Top 10 Ways to Kill Time Waiting for Kickoff

Sometimes opening kickoff won’t come soon enough. Welcome to June, NFL fans, the longest stretch of the so-called offseason and the biggest gap before anything significant in the land of the NFL. OTAs and minicamps continue, and we (im)patiently wait for training camps to go underway in July to get this season really going. February has the Super Bowl, ending the previous season. In March, Free Agency begins. April sees the continuation of team spending sprees, culminating in the “Super Bowl of the Offseason” in the NFL Draft. In May, you’re studying your teams’ drafts, meeting rookies and reading grades by the so-called experts.

So what the hell is there to do in June? Consider this the Football Addicts’ Survival Guide – how to survive June, waiting for your team to take the field in September.

In depth interviews with the players and coaches who were there helped launch America’s Game to critical success. Photo Courtesy

10) Watch America’s Game

NFL Network’s superb America’s Game series features each Super Bowl champion and their road to glory. If you don’t have the NFL Network, you need to get it ASAP. I have Dish Network (as opposed to DirecTV, which also carries NFL Network), which is much more affordable at only around $30 a month, and that includes the NFL Network with the basic package. You can also order the DVD versions at a pricy $25 per episode online – I ordered mine in March, and they are finally shipping soon (according to the people I talk to at customer service).

9) Do Chores

Get everything done that you can now, newlyweds. The Honey-Do List doesn’t go away when the season starts, and for most hard working married men, Sundays constitute half of your free time during the football season. Word from the wise – the more you get done now, the less you’ll have to do later. Organize the garage. Clean out the shed. Set up a drip system for your wife’s garden, and plant some flowers for her too. Paint the walls and fix the twenty something things that need fixing. That way you’ll be fully ready to keep your focus to football on Sunday afternoons in the fall (oh, and for anything that DOES come up during the season, get it done on the Saturday prior. You’ll thank me later).

8) Watch other sports

We all know nothing compares to the NFL. I’m not at all a hockey or NASCAR fan, and I’m a very mild baseball fan. I am, however, a solid fan of the NBA, and I’m still reeling from the heartbreaking loss my Suns suffered about two weeks ago. Go Cavs, please crush the Spurs, if for no other reason than to put a wicked, satisfied smile on my face knowing San Antonio choked big time.

7) Troll Chargers/Chiefs/Raiders Boards

I don’t actually do this, but I hear it’s fun – Broncos fans, feel free to raid (no pun intended) various message boards of web sites focused on our AFC West counterparts. Healthy debates and dialogue mixed with respectful feelings of admiration encouraged, of course.

6) E-mail Adam Schein

If you don’t have Sirius Satellite Radio, go and get it now. There are plenty of affordable plans and units, and you will learn more about football than you ever imagined from Channel 124 – Sirius NFL Radio. You can even listen on the Internet now, so you literally have no excuse not to. Once you do, be sure to send the host of the Afternoon Blitz, a semi-celebrity in his own right, Adam Schein, a line. I love sending my e-mails for the E-mail Wednesday editions, and nothing gets me more fired up than hearing Schein talk Broncos. Last year he correctly predicted that the Broncos weren’t equipped to make a run – this year he says we’re in the mix and it gets me fired up every time I hear it. Drop him a line at aschein@siriusradio.com.

5) Early FF Mock Drafts

The rebirth of the regular season also means the return of the fantasy season, and BroncoTalk has you covered. While I prefer ESPN’s fantasy football service, they aren’t drafting yet, so you’ll have to turn to the #1 fantasy provider in Yahoo! Fantasy Sports for your early fix. If you’ve never tried fantasy football, I highly recommend you try it – it’s a ton of fun. I’ll also likely be starting a BroncoTalk League of 12 people for a little fun within the site.

4) Madden was made for a reason

The Madden video game franchise is all that NFL fans have to quench their NFL thirst this year – ever since they snagged the exclusive rights to the franchise, it’s been our only option (if you can’t tell, I preferred the ESPN games by Sega). It’s still helluva lotta fun, especially since in the virtual version of football our defense can actually slow down Peyton Manning.

3) Play football

Watching football is fun – playing it can be much more fun. The hardest part is getting a group of guys willing to knock the snout of each other, but if you have that, take advantage. I’m a big guy myself at 6-3, 300 lbs., so I’m used to providing the blocks for my rotation of quarterbacks throughout the course of a game. It’s healthy, it’s fun, and it’s way better than golf.

2) Coach football

Giving back isn’t something we should only expect from our superstar athletes. One of my most rewarding experiences was volunteering to coach for my local pop warner team last year. With practices usually starting in late June / early July, it’s a great way to do something constructive that can make a difference for our young neighbors.

1) Start a blog

Perhaps I’m a bit biased when it comes to my #1 way to kill time – I started this blog in February of this year, and it’s helped me kill time like you wouldn’t believe. I love providing stuff for you, the reader, and I can’t wait to finish updating to the domain (broncotalk.net) so I can get more community-driven content like comments and perhaps even forums. If you want to get started in the blogosphere, head over to WordPress and get yours for free. Whatever you call it, it will have the convenient subdomain of yourtitle.wordpress.com. Drop me a line and I’ll be glad to link to it from this site.

We’re still three months away from kickoff, but at least in July and August we’ll be talking about training camp and preseason games and real fantasy drafts. June doesn’t offer much in the way of news and action, so you have to take it upon yourself to make the time fly by. Take advantage of my tips and you might be able to survive the dredge fest that is June for the NFL fan.