Every New Year starts this same way.
I’ve been chasing NFL stops since mid-August. From time zone to time zone, hot to cold weather, one challenge after another.
Then, it stops.
Doesn’t slow down and finish — it just stops.
Every year, we finish the regular season and take a weekend off while the playoffs begin.
Every other year, we get one last game as our crew gets a playoff assignment.
Not this season. This is that every other year when we are just done.
We had a fantastic last six weeks. We had playoff-level teams and great games.
But, we are still done.
So I just hopped in the car and drove to Cincinnati to do a college basketball game.
Sure, there was a Pacers game and some high school action to fill out the schedule, so that was good, but the NFL is finished for this guy for another season.
I do have some possible playoff action, but it depends on a team winning and/or going on the road, which is always an “iffy” setup.
I also have a very different offseason starting in that while I’m done with the NFL season, my football is only taking a month off.
I’m going to be working the new XFL League with a Fox crew. We have games starting in February after the Super Bowl and games will be played on weekends all the way through April.
So I will get another football “fix” soon enough. I’ve also been reading some of the new rules that this new league is going to use. Hopefully the games will be good and/or entertaining.
My trip to Cincy came up at the last minute, as I got called by a fellow stats guy who was doing a playoff game and couldn’t get to that hoops action. It is nice to be on some of those lists.
And, it was a rare trip to Cincinnati in that the weather was nice and the roads were also. I have had plenty of winter trips over and back in some dicey conditions and nasty roads. It was nice to have the sun shining, the roads clear and even the parking lots in good shape.
I even got to Williamsport last Friday without incident. Another rarity.
The forecast for this weekend looks to be another non-January one, but let’s take the gifts where we can. There are plenty of high school events to be covered, and at least one college game on the docket. Maybe there will even be a couple minutes to watch some of that NFL playoff action that I won’t be at...
I also got a New Year’s fact-check from a South Dakota friend last Friday.
Terry and I have been friends since our days at South Dakota State. We were both journalism majors, so we took a bunch of classes together. He became the sports editor of the Brookings daily paper, and I’ve slept on one of his couches nearly every July on my trips home.
Terry got out of the journalism world a lot of years ago, and moved into corporate America, working for a Brookings manufacturing company. He rose through the ranks and became a semi-big shot.
Well, last Friday was his last day at work, as he turned into a retiree.
His wife Annie is also retiring after a teaching career, so they are going to become trend setters for us. I think they are going to become full-time grandparents.
And yes, there is plenty of jealousy between these lines, but congratulations to my good friend.
Me?
I’m going to chase the NFL for a while longer.
Safe travels.
Jeff Nelson works in national television. His column appears each Thursday in the Journal Review.
