The NFL offseason has been exhausting

Is the overload of information during the NFL offseason too much of a good thing for football fans?

Here we are, less than two weeks away from the start of the 2015 NFL season, about six months removed for the inexplicable goal line pass that ended Super Bowl XLIX, and already I feel exhausted. Such is life in today’s sports world, where 24/7/365 coverage of the NFL is inescapable, screaming for your attention on social media, clogging up a good portion of every nightly SportsCenter broadcast, demanding that you — a “true” football fan, a “real” football fan; and you are a real fan, right? — not allow your fixation on football to waver, not even for a few seconds, much less for a few months.

To recover from what has been a ceaseless offseason of NFL coverage, where every player’s utterance has been scrutinized and debated, wrung dry for every delicious drip of calorically empty high fructose analysis, where every roster move has been framed as either genius or catastrophic, all middle ground and nuanced stripped away and discarded, I need a break. And that break will, of course, take the form of a new football season.

It’s official: the NFL, thanks to nonstop offseason coverage, has gone from the friend whom you invite over for drinks to the friend on the couch. You know the one. The one you love because you’ve been friends since the days of crayons and freeze tag. Only now you’re both in your twenties and he’s taken up semi-permanent residency in your living room, his unwashed boxers and socks piled behind the lamp, his hands always eager to grab a gaming controller and crack open a beer the second you walk in the door. And as much as you care about him, as much as you value the friendship that you share, you kind of just want him to leave. No hard feelings: you just need some space.

This is not to say that NFL offseason coverage is inherently bad, nor is this to say that loving the NFL is somehow a waste of time and energy. The last thing I want to be is a scold. There is nothing wrong with caring about the NFL, with following the moves of your favorite team, with setting up a fantasy league with your closest friends. But even the most die-hard fan has to admit that round-the-clock coverage of every manufactured scandal and overinflated controversy can be tiring, overwhelming, especially in a media landscape where taking a day off to think about another sport is impermissible, almost heretical.

If you’re someone who has been itching for the new NFL season to begin, who has tried to relieve that itch by absorbing every ounce of offseason coverage, think of what you’ve consumed over the past few months. Did the Is Chip Kelly Racist? debate satiate you in any measurable way? Was the never-ending #Deflategate coverage a satisfactory substitute for the excitement of seeing a perfectly thrown spiral drop into the outstretched hands of a receiver streaking toward the end zone? Robert Griffin III thinks he’s the best quarterback in football; you probably have an opinion on that. Was the process of developing that opinion fulfilling?

(Also in need of consideration: what things did you ignore, not make time for, due to your constant focus on the NFL? Are you completely comfortable with how you’ve allocated your time? What new things, sports or otherwise, could you have exposed yourself to, learned about?)

Each calendar year the NFL demands more and more of our collective attention, but so much of what we are asked to pay attention to is pointless — harmless and fun, maybe, but overall inconsequential — spectacles. We are exposed to and expected to take in a constant flow of information, but so much of that information — the training camp squabbles, the bulletin-board-material soundbites, the hyperbolic confidence of young players — does not in any measurable way make us more intelligent, more discerning fans. NFL offseason coverage, presented as essential to fandom — consume this or fall behind your friends! — rarely enhances appreciation for the game of football. It just keeps the NFL in the spotlight by any means necessary.

Yes, I am excited for the start of the new NFL season. I am ready to spend Sundays surrounded by snacks and cold beer, my feet up on the ottoman, my thumb growing calloused from switching back and forth between games. I am ready for spectacular punt returns and thundering runs and acrobatic interceptions, ready to see feats of strength and athleticism that seemingly defy the laws of physics. I am ready for the artistry of the perfectly executed play-action pass. I am ready to cheer and sigh and nervously gnaw at my fingernails and to open my phone to texts of “DID YOU SEE THAT?” in all-caps. All of those things will bring me inexplicable, childlike joy, even when my team loses, and that joy will in no way be contingent on having spent every day of spring and summer under bombardment from a tireless assault of armchair hot takes and and inessential predictions.

Of course, the return of actual, honest-to-god on-field action does not mean that the pointless water-cooler talking points will hibernate, that the molehill-to-mountain controversies propped up by ESPN will subside. They will be present, looming, but they won’t be the only things occupying the entirety of the cultural space devoted to football. They can be ignored, pushed aside, thus preventing your enjoyment from football from growing cynical and tainted. It’ll be like when that friend finally leaves your couch, his absence deflating the tension that had grown monstrous between the two of you, and the ensuing less-frequent contact allows you to become actual friends again, allows you to go back to experiencing your friendship as something joyful and appreciated, not as a burden or imposition.

It’s a bit late now, what with the new season right around the corner, but consider this for next summer: give yourself some space from what you love.