The NFL closes shop

For years and years, the Super Bowl marked the end of a season and the beginning of a long, depressing slog through months of no football. The NFL juggernaut would consume us for 22 breathless weeks, gloriously crown a champion and then retire quietly to a summer of peaceful slumber, leaving in its wake the bloated portion of the NBA’s regular season and the terrible promise of baseball. Except for the exhilaration of March Madness (and, for the sleepy village of Indianapolis, the Indy 500), sports fans of old were thrust from football bliss into the sports deep freeze.

But that is no longer the case, and kudos go to the genius (and national obsession) that is the National Football League for so thoroughly and entertainingly manipulating the entire sports landscape. Nowadays, the warm touch of football is always gently caressing us. Football is the American sport, and has been for decades. The NFL could have comfortably rested on its laurels, cashed the checks and allowed us to languish through our summers without them. Of course they wanted more of our attention, and knew that we would happily lap up whatever they crapped out. Instead, they rolled up their sleeves and gave us a compelling, year-round epic.

The brilliance of the NFL season lies in the way in which it complements the best of other great sporting events, carefully doles out meaningful events and transactions, and pushes Major League Baseball even further from our consciousness (where I hope it starves to death, cold and alone). The Super Bowl falls on the first weekend in February, and afterward the league smartly pulls away from the spotlight, giving us a few weekends to repair our broken relationships and stretch our atrophied legs. The league cannily allows us to forget about football, but we are junkies, and within three weeks we start to get the craving. It is then, on Feb. 20, that the NFL drops the draft combine, and the excitement begins to build again.

At that point, the NFL cedes the limelight to March Madness—three weeks to distract us from our football separation anxiety. Then comes the NFL draft, a glorious two weeks in April during which literally every franchise can be justifiably excited by untapped potential. (Except for Jaguars fans. The draft is just another reminder that they are Jaguars fans.) Then there’s a quick few months for the NBA’s thrilling home stretch and legitimately awesome playoffs, and the NFL pops in again with the start of free agency and the froth of associated speculation. After that, fans have a few weeks to admire their teams on paper, and then it’s off to training camp. Cut to August and it’s time for the Hall of Fame game; the summer has barely started here in the Northwest and we already have real football (well, “real” football; it’s still preseason).

I’m writing this before the Super Bowl, and I’m already getting excited for all this stuff.

It’s totally amazing, and completely calculated. When a business like Wal-Mart implements a master plan to control us all and muscle out its competition, we are disgusted and repulsed. But we actually like the NFL, and their bid for our eyeballs and dollars has made them innovative, strategic and entertaining rather than gimmicky and transparently greedy. They allow their offseason to breathe and build excitement almost organically. They trust us to go outside during the summer and let our attention wander away from them—they even encourage it—and are always there with a hug and a draft pick when we come running back. Have a great offseason, everyone.