I Was Wrong, Life After Football Season Could Be Meaningful

Not literally, of course. But close enough that the people around me could reasonably assume I’m preparing for a funeral. The CFP natty comes and goes, ouch. That’s a tough one to swallow. Then the Super Bowl ends, the confetti falls, the talking heads start forcing draft takes on us way too early, and for years I’ve treated that stretch of the calendar like some kind of annual sports depression. The dark days. The dead zone. The wasteland between meaningful snaps.

And you know what?

I was wrong.

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Not a little wrong. Not technically wrong. Flat-out, undeniably wrong.

Life after football season can be meaningful.

Honestly, it can be fantastic.

Part of that realization probably comes from getting back to my roots. Launching Air It Out Bro helped remind me why I loved sports in the first place. It wasn’t to hear political pundits hijack every conversation and turn everything into a lecture that helps no one. It wasn’t to watch people who clearly don’t even like sports use them as a vehicle for every other agenda under the sun. It was about the games. The teams. The rivalries. The moments. The escape. The connection.

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And once you get back to that, this time of year stops feeling empty and starts feeling loaded.

Start with March Madness.

Say what you want, but this tournament is one of the best things in American sports. It is chaos, emotion, buzzer-beaters, coaching drama, fan bases losing their minds, and entire regions of the country pretending they suddenly care deeply about schools they haven’t thought about since 1997. It’s beautiful. And no, this isn’t just because Michigan is in the final. That certainly doesn’t hurt, but the basketball itself has been tremendous. The tournament always reminds you that college basketball still knows how to deliver when the lights are brightest.

Then there’s the NHL and NBA playoff hunt, which are both outstanding this time of year.

Every night, games actually matter. Seeding matters. Matchups matter. Momentum matters. Teams are either tightening the screws or starting to crack. It’s not the same as football, no. One game in an 82-game NHL season doesn’t carry the same weight as a regular season college football showdown or an NFL Sunday in November. That part is true. Football’s urgency is unmatched. But if you embrace these sports for what they are instead of resenting them for not being football, there is a lot to love.

In fact, I’ve realized I now have more games during the week that matter to me than I do during football season.

That hit me recently in a way I didn’t expect. WWE made me get ESPN+, and now I find myself watching the Wild, the Twins, and the Timberwolves regularly. Suddenly, weeknights are packed. There is always something on. There is always a reason to care. There is always a race tightening, a streak building, a postseason angle forming, a game worth flipping to. During football season, we romanticize the weekends, and rightly so. But this time of year? The sports calendar is alive almost every night.

That matters.

And it gets even better when you zoom out.

NASCAR is rolling. MLB is getting going. The PGA Tour is heating up as we move deeper into spring. The Masters is around the corner, which means one of the best weekends on the sports calendar is almost here. The NFL draft is looming, which gives football fans just enough hope and delusion to keep the blood pumping without needing actual games. There is no real dead zone if you stop acting like football is the only sport allowed to matter.

That doesn’t mean football loses its throne.

It doesn’t. It never will.

Football is still king. College football Saturdays still feel bigger. NFL Sundays still hit harder. Rivalries still carry more venom. The stakes still feel more immediate. Nothing I’m saying here changes that. But maybe the mistake a lot of us make, myself included, is assuming that because football is the best, everything else has to be a letdown.

That’s lazy. And honestly, it cheats us out of a great stretch of the year.

Because sports, at their best, do something bigger than just entertain us. They bring people together. They give us a break from the insanity of the world. They give us common ground in a country that desperately needs more of it. They give us something to yell about that doesn’t ruin Thanksgiving dinner. They give us rivals to hate, sure, and in my case that absolutely includes Ohio State, forever and always. But they also give us community. Ritual. Joy. Frustration. Release. The whole package.

That doesn’t only matter during football season.

It matters now too.

So yes, I was wrong. Life after football season is not some empty, meaningless sports purgatory. It is not a long, sad march to training camp. It is not a season to survive.

It is a season to appreciate. The calendar is full, and if you lean into it instead of whining about what it isn’t, you realize this time of year has its own magic.

So be grateful for sports.

Not just football. Sports.

They’re one of the few things left that can still bring us together in a world that seems determined to do the opposite. And that’s meaningful enough for me.

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