Ray Davis (kind of) gets in a fight in the Hard Knocks finale

This all started so well. HBO’s Hard Knocks got rolling with back-to-back episodes taking close looks at Kentucky’s former standouts in Buffalo, the first highlighting rookie expectations for first-round pick Maxwell Hairston and the second showing off Ray Davis‘ unknown kicking talents. Deone Walker didn’t get a standalone feature like the other two, but he had plenty of cameos to make his presence felt — and his preseason production did a lot of the heavy lifting there anyway.

Episode three was where things started slipping, though. The highlight (if we want to call it that) was Hairston having to watch two-time Pro Bowl corner Tre’Davious White wring out his sweaty socks and talk about the connection between “the rookie and the vet.” You got to see Walker wreak havoc in the backfield, but it came in a 38-0 loss, so it didn’t mean much. And that was it.

As for episode four, it was a good thing you didn’t see much of Davis, Hairston or Walker — because the whole show was about fringe roster players fighting for their NFL lives. The former Wildcats were safely in, Davis even included in a segment about how “a couple of great plays” could help you “make the team,” as narrator Liev Schreiber described it. Hairston got his own mini-segment, but he was just talking about White’s leadership. No news was good news.

How did things go in the episode five finale? Eh. Call it an extension of last week — although Ray Davis was in the middle of a dust-up in practice, if that helps? Don’t set your expectations high, folks. I’m only doing this because I’m not a quitter and KSR finishes what it starts, even if it means rambling for a few hundred words about a few small cameos on HBO. If we’re going to do it for the first four weeks, we’re doing it for the fifth week, too.

Let’s get started, shall we?

The first Wildcat appearance comes during a team dinner with the defensive linemen the night before cut day. Casey Rogers, who was let go, shared his appreciation for the position group and how much he enjoyed his time in Buffalo — no matter what was going to happen over the next 24 hours.

Walker was sitting next to the defensive tackle during the heartfelt speech.

Shortly after, all three Wildcats are shown in the crowd of the post-cut team meeting — Davis in the upper-left, Walker in the middle and Hairston in the far right.

Riveting stuff, right? It gets (slightly) better.

Newly signed defensive tackle Jordan Phillips was battling in the trenches when Davis ricocheted off a tackler and smacked into the veteran’s chest. Phillips responded by sending him to the ground, leading to Davis bouncing up and defending himself in the defender’s face.

“Are you ******* serious? Are you serious? Are you serious?” Phillips said once the Buffalo offense came to Davis’ defense.

“Nah, nah, nah. You’re big as ****,” a teammate responded. “You’re already out there starting ****, bro?”

Tre’Davious White asked Phillips about the moment shortly after.

“You’re always trying to fight somebody.”

“I didn’t try to fight nobody, he spun into me,” he responded. “The running back, I don’t know who it was.”

“Don’t be fighting on your first day out here,” White said. “I’m too old to come out there and help you.”

Davis is hard to see and it really wasn’t much, but hey, nobody messes with a former Kentucky star.

Elsewhere, that’s basically it. We saw other players line dancing at bars, getting cut and re-signed to the practice squad, NFL Network interviews, car shows, hot sauce testing, veterans feeling grass between their toes and bloopers. Nothing when it comes to the BBNFL members we all watched the series for.

Oh well, this season was more than anything we’ve ever gotten from the series in terms of former Wildcats, so we’re grateful for it.

More next year, please, HBO? Time to see what these guys can do on the field with regular-season action starting this week.