Chris Russo and Stephen A. Smith call out Bills ‘Hard Knocks’: ‘Is it Soft Knocks or Hard Knocks?’

First Take‘s ‘”What are you mad about?” segment almost always delivers something of note. The weekly Wednesday segment in which Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is given five to 15 minutes to rant about whatever he wants while his colleagues watch with bewilderment and/or amusement from a distance is generally a can’t-look-away crowd-pleasing segment that reliably leads to viral clips and likely keeps people tuned-in versus other segments.

In addition to rants about the Yankees bullpen usage and later public transportation in New York, Russo threw some shade at NFL Films and HBO on the lack of introspection to the Bills’ heartbreaking AFC Championship game loss to the Chiefs during the season premiere of Hard Knocks on Tuesday. In true Russo fashion, he did not hold back in his disappointment.

“You can’t do an hour on the Buffalo Bills in Rochester and about Buffalo, the Buffalo mafia and everything else, you have Williams, a quarterback there, the coach there. You got the GM there, and NOT get into last year’s fourth and one against the Chiefs okay?” he said. “The nation has not seen the Buffalo Bills since that play, January 25th at Arrowhead, when they lost to the Chiefs. Not the first, second, third, for the fourth time in the playoffs! This is the AFC Championship game!

“Dalton Kincaid also had a huge drop in this game…. fourth down…. remember that? Didn’t see that. Here’s the fricking play! He dropped that pass. We didn’t get any indication there.

“So you got HBO, this is the first show of the episode. I don’t want to see it late-August, I want to see it now! This is a first time I get a look at the Bills this year. I got to see somebody, McDermott, Josh Allen… what happened at the fourth and one sneak? Did you not sleep for two weeks? Dalton Kincaid, you dropped the pass! That’s lousy TV. I’m a sports fan. You want me to watch the Bills on August 5th? You got to at least close what happened last year! A horrific job! I’m not the only person who thinks this. Ask the tough question on fourth and one!”

Louis Riddick pushed back that this that going through last year’s disappointment and aftermath wasn’t necessary, but Molly Qerim disagreed saying we have to go behind the curtain. Stephen A. Smith further disagreed with Riddick, chiming in “Is it ‘Soft Knocks’ or ‘Hard Knocks?'”

Ouch.

While Russo’s rants can often be askew and over the top, he does have a valid point here. The Bills’ season once again ended in heartbreak.  Pulling back the curtain on how the team and key people dusted themselves off from that heartache is a huge part of this year’s teams narrative. Maybe it will come in time, but Chris Russo wanted it YESTERDAY and he probably has a point.