The NFL’s Worst Time of Year is Here
Well, it’s mid-June. If you’re even the most-casual of NFL fans, you know this time of year is an absolutely brutal stretch to get through.
The “Free Agency Frenzy” is over three months in the past, the NFL Draft is two months in the rearview, and training camp is around six weeks away. During this time frame, some of the biggest news is likely just going to be some random roster shuffling of some unheard-of names. Practice squad players in, practice squad players out, much like the Vikings have already done a couple times in the past couple weeks.
How to Get Through the NFL’s Dark Period
Whether it’s watching highlights, playing EA Sports Madden NFL, or just talking about the possibilities of the coming season with your buddies, there’s plenty of ways to get through the NFL dark period of mid-June through mid-July.
The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and NBA Playoffs help you get through that initial stretch of early-June. It certainly helps for Minnesota fans when the Wild and Timberwolves are going relatively deep into their respective tournaments. Once you get past those (if you care), you have to get creative. The MLB is at full-go, but I mean, if you’re reading this, you’re likely a Twins fan. You understand what I’m saying. Additionally, NASCAR is on, but that’s a tough sell to people, although I do admittedly enjoy a good race. It helps you get through a summer Sunday.
A lot of the getting through it all comes down to what your team did in the early offseason stages of free agency and the draft. As a writer and content creator, I feel like there’s not much else I can say about the Kyler Murray signing along with the J.J. McCarthy drama. Still, if you’re a football follower, you know that the fans will be talking about that the rest of the offseason, and I am thankful as a fan that it does give us things to discuss with our fellow Vikings brothers and sisters.
It is likely that some duo of NFL teams will work out some sort of major trade to set headlines on fire for a little while, but that flame will only burn for so long. After a very short period of time, we will be right back in the doldrums. The NFL preseason is still a little less than two months away, and the regular season is a little less than three months away.
The Paradox of the NFL Yearly Cycle
You know the old saying of “time flies when you’re having fun”. That is the perfect way to explain life as an NFL fan going through its yearly cycle.
The time of year we currently find ourselves in is absolutely brutal one. Yet, the NFL season flies by extremely fast. When Week 1 comes, it feels like we waited years just to get that sniff of football. The preseason weens you back into the feeling, but there’s nothing like the first week of football truly kicking off. That June feeling of fantasizing about a boring Thursday Night Football game gets completely washed away.
Then suddenly, it’s early December, and you think to yourself “wait, it’s Week 13?”
We will get there together, Vikings fans. One of these days, all of this waiting will pay off in a bigger way than just seeing the players on the field.
