[sportscurmudgeon]

Sheriff:

I love sports - and have loved them - for the last 58 years. When I was a kid, my father and I would read baseball box scores from the papers and football stats and basketball boxes whenever they were in the papers.

But sports are a diversion. They are not a religion. They aren't the focus of a healthy adult life - - unless you are a player or coach at the pro level or at a college level where you aspire to be at the pro level.

I sense the "slowdown" or the "inactivity" of the NFL at this time of the year. But I'm not depressed by it. And the absence of the NFL is not any kind of religious or spiritual vacuum in my life.

What I said was that I hoped the original statement here was hyperbole. If it wasn't then I stand by my suggestion that counseling would really help.