Welcome to Hell The Offseason, where the bitterness outside matches the bitterness in my soul under my hat.

We knew it was coming.  There was nothing any of us could do to prevent it.  Yet its arrival hit me in the face yesterday when we were discussing techniques and personnel—not for a fold block or a long yardage situations, but for preparing one’s sensitive regions for elective sterilization.  Yes, the offseason is here, and it sucks every bit as much as expected.

I watched the National Championship game (well, most of it, anyway), with a sort of odd detachment.  If course I was rooting against Alabama and the SEC and Nick Saban (much more than I was rooting for Clemson), but it was without any real emotion.  I wasn’t happy to see the Tide win yet another title, but by the end of the game, I just didn’t really care that much.  My prevailing thought after the game was that Saban and Alabama have set the bar for Urban and Ohio State, and however successful the Buckeyes have been under Meyer’s leadership, they are not yet the king of the mountain.   And as much as it pains me to say it, Alabama is the premier program in college football right now.  The good news is that Urban has a target, and as we learned this season, it’s a lot easier to be the hunter than the prey.  The Buckeyes will not lack for motivation this offseason, and that is a very good thing.

I must say a few words about the Bengals.  Anyone who has spent any time in this space will understand that I am an unabashed Browns fan.  They will also know that I harbor no illusions about the state of my team.  But I must say that the Bengals executed a heartbreaking playoff loss in the most Browns way imaginable.  From the fumble when all they had to do was hang onto the ball and win the game, to the spectacularly stupid penalties that gave the Steelers the opportunity to win in the final moment, it seems that the Curse of Modell may extend somehow from the Browns franchise to the Brown family.  I have no love for the Cincinnati, but I still hate the Pittsburgh in memory of the rivalry, so the Browngals loss (it’s hard to call it a Steelers win) was tragicomic for me.

TL;DR:  Offseason is terrible (already); Alabama isn’t; Browngals are somewhere in between.