scored a touchdown.
2:38 p.m.
Josh Allen throws up on the sideline. I don't know what that's about. Yet he comes out onto the field for the next series.
2:36 p.m.
We've got our storylines for the 9:49 left in the fourth quarter:
- Can New England stop Superman Josh Allen?
- How will New England's precocious quarterback, Drake Maye, react when a high-pressure game is on the line in the fourth quarter?
2:34 p.m.
New England breaks another long touchdown run. The Buffalo lead evaporates.
2:32 p.m.
I needed to prepare and eat some food. Meanwhile, the Bills got the ball back again and, again, Allen throws a touchdown pass, his third of the game, on 3rd and goal from the 15 yard line. Bills up four. Wow.
2:04 p.m.
We have a game. It's 24-21 New England after Allen marches the team down the field again and this time James Cook runs one in (dives one in is more like it in an incredible display of body control).
1:46 p.m.
Possibly the Bills found a clue, defensively speaking, in the locker room at halftime. In their first drive of the third quarter the Patriots go 3-and-out. A third-down sack = encouraging.
1:40 p.m.
Three minutes and 31 seconds into the second half, Allen throws a touchdown pass of his own — his second of the game — to cut the Bills deficit to 10. Let's go!
1:36 p.m.
Speaking of hope, during halftime I checked in on the Chargers, who soon thereafter scored (on a touchdown pass by Justin Herbert) with five seconds left in the half. This cut their deficit to three points, as Kansas City leads 13-10.
1:22 p.m.
And — just like that — the Patriots march down the field and kick a field goal, as the first half ends. This sparks a feeling of despair.
1:14 p.m.
I root for Buffalo — I want either the Bills or the Detroit Lions to win the Super Bowl this year — because of Josh Allen. The Bills quarterback is a human race car: so thrillingly dangerous you can't look away.
Allen just threw a touchdown pass with two minutes to go in the half. This sparks a feeling of hope.
12:57 p.m.
Make that 238 yards (after a long touchdown run). A route may be in progress. It's 21-0.
12:56 p.m.
The fear going in was that the Buffalo defense is just not good enough to stop the New England offense. So far that fear appears to be justified. We're still mid-way through the second quarter and the Patriots already have piled up 186 yards.
12:38 p.m.
Part of the beauty of sports is that it's unscripted; you can be gripped by unfolding drama during a game in which you have few or no expectations. Unfortunately, the converse can also be true. You can get pumped for days to watch a game and then the score gets out of hand before halftime.
The Bills are already down 14-0. Ugh.
12:26 p.m.
That said, both of my teams are already down a touchdown. Sigh.
12:24 p.m.
It's not my intention to do play-by-play. I can't type that fast and I have to pee too often. Besides, you can find that elsewhere.
12:22 p.m.
It's hard to watch a game and not pull for one team over the other. During the noon-time games today I'm especially rooting for the Buffalo Bills (to beat the New England Patriots) and the Los Angeles Chargers (to defeat the Kansas City Football Team).
12:18 p.m.
During a time of personal recovery there is something especially attractive about the live reality show that is sports.
12:12 p.m.
I'm so jazzed to watch football this Sunday that I had this idea of live blogging. This might well prove to be an ill-advised experiment.
Masked Men
By Knuckles Runyon
October 31, 2025
Personally, I like my goalie masks simple. I'm talking Gerry Cheevers — before the stitches.
Now, I'm not a total goalie stick in the mud. I can go for some color. The recently departed Ken Dryden's classic Canadien red-blue-white face-shield was certainly tasteful.
But the masks these NHL goalies use today just don't do it for me. They've got their intricate paint-jobs — some of the lids on some of these backstops have symbols and holograms, maybe a talisman or two, the team mascot, pictures of their wife and kids — I mean, really, it could take you into the third period before you saw every detail. Then there's the goofy shape and the enormous size of these stormtrooper helmets; I get safety and all but good golly these goalies could fill half the net with their heads.
That aside, I got a kick out learning today the story of how it all began. Doug Favell, while playing for the orange-and-black-clad Philadelphia Flyers, was the first goalie to paint his mask when he colored his orange for a Halloween game in 1970. The kicker: He was inspired by the spirit of The Great Pumpkin. That's right, Charlie Brown — a boy with a melon no mask could have suited — started this whole mess of masked men we see between the pipes in the NHL today. Good grief.
