To the Washington Redskins. Languishing in the NFC East cellar and suffering the fallout from the RGIII debacle. Thank you for a wonderful showing in 2015. To JJ Watt, terrorizing QBs and wreaking havoc in the backfield. You are the Defensive Player of the Year. To the New England Patriots. To be the man, you have to beat the man. Another divisional title is yours. To Todd Gurley, Marcus Peters, and Jameis Winston, Rookies of the Year on offense, defense, and overall. You've proven a lot of skeptics wrong. May this be a springboard to superstardom.To the Carolina Panthers. An extremely young and talented team who came up short on the big stage due to it being your first go around. Don't you dare hang your heads. To Ron Rivera. A fiesty defensive genius who played for the Monsters of the Midway. You've taken that experience and put together a juggernaut. Welcome to the Coach of the Year club.To the St. Louis Rams, thank you for bringing back football to the second biggest market in the country. Let's hope this change of scenery will do you some good. To Peyton Manning. A sure fire Hall of Fame QB who's game was the stuff of legends. You get to go out the way few athletes do, a champ. You were a warrior on the field and a class act off of it. We will miss you tremendously. To the NY Jets and Atlanta Falcons. You missed the playoffs by just a hair. Keep playing hard and get over that hump next season.To Gary Kubiak, coming back to be the head coach of a team you previously played for and coordinated the offense for. Soak this one in, as it could be the first of many, or your first and only. To Von Miller, an absolute beast in a game that mattered most. You personally held the best QB in the league in check. Super Bowl MVP. Nuff said.To the Denver Broncos. You've made it to the winner's circle for the third time, and aint it so sweet??I sit in my bedroom and stare out the window. It is a dark, cold, moonless night in St. Pete tonight. The wind is howling. The lights of anchored boats glow on the water. Team media guides lay unopened on my desk. The Jacksonville Jaguars, the Arizona Cardinals, my beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A solitary e-mail trickles in from one of my high school teammates, former Oakland Raiders safety Ted Watts. It says, "Six months until the Hall of Fame Game, right?"Six months of nothing. Fans will hang their jerseys up in their closets, store their grills and coolers in garages, and pack away other football team memorabilia. NFL Stadiums will be silent on Sundays, the cold winds of winter blowing debris across the seats. The rest of the sports world will tune in to other things like March Madness and MLB Spring Training. But the football diehards will go into hibernation until early August, coming out only once in late April for the NFL Draft.And so it's time to say goodbye to the 2015 NFL season. As the Broncos swarm midfield, basking in the joy of a Super Bowl win so richly deserved, I fight the same tears I have always fought at this time of the year. NFL Football. I live for this.
