As the Super Bowl approaches tomorrow, I can’t help but think of the implications of this weekend. I don’t mean the outcome of the game or anything of historical significance. No, quite simply, tomorrow is both the best and worst day for every football fan. The best, because this game is what we’ve been building up to for weeks, if not all season. This game is so much fun to watch, to enjoy. The food, the drinks, the atmosphere this one event creates. It’s great. It’s immensely enjoyable, as anyone who’s been apart of it can tell you.
There is however, a big of a grey cloud that hangs over this glorious occasion. That is, of course, knowing that when that final whistle blows, the NFL season is officially done, and we get no more real football until the end of summer. That’s rough. Almost half a year to sit and wonder if your team is going to be able to improve (unless you happen to be a fan of the team that won the Super Bowl, in which case you get to celebrate a bit), or if you’re a Browns fan, you get to start the long process of talking yourself in to hoping for next season.
The NFL offseason is an interesting thing. Football is our nations biggest sport, so the good news is that even though the season ends, football has a way of sticking around throughout the year. Shortly after the Super Bowl, we get to the draft and free agency. Draft coverage and speculation is intense and ever present, and the draft itself is a really fun even to watch play out (as long as your team doesn’t obviously blow it by drafting a clearly bad option, *cough* Weeden *cough*). Things die out a bit over the summer, but in August we get in to camps and finally those awful preseason games. But, even if preseason football is both awful and generally gives a terribly deceptive peek at teams actual playing ability, it does have fun story lines (QB competitions every season if you’re a Browns fan). Also, you know that in a few short weeks, the regular season will return and give Sundays meaning again. Oh, I mean, church is cool on Sundays too.
Anyhow, fear not Browns fans. Enjoy this game. Send wave after wave of negative thoughts and woeful energy at the hated Ravens. Hope for Ray Lewis to grow an 8 point rack at halftime, Joe Flaccid to throw 9 picks and no TDs, and Ray Rice to stub his big toe (I really hate when that happens). Because if the Ravens lose this game, they’ll have to stew in that disappointment all offseason. Couple that with us keeping fArt Modell out of the Hall of Fame again, and it’s not a bad end to the season for Browns fans.
And, next season is only a few months away…
Dawg Pound Nation 