Bills vs. Raiders Will Pit Harvard Grads Against One Another

Sometimes in sports, different footnotes are bludgeoned to death with blunt instruments in long, drawn-out and painful fashion every time a player is mentioned. If you're a Syracuse basketball fan, you may have heard that Andy Rautins' father, Leo, played both for Syracuse and in the NBA. Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick, y'all. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, Buffalo Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard.

It's only hesitantly, therefore, that we bring up Fitzpatrick and his Ivy League pedigree here - but we do it because of the footnote to the already-bludgeoned footnote. The Oakland Raiders employ a Harvard grad, too; it's reserve defensive tackle Desmond Bryant.

Fitzpatrick graduated in 2005, and Bryant did the same three years later with a degree in Economics. The 6'5", 290-pound lineman went undrafted after graduation, but managed to crack Oakland's 53-man roster in 2009 and has appeared in 31 regular season games since. A year ago, he recorded 21 tackles and 2.5 sacks as a member of the team's very deep and talented defensive line rotation.

As intriguing as it'll be to see two Harvard grads competing against each other on the NFL gridiron, as The Harvard Crimson puts it: let's hope that the closest Bryant comes to Fitzpatrick on Sunday is in post-game handshakes.