NFL offseason struggles
Ways to keep yourself busy until the regular season approaches
Photo by Jasen Vinlove
I watch as red and yellow confetti lingers in the air, slowly making its way down to the green football field that is littered with so many people. So crowded that you couldn’t even see the symbol in the middle of the field. The Kansas City Chiefs had just won Super Bowl LVII with a close score of 38-35.
I continued watching the TV as speech after speech was made by the players and coaches. Eventually, the program made it to the end, and the channel changed to the next one to play, which was just more news about the Chiefs winning.
I shut the TV off, as it was late and I needed to get to bed. As I lay asleep in my bed that night, I scroll through my Instagram feed. It’s covered in nothing but football posts, and I see Kansas City red over and over. I scroll and scroll and before I know it, 30 minutes have already gone by.
I wake up the next day, and it hits me.
What am I supposed to watch for the next 5 months?
Football season is officially over, and now everyone is in the off-season. A time that can be both good and bad. A time when many fans can either get some of the best football news ever for their team or have their hearts broken. Whether one of their best players gets traded or cut, or someone good is given a contract and is now on the team.
Off-season can also be a defining moment in some players' careers, such as whether they play for that same team next season or not. And if the player and team don’t come to an agreement with a long-term deal, then that player can take the franchise tag and stay for one more year, or not play and be a free agent.
But this type of news only happens so often. Other than all of that, NFL football during the offseason can honestly be one of the most boring things. There’s no football to watch, only training camp updates to keep you entertained. No Monday, Thursday, or Sunday night football. The indescribable feeling that I got every time football popped up onto the screen has momentarily disappeared .
One of the biggest issues I faced during the offseason is my fear of losing my passion for football. I fear that because I go so long without, suddenly it’s not something that I think about all the time. Whenever someone brings it up, I don’t get the same spark that I used to while talking about it. But when the season starts back up again, it always returns.
Here’s what I can recommend doing to keep yourself entertained while football is away until preseason.
One of the best ones that I’m sure a lot of people do is to go back and watch highlights. Highlights of either their favorite team or maybe just their favorite player. Create a video that you can pile all of these clips in. Edit it to how you want it to look, you can keep it for your entertainment or post it to social media and share it.
Look into attending a training camp if the team is near your area. If not, see if there is another way you can go. You’ll often see a lot of clips from practices in July with the teams.
Start looking more into the schedules for the regular season once it starts, and see if there are any games that you want to attend or you might be able to go to. Start making plans to go to an away game that could be far, if that’s something you want to do.
Buy any merch from your team! If there’s something that NFL fans know, it’s that sportswear is expensive. Pro shops tend to get busy during July, as that is when the training camp gets started. Just so things aren’t as busy, try going when off-season officially hits, or when your team is eliminated from the playoffs. Or maybe just an ending to the regular season.
Depending on when your team’s offseason starts, I know that it can seem like a long while for football to come back. It’s like when football starts, nothing ever goes by slow, it’s always fast. And before you can comprehend it, 18 weeks of football fly past you, and then before you know it we’re at the Super Bowl.
But when we don’t have football, time goes by slowly. The days still tick by, but not like they used to. We get to the point where we miss football so much, we’re excited by the thought of preseason.
And while it goes by slowly during this time, football always comes back just as fast as it ended.
Comments