Good Grief

Setting aside things that are actually important, today is one of the saddest days of each year for me: the Monday after the conclusion of the NFL regular season.

I'm not necessarily a proponent of the expanded 18-game schedule that some are advocating. Still, at a purely emotional level, I just feel that the NFL season is too short. It goes by too quickly. The NBA season goes on forever and ever. The baseball season in Wisconsin seems to go all the way from the last snowfall to the first. Hockey, golf, soccer, NASCAR? I don't know -- talk to someone who cares. But the NFL comes and goes so fast.

Now for the Packers, happily, the games go on. We're back in the playoffs, thanks to a tremendous 7-1 run in the second half of the season, following that debacle in Tampa. We'll reflect in more detail about the outstanding 2009 Packer season later.

For the moment now, though, a moment of silence... A moment to observe the passing of another regular season. No more full slates of 16 games to watch each weekend. No more multiple horse races for division titles, bye weeks, and wild card berths. Now it's just 11 games left, and it's one-and-done for each loser. And while the regular season ends on the happy note of 16 individual game winners and 12 winners for the season, the playoffs end with a loss for every team but one. Ruthless stuff.

So, a moment of silence for the passing of the 2009 regular season...

...and then we'll turn our attention to the postseason!