Sports Fans Ask NFL To Leave Them Alone For A Few Months

NEW YORK--The NFL season supposedly ended on February 5, 2006, the day of the Super Bowl, but don’t tell that to the sports media. The moment the last second ticked off the clock in Detroit the buzz about the 2006 season began, in the form of free agent speculation, draft tracking, player trades, and fantasy analysis.

That’s why sports fans across America, who are just trying to relax and enjoy a little baseball, are asking the NFL to leave them alone for a few months.

“Whoa, can we just take five here? Can we just relax for a couple months?” asked Stephen Hosmer, 32, of Austin, TX, an avid football fan who is nonetheless burnt out. “I just need to come down a little, that’s all. Please stop producing all these mock drafts and stop talking about all the latest rumors and who said what and blah blah blah. Just stop. You’ll have my undivided attention the second training camp starts, but right now I just need a little space. I’m sorry, but you're suffocating me.”

Hosmer is one of a growing number of people who have grown weary of the constant, year-round coverage of a league that spends only five months a year playing actual games. Even the players take a few months off between seasons, but the media never sleeps, and in turn, the fans don’t either.

“It’s kind of a year-round thing now,” said Barry Dockery, 28, who participates in three different fantasy football leagues during the season. “They [the media] just never stop. They won't give me a moment of peace. I even tried laying off the internet for a week, but my new ESPN mobile device kept alerting me of the latest breaking news. It woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that Terrell Owens was signing with the Cowboys. Thanks a lot. Now I can’t even escape from that guy in my sleep.”

With the rise of the internet and bloggers, there are now thousands of websites dedicated to once-trivial diversions like fantasy leagues and the NFL draft. During the weekend of the draft, ESPN provides exhaustive, non-stop coverage of all seven rounds, in what has become one of the network’s most watched weekends of the year.

NFL marketing director Greg Auski says that TV and internet coverage has helped make the league thrive even when the season is still months away.

“People will watch NFL-related material any time of year,” said Auski. “Why wouldn’t they? It’s great stuff. It’s compelling. And if people get burnt out and want to escape from it, they can always lose themselves in the world of fantasy football, which can be a wonderful respite from the harsh realities of actual football.”

Auski scoffed at the notion of “leaving people alone” for a few months.

“We can’t leave people alone,” he said. “We’re not going to just go away because the fans are tired of it. What if they forget about the NFL? What if they fall out of love with it and start watching something else? We’re not taking that chance. When they die, they can be left alone – unless they get buried in one of our official NFL coffins, which have the logos of your favorite teams painted on them. They have internet access, too.”

Even the release of the 2006 schedule, a mere formality in years past, was greeted with relentless hype and commentary by the national sports media. ESPN, for one, dedicated exactly 172 hours of programming to the arbitrary list of games.

“Denver is playing Pittsburgh in Week 9!” shouted analyst Ron Jaworski on Sportscenter. “That is going to be on intriguing matchup. Holy fuck! Washington is playing Dallas in Week 2? Wow, the last time that happened was every single year for the past 30 years. I can hardly contain my excitement here. It’s like the same matchups that happen every season but they’re arranged in a totally different order. It’s a totally different order! If you can’t get excited about this, there is something seriously wrong with you.”

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