Saints and Colts fans, if you could leave the room for a moment? Thanks.

Hey there, football… Saints and Colts fans, if you could leave the room for a moment? Thanks.

Hey there, football fan. I know, I know. You miss them already. It’ll be tough going eight months without watching your team play.

Yes, this year was rough, but at least your team is still in the news. They’re making moves and showing you that next year will be different, maybe even 8-8.

Maybe you’ve already hired a 70-year old first-time general manager, or maybe you reunited Mike Shanahan with star running back Clinton Portis. Shanahan traded him away once already in Denver. He won’t do it again, right?

You even got to go through your usual game ritual for the Pro Bowl yesterday. You went to the convenience store to buy some chips, but the place was all out because everybody else beat you to it. What a good idea moving the game to the week before the Super Bowl was. It really built up the hype.

You sat anxiously as you watched for every time Joe Thomas made a pancake block, and you pointed out to your friends how dynamic Cleveland’s offense will be next year if they move Josh Cribbs to wide receiver.

When the Super Bowl comes on next weekend, you’ll probably pick a side. Maybe you’ll take the Saints because a backup lineman went to your high school — well, not your high school, but a high school with a similar name. In the end, it won’t matter, since you have 5 and 2 in your Super Bowl pool.

You’ll quickly re-examine your team’s schedule and argue that, had they not lost that game to Cleveland and Oakland and Kansas City (sorry, Steelers fans, this is your paragraph), they would have made the playoffs. And then, boom, with a bounce here and a horrendously banged-up opponent there, you’re in the Super Bowl.

The commercials will be entertaining, won’t they? Budweiser usually puts out some good ones, although the comedy-void car ads can be a bummer. I think they’re trying to be ironic with them or something.

Maybe NFL.com will run another commercial for its fantasy football game. You know, like the one with all the losing teams crying over their disappointing fantasy seasons. You’ll laugh, but inside you’ll shed a tear. It wasn’t your fault you listened to the wrong experts and thought that Larry Johnson would carry your fantasy team to victory and take the real Chiefs to the playoffs as well.

At some point during the night, it will hit you. When the game ends, there will be no more football until August — September if you don’t count preseason. I know I don’t. At least we’ll have arena football. It’s back, new and improved! Bankruptcy cleared out all the gimmicks.

There might be some United Football League play, too, but I can never find it on television. My TV doesn’t even go up to Versus.

There’s baseball, but you’re a football fan. You’re not a thinker — maybe the American League is alright, but I still don’t know how the double switch works.

Hopefully your team will sign that big name free agent. Terrell Owens is out there for the taking. Also, you can always trade for Brandon Marshall and build up an offense that will really hide the holes in your secondary.

The draft is fun, too, because it prevents me from having to exercise outside. I can only take so much Mel Kiper, though. Regardless, there are so many stellar college quarterbacks that can be your next underachieving starter. Tim Tebow, Jimmy Clausen and Sam Bradford all could be the one chosen to devastate your team.

Then again, there really isn’t a football off-season. There are optional team workouts, minicamps, rookie orientations, Madden ’10 and Brett Favre to occupy your time. I hear that ancillary late round pick has really been tearing it up against fellow ancillary late round picks.

Don’t worry, fellow football fan. The summer’s going to be tough, but we can get through it. Stockpile as many bags of chips you can, read up on that ancillary late round draft pick and do some warm-up stretches. They’ll be back before you know it.