Super Bowl Finish Turns Page to NFL Off-Season

Super Bowl Sunday used to be a bittersweet time of year for die-hard football fans. While the game itself would mark a glorious end to the season, the post-game realization that seven long months would precede the next official kickoff would send some fans into instant depression. Thanks to the emergence of NFL Network, football fans can now follow the off-season activities of their favorite teams and division rivals with the click of a remote.

As the final seconds ticked off the clock on Sunday night, New Orleans Saints fans reveled in their victory with the celebration pouring out onto Bourbon Street. Meanwhile, fans of the other 31 NFL teams wondered what steps needed to be done so that they would be celebrating in February 2011. The first step in the 2011 rebuilding process begins in just two weeks with the NFL scouting combine.

The 2010 NFL scouting combine will be held in Indianapolis from February 24th through March 2nd, and NFL Network will carry the event in its entirety. The invitation-only event hosts some of the best football talents from college football that are draft eligible. Prospects are scouted with various physical tests including strength, agility, speed and jumping ability. Prospects are also evaluated by teams through personal interviews, medical examinations and mental tests. NFL Network provides insight as to how players are performing, what NFL scouts are evaluating with each test, and how performance results will affect a player's draft stock.

No sooner than the final combine result is recorded, do football fans begin counting down the days until draft day. In 2010, the NFL draft will actually arrive a day earlier and in primetime. In July, the NFL announced that the draft schedule would change in 2010. Instead of the draft taking place over two days, it would be extended to three, with the first round taking place exclusively on Friday night, followed by rounds two and three on Saturday, and the later rounds concluding on Sunday. NFL Network will cover the weeks leading up to the draft on April 22nd and the draft itself. The network will feature analysis, draft predictions and breaking news from reporters stationed at various team headquarters around the league.

The final void in the NFL off-season begins shortly after the draft with mini-camps and free agency. While coverage of these events were occasionally covered in local sports pages, most of the summer headlines belonged to baseball. Now, with year-round coverage of football, the NFL Network has provided fans with in-depth analysis and reports from mini-camps, rumors and breaking news with regard to free agency, and rumblings of trade rumors and depth chart battles heading up until the preseason.

Although football may be replacing baseball as the national past-time, it also burdens fans with the longest off-season of the major professional sports. With only five months between week one kickoff and the super bowl, NFL fans actually spend the majority of their year in the off-season. For this reason, the emergence of specialty sports stations like NFL Network have helped fans stay in-tune with their favorite teams, even when they aren't dominating the headlines. Fear not football fans, the off-season is now just around the corner.