In past years I’ve done Giants exhibition game coverage. One of the points that I always make in the last game is it’s the end of the line for some players. With the last exhibition game most fans eagerly anticipate the beginning of the regular season but with that last game comes the final cuts that all Head Coaches and General Managers have to make to get down to required 53 man final roster. I remember how Parcells would “stress” over going through the mental process of making the cuts. I think he realized that not only would he and GM George Young be releasing a player but they would also be releasing a wife, kids and an entire family. Many of those final cuts were of players who were already on previous years teams that he liked personally but had lost a step along the way. Most fans don’t think about those kinds of personnel decisions but I do.
It’s only logical to understand that for every beginning there has to be an end. The end of the line as I see it is not just the end of a professional career but the end of football period! At the conclusion of that last game, as the players are walking off the field it will be the last time that some of them will walk off of any football field as a player. This reality is hard for all players because most don’t think about the end but it might be hardest for those players who have been around for several years. It will be the last time that they will take off their helmet and shoulder pads. From the time that they were 8 or 9 years old they played Pop Warner football or in some other Youth Football League. They went on to play in high school and perhaps became one of the more talented players to play on the college level and then earned a chance to get to the Professional level. That’s a lot of football practices, a lot of playing before small and sometimes large crowds and a lot of learning the lessons of the game and sometimes of life.
For those who will be walking off the field this year for the final time, I wish you good luck with your transition. For those who survive the cuts this year…. Enjoy! We will see you this time next year or the year after. For as I indicated earlier, with every beginning there has to be an end and the end of the line in football just as in life comes for all. It’s inevitable!