Rex Ryan Tells Team to Skip Practice and Play Golf

Allen Iverson infamously derided it as just “practice.” Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan commanded his team to skip it today and play golf instead.

The team, 9-7 this past season, has had a lot of time to play golf in recent years. The Bills last appeared in the playoffs fifteen years ago, when the Tennessee Titans cruelly sent them packing in the Music City Miracle.

The new coach for the Bills opted to use one of his ten allotted “organized-team activities” slots for his roster to attend Jim Kelly’s charity golf tournament. The Hall of Fame quarterback survived a cancer scare last year and remains perhaps the most popular athlete in Buffalo despite initially bolting to the USFL rather than playing along the Canadian border after spending his college years in Miami.

The sponsorship for the tournament, featuring a Caddyshack theme (Rex dressing up as Judge Smails or Al Czervik?), runs between $5,500 and $25,000. The tournament’s website describes what sponsors receive: “Each foursome is paired with a celebrity golfer, and at the Gala we offer a celebrity draft which gives all foursomes the opportunity to bid on a specific celebrity to golf with on Monday.”

Presumably, the golfers pay to play with the Bills rather than vice versa. Who’s buying a foursome with Richie Incognito?

For all that money, fat cats get a breakfast, booze, and a band. But they don’t get the sun. The forecast calls for rain and a high of 56 Fahrenheit.