This is the time of year when just about everyone involved in pro football gets some free time.
How they use it depends on the individual. I can think of times when coaches and players took cruises or European trips — a chance to get away and a chance to thank their family in advance for dozens of late nights (only dozens, if one is lucky).
On the last day before the team breaks, the Broncos finished OTAs on a high note at UCHealth Training Center. (Photos by Eric Bakke).
Some may think that the next month or so would be very quiet because there is no practice or meetings, but it does not always work out that way, as one can see just by reading the daily news and watching cable sports shows.
I know that the Broncos public relations department, recently honored with the 2016 Pete Rozelle Award from the Pro Football Writers of America, is still putting the finishing touches on the media guide.
Still, the team's UCHealth Training Center headquarters has the look of a ghost town on the football side, matching the visual at the offices of the other 31 teams.
Mostly, people are relaxing, taking some time and waiting.
Sometimes the waiting is the hardest part, even though what we wait for can sometimes be grueling.
We wait for training camp, the days that bring a hint of what the team can be months later, but those days can be difficult with the first meetings of the day at 6:30 a.m. and the last meetings at 10:30 p.m.
Herm Edwards once said of working in football, "The hours are from 'dark-thirty to dark-thirty.'"
That is so true, and it is coming as surely as the presence of air mattresses in coaches' offices.
OTAs are officially over and the players left UCHealth Training Center on Thursday until the start of Broncos Camp. (Photos by Andrew Mason)
And then, when the waiting ends, everything happens fast. Suddenly it seems like you go from total silence to crisis mode, from "weekends off" to a literal 24/7.
It is what the people of football want and need, and that goes for me, too.
On a Monday morning after one of the Super Bowls I worked years ago, we were all saying our goodbyes in a hotel lobby, and someone uttered as true a phrase as one could ever say about the season.
"This is the worst experience I have ever had in my life. Let's do it again next year!"
The game grabs you and never lets go, and you never want it to.
Hurry up and wait, and let's do this again starting next month.
