Once upon a time your favorite player *always* had a senior year.
The annual flurry of early departures trading one final year of free tuition for a rookie contract don't feel like recent phenomena, because they aren't. Can you even remember when it was just assumed everyone would play in college for four years?
I'm old enough to say yes, I do. Leaving the amateur ranks prematurely was a rarity back when college sports found me in the 1980s. Jumping early was reserved exclusively for basketball players back then. Football was a four-year sport no matter how good you were.
I don't think we make a big enough deal about how Michael Jordan played three full seasons at North Carolina. In what should have been his senior year, he put up 63 points in the Boston Garden with Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge all in their NBA primes trying and failing to stop him. That guy played three years in college.
LeBron James went straight from high school to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003, which means across parallel career timelines MJ started dressing for the Bulls at the same time that LeBron had already scored over 6,000 NBA points.
LeBron was an All-NBA 1st teamer in what would have been his junior year in college. Jordan's mistake was being born too early to take advantage of the sport he helped evolve. Some guys are just that good.
MJ was famously selected third overall in the 1984 NBA Draft behind Houston junior Hakeem Olajuwon - The Dream played three years of college! - and Kentucky 5th-year senior Sam Bowie. The top of that draft class would have been even trickier had Patrick Ewing left Georgetown after his junior season.
But he chose to stay his senior year. Patrick Ewing played four seasons of college basketball.
The ABA and NBA merged in 1976, almost 30 years after the NBA installed its annual draft process. Making the jump was a dicey proposition, and the early history is a good explanation for why.
Thirteen juniors made the jump the year of the merger, and six of them went undrafted. This was back when the NBA Draft went 10 rounds, not the two that it is today. Jumping early was a cautionary tale. If you weren't a generational talent, another year of conditioning in school was a much safer alternative.
Obviously basketball carries different physical demands than football, which prohibited underclassmen from draft eligibility until 1990. Even after juniors were allowed to leave campus early, it took awhile before making the jump gained broad momentum.
Consider the 1994 NFL Draft, a relatively weak one for wide receivers. Ohio State rising senior Joey Galloway was 1st team All-Big Ten as a junior, stayed and went no.8 overall a year later. He barely improved his draft stock, if at all, by holding onto his senior year.
Galloway will always be one of my favorite Buckeyes ever. I couldn't believe that guy stayed.
Seniors hold a special place for me because my formative years are packed with searing memories of every player staying in college until they were no longer allowed to, ejected either by injury or eligibility.
Normal is always subjective; it's generally what happened when you were young and making sense of life works. That's how we all poison ourselves with the Good Ol' Days virus. I understand how and why we got to where amateur athletics is today - and I agree most of it.
There's still some sustainability work to do there. Regardless, I'll allow myself to feel romantic about seniors, whether they're getting paid over the table or in illicit handshakes.
The senior journey culminates in special introductions prior to the final home game, where these giants I cheered for as a child would be rendered into mere humans. They had parents on the field. They hugged them. They all cried. Gladiators have a softer side! I loved it.
Dane Sanzenbacher was Ohio State's 2010 MVP and Most Inspirational Player in what was a voting landslide for both awards. Jim Tressel said he wasn't sure one player had ever won both before in program history.
Chris Spielman hugged his father before the 1987 Iowa game, which ended up being Earle Bruce's final Saturday on the sideline in Ohio Stadium. Mr. Spielman was all that kept Chris from playing in Ann Arbor for those four years. Both of them deserved the roaring applause that day.
One player missing from that ceremony was Cris Carter, who had signed with an agent and lost his eligibility for the 1987 season. His presence might have changed the course of Ohio State football. No Buckeye team has ever missed one wide receiver that badly.
Carter was consensus All America as a junior and a memory as a senior. An underclassmen exodus would arrive with John Cooper's wholesale elevation of Ohio State's recruiting efforts, which was timed with the 1990 rule change that allowed it to happen.
Carter was easily the main attraction for a program that had Spielman on the other side of the ball. His absence that fourth year felt awkward. It was preparation for what was to come.
Twenty seasons after Carter lost his senior year, I became enamored with another Ohio State receiver whom it was clear would be getting all four years out of his eligibility window. Dane Sanzenbacher arrived in Columbus from Toledo as Central Catholic's all-time receiving and yards leader into a crowded WR room.
He'd have to figure out how to get on the field with Ray Small, Albert Dukes, Devin Jordan, his recruiting classmate Taurian Washington, Brian Robiskie and some guy named Brian Hartline all more established and carrying enough remaining eligibility to make playing time scarce.
An OSU wide receiver from Ohio is, at present, a novelty. In 2007 the Buckeyes had several - Sanzenbacher, Small, Jordan, Robiskie and Hartline all skipped the import line when their recruiting classes were assembled. Five homegrown WRs on one team.
It's different now, and ironically - Hartline has had the primary role in this shift. The last time any native Ohioan signed with what's since been named Zone 6 was 2021. Senior Jayden Ballard is the only native in the room, and he's got a crowded depth chart between himself and his first meaningful playing time in what's likely a last chance.
Sanzenbacher was able to do exactly that, scoring and lettering as a freshman and - there's no better term for this, I'm so sorry - scrapping his away up the depth chart to quickly become the first guy onto the field after Robiskie and Hartline.
Dane started every game as a junior and senior, but he was everywhere all four years.
He wasn't flashy by any standard. Sanzenbacher was just always open, and when a ball got near him it was always secured. He rarely had a size, speed or strength advantage against anyone guarding him - Dane just did his job without ever messing it up.
This play which exemplified his consistent excellence was marred by a touchdown-erasing penalty flag on him. In the 2010 season ender, Boom Herron went 98 yards against Michigan and Sanzenbacher got a holding flag late in the play which was bullshit by any officiating standard.
It was the kind of play that was typical from him but would be breathtaking today. From the outset, Sanzenbacher found his blocking assignment while blind to the ballcarrier behind him. He stayed focused on the one Michigan defender in position to make the tackle and kept him separated from Herron, whom never looked at once.
If that seems like gratuitous praise, watch any of the early season games this weekend and take note of how close to 100% of wide receivers are spectators on rushing plays. Yeah, they might "block" too. Not like Sanzenbacher did.
Dane then used crowd noise to recognize the play was still active behind him and used his obstruction for about 90 yards, until the line judge manufactured that flag. A masterclass in wide receiver blocking and commitment. And shitty officiating, still abundant.
Ohio State has not had a more holistically sound player since he completed his senior season. Marv never blocked like Dane, but it's hard to find any college receivers with that level of proficiency. Garrett Wilson couldn't get separation like he did, no matter where he was lined up or who was covering him.
Chris Olave didn't have Sanzenbacher's downfield improvisational skill, which wasn't optional for Terrelle Pryor's most necessary downfield target. JSN didn't have his durability. All of those guys have more talent and upside. Sanzenbacher was just the complete package. And like Olave, he played his senior year. Olave is up there with me too.
That 2010 season has been largely swallowed by the scandal which consumed the subsequent offseason, but that final Tressel team's MVP and Most Inspirational Player ended up being the same guy.
Jim Tressel said after the banquet the votes for both awards were "overwhelming, a landslide" and that he wasn't sure if one player had ever won both awards in program history.
So my favorite Buckeye, who ended up closing out the Tressel Era, was a one of one.
I cannot remember when the thought entered my head, but I knew we would be getting a dog and I wanted to give it a proper football-rooted name. I've met plenty of pups named Woody, Archie, Buckeye, Zeke - all good dogs, all well-traveled honorary names - but I wanted to zag with naming this one.
Following a brief flirtation with then-Browns linebacker Barkevious Mingo, I came to my senses and was ready for a dog named after Dane. We had a rescue picked out, which probably wasn't a Great Dane (rescues generally don't come with 23andMe paperwork) but it wouldn't matter. It already had a name.
It was the morning of Feb 15, 2014. We were getting a dog. I had never had one of my own.
But before we could leave to pick it up, the US Men's Olympic hockey team was facing the Russians in Sochi, 44 years after the legendary Lake Placid affair with all of the high patriotic stakes involved (only modest medaling implications, but who cares).
Regulation ended in a tie, which meant shootout time. The dog would have to wait a little longer.
In the NHL, all of the shooters have to be different, but under Olympic and international rules, teams can ride any guy who is hot after the first three attempts. This shootout went on for ten agonizing minutes which felt like three hours.
Two of the Americans' first three shooters were stoned by then-Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. The one who scored was T.J. Oshie, then from the St. Louis Blues. He was the only player the US team sent onto the ice for the balance of the shootout. They would be riding just him and goalie Jonathan Quick, either to a win or a loss.
Hockey is cruel and agonizing to watch when you're invested in one of the teams. If overtime hockey is like snorting cocaine and riding a motorcycle out of a helicopter, overtime Olympic hockey between the Russians and Americans is something far more harrowing.
The shootout went eight rounds, with a miserable break in between each shooter and Oshie taking all of America's chances. I had a wife and three kids anxiously waiting to go bring home our new puppy, but I was not the leaving house as long as the Russians and Americans were involved in an overtime shootout.
Every bit of thought, prayer, religion, sorcery, contrived mystic and perspiration were being transferred from my body to Oshie's through my television screen. The dog could wait. We were witnessing history, live on television.
Congrats to T.J. Oshie and the U.S. men's hockey team on a huge win! Never stop believing in miracles. #GoTeamUSA -bo
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) February 15, 2014
Oshie ended the misery in the bottom of the 8th, going top shelf to Bobrovsky's stick side and winning the game for the Americans. I collapsed to the floor while the Americans celebrated all over Russia's home ice. I could breathe again.
The family was relieved and more ready than ever to get out of the house.
Let's go!, Let's get Dane, or Barkevious, or whatever you're going to name it!
I sat up from the floor and paused for a moment. I still have vivid memories of watching The Miracle on Ice in 1980 when it was first broadcast. It was not shown live; the infinite wisdom of television networks meant couching events taking place on Eastern Time and showing the recordings during prime time.
I watched what was largely rumored to be a US upset win that evening in my parents' kitchen on our shitty 12-inch TV. Like anyone reading this, I've seen that game and especially the goals and final seconds innumerable times, as well as the documentaries and the movie made about that team.
Watching another US Olympic hockey team beat another Russian team loaded with NHL talent (the Americans had their own this time, no college kids) had rendered me dizzy. The words just fell out of my mouth. I named the dog without making a list or having a discussion about it.
No thought or deliberation, no asking for opinions, no preparation. I didn't think about how it would sound or if it was a lousy idea. I just said it. Those two words had never coexisted previously:
Let's go bring Oshie Sanzenbacher home.
Everyone looked back at me in silence for a second. Then, at each other. Okay!
So we left while the television voices were still gushing over Oshie's heroics to pick up a dog from the rescue shelter. Mom was definitely a lab and picked up off the street somewhere in North Carolina. Dad was probably a pit bull? Her puppies were born at a shelter there.
We've rescued a pooch. Meet Oshie Sanzenbacher Nasrallah pic.twitter.com/sXcaD42ukO
— Ramzy Nasrallah (@ramzy) February 15, 2014
Oshie Sanzenbacher existed. She was now home. Her freshman year had begun.
This dog was little and wiggly, standing up and falling down and peeing every few moments. All four paws were white. She was impossibly cute and everyone was in love, immediately.
My only experience living with dogs to that point had been in as a resident in a fraternity house. A wild, unsanitary and thoroughly enjoyable hellbasket of filth where random animals entered and exited while nobody paying a house bill ever asked questions about them. Dogs were allowed. Just about everything was allowed there.
Any animals were accountable to whichever human brought them in, but they were everyone's pets. A ball python lived down the hall from me one year, and a crowd would assemble whenever it was feeding time. Good times, unless you were the mouse.
I got over my apprehension (fear is too strong of a word) of snakes that year. This one was super chill - anyone could wear it over their shoulders and it would just hang out like a scarf. I once forgot I was wearing him while reading a book when its accountable owner came in looking for him.
It was a good snake. I am aware that there are bad ones with unchill intentions.
That fraternity house also had several aquariums. One contained a single, large catfish whose sole purpose was to entertain us by devouring live goldfish for sport. This was somehow more violent than anything the ball python ever did.
One winter, the last guy out of the house turned off the electricity, believing he would be saving everyone money on our electric bill - which was a sizeable tab for a communal domicile housing 100+ energy hogging residents.
When everyone returned from Christmas and New Years, winter's cold had transformed one of the aquariums into a solid block of ice with its gilled residents frozen in time. The slithering and furry fraternity brothers had all gone home and survived the holiday massacre which claimed all of the water-bound ones.
Fun college lesson learned. Don't ever turn off the electricity. You can just turn down the thermostat.
We always had at least two dogs in that giant house. They got their own head shots for the annual composite picture which hung in the formal - 150 human faces, but only two Very Good Boys.
We did have a female dog for one year, which was a lesson for all of us. Let's just say the optics weren't great and discretion amongst the other dogs went totally ignored - it was too vivid and over-the-top for a fraternity house. We went back to being a boys club and never spoke of it again.
There are rules for owning a dog which had missed me during my college years. When it's just your house, you can’t just leave without putting some thought or preventative measures into your absence, especially if it's an extended one.
You risk returning home to a fecal crime scene on the kitchen floor. Or worse, an anxiety attack that results in half of a couch being eaten. And then a few weeks later, another half of couch - because the lessons of humans leaving the house are unlearned by the global younger dog community. They're Pavlovian about treats and doorbells only.
Running an errand feels like a permanent separation to a dog, every time, every errand. If those two half-couch comments felt oddly specific it's because Oshie Sanzenbacher has two living room kills to her credit.
The fraternity house always had at least a couple dozen guys for the lonely dogs to find and hang out with, which meant they were among the least anxious dogs you would ever find - attention was abundant. But outside of communal living, working or schooling humans have to be prepared to say goodbye every day.
You have to be prepared to say goodbye when you go out to dinner. You have to be prepared to say goodbye when there's a quick errand to run. You have to be prepared to say goodbye when you head out on vacation.
These days I routinely see couples at the airport traveling with their yippy dogs wearing fake Service Animal vests that can be bought on Amazon. You're not fooling anyone, Darren and Caitlin. You just weren't prepared enough to say goodbye for a long weekend. Grow up.
Separation is an important part of the human condition, as are pain, loss, unrequited love and even watching the US Olympic hockey team not even medal at Sochi after dispatching the home team in dramatic fashion. That is to say you have to be prepared to say goodbye to everyone you care about in life.
You have to be prepared to say goodbye to your dog. They are your kids who never grow up.
You'll never be ready. You can be prepared, but still not ready. They're different things. When my brother-in-law passed away this summer after a lengthy, hideous cancer battle, just about everyone was prepared. It would be hard to argue that anyone was ready.
Dogs are not people, no matter what dog radicals say about their beloved pets. The human condition is totally lost on them. Dogs are comprehensively unprepared for goodbyes of any kind. You can't even close the bathroom door behind you to take an innocent afternoon piss without hearing scratching and crying in the hallway, which only sounds annoying if you fail to translate dog behavior correctly.
Here's why they panic when you're out of sight for a mere moment - you are so loved by your dog that 90 seconds with a toilet is too long for them to handle with any stoicism. Their lives operate on an accelerated timeline. The first year of a dog's life is the equivalent of roughly 15 human years.
Year two runs about nine. Every year after that counts as five years, which means a 10-year old dog would be eligible to collect Social Security if dogs could govern themselves half as well as they love their humans.
They age so much faster than we do, and perhaps they know this. Maybe that innocent piss is wasting valuable time which could be better spent galloping around outside with a ball or getting a belly rub. Maybe they know that their average lifespan doesn't line up with ours.
Preparing to say goodbye to what's basically a four-legged furry child, or best-case a teenager, is how our love affair with a dog is always scheduled to end. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior - dogs take about three years to finish each one of those, like John Blutarsky. They could leave early or they could stay longer and take a redshirt year. But they always move on too soon.
It's been 10.5 years since Oshie sent the Russians home sad, which contains the same number of days Oshie Sanzenbacher has had in the only real home she's ever known. A decade is long by any measurement, but the past decade has felt eternal.
I turned 40 and 50 during this stretch. I lost my father-in-law unexpectedly and my mother-in-law after a cruel and extended illness; prepared only for one and ready for neither. Our cat died, the original test case for my wife and I to casually prove we could keep anything more than a plant alive in our care.
That cat was Oshie's best friend. Six months later she was still hunting around looking for him in all of his usual napping spots. She stopped looking once we brought another cat into the fold, also named for a four-year Buckeye. He chose Ohio State the same week the program lost Tressel.
I had never had two pets at the same time, but that quickly felt like a miss. Pets deserve to have pets too. Tyvis Meowell is Oshie Sanzenbacher's best friend. They're inseparable.
During this decade stretch I left my day job at a company I relocated with twice, which I never thought would exit my life. We survived the pandemic, the virus of which emptied a home near mine and installed too many nightmares in the psychological nooks and crannies the virus itself couldn't penetrate.
My house absorbed more than its fair share of nightmares over the past decade, but it's still standing. Two things remained constant over the past 10.5 years. One, I wrote about the Buckeyes on this web site just about every week, which - whether you read this content because you like it or hate it - is a source of stability and routine that's healthy (for me at least; possibly for you too).
And two, most of the time I had a dog looking over my shoulder while I wrote, casually pretending to copy edit my run-on sentences and creative use of language. When I'm home, she's never far away. I'm writing this from England. I would FaceTime her but she, like all dogs, are terrible with technology.
Two things remained stable over the past decade. Everything else was chaotic.
That shootout in Sochi was the last major sporting event I watched in my house without Oshie Sanzenbacher watching along and seizing on my range of emotions. The 2015 Sugar Bowl. Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Game 7 of the 2017 World Series. The 2016 two-overtime Michigan game (it's hard to believe some of us survived 2016).
The 2019 National Semifinal held in Glendale, which robbed me of whatever remained of my sports innocence. The entirety of the pandemic, which was a golden era for all dogs with surviving humans, where having to say goodbye to anything longer than an innocent afternoon piss was put on hold.
I remember after the actress Carrie Fisher passed away, seeing a photo of her dog at her window, anxiously waiting for her to return home. Dogs are always waiting for you because they don't know how to exist properly without you. The world without you in it is another planet they don't want to visit.
Oshie is well into her senior year, as we found out this summer through an X-ray at the vet. Her time is running out, which is totally unfair. She just got here. She can't be leaving already. As soon as she shows any sustained discomfort we'll have to say goodbye.
A decade is long by any measurement, but the past decade has gone too quickly.
Ohio State lost its last two games prior to Oshie Sanzenbacher's arrival in our house. The Buckeyes won their season opener against Navy (she went to Dog Camp; we went to Baltimore - we don't do fake Service Animal vests) and then lost their home opener against Virginia Tech.
An Urban Meyer team lost three of four games. It didn't feel real. We know what happened next.
How many seniors can you name off that 2014 team? Don't look it up - Jeff Heuerman, Darryl Baldwin, Devin Smith, Evan Spencer, Michael Bennett, Curtis Grant, Doran Grant, Steve Miller and the late Kosta Karageorge. I can go nine deep before petering out. Apologies to the other guys.
Writing about this program every week forces me to think far too much about it. One of the prevailing thoughts of the past decade is trying to reconcile what that 2014 team had which all of the others since lacked. None of them reached the mountaintop, despite a legendary coach, a pristine, loaded roster - or sometimes both.
You can name the lousy assistant coach of your choosing and whatever you say is justified. But where I've landed is that 2014 team was longer on senior leadership than any other team the Buckeyes have fielded since their title. They were refugees of the 2011 nuked season, the 2012 forfeited one and the 2013 squandered one.
Those seniors were locked in. They weren't going to allow Virginia Tech to derail anything.
Only the 2017 and 2022 teams have any argument that they could approach the combination of elder statesmen strength and urgency which led to the first-ever CFP title. Whichever We'll Know the Reason Why excuse you have queued up is valid.
There's a far more probable timeline than the one we're currently living in where Ohio State's senior leaders in 2024 are Ballard, Patrick Gurd, the Joshes Fryar and Simmons, Gee Scott Jr, Mitchell Melton and Tywone Malone.
Every one of those journeys has zigged and zagged. That's seven guys all planning on cresting as their eligibility expires. I know several of them are outspoken and seen as adults in the room, sturdy leaders and reliable teammates. They would be fine.
But they're not the senior headliners, because in this unlikely timeline we only saw four Buckeyes drafted back in April. An astounding 11 draftable Ohio State players looked at what college football has become in 2024 and saw the world prior to 1990 coming to life.
They chose a senior year. The chose their best friends and one last shot at all of the goals none of them have ever achieved before being ejected by expired eligibility. Of course the talk of Legacies and NIL Compensation dominated their decision-announcement cadence, but ultimately they chose college.
The Buckeyes’ current linebackers coach returned for his senior year and his best friends, who did the same. James Laurinaitis went on to enjoy a successful NFL career, as did fellow senior Malcolm Jenkins. Little Animal’s roommate stayed too, and currently runs the Notre Dame football program.
That decision in 2008 to stick around started with friends. The sequence of announcements in January started and finished the same way.
It began with Jack Sawyer deciding to stay and ended with TreVeyon Henderson giving the Buckeyes their strongest senior class since 1990 forever impaired senior classes. The 1996, 1998 and 2003 teams were anomalies thick with pro-ready seniors.
None of those teams accomplished what they wanted. Nothing is guaranteed or promised in life or in football. NFL-ready players who return have a list of reasons, but ultimately they all choose college. Friends have immeasurable value. You can't put them on eBay or leave them at pawn shops for petty cash.
Sanzenbacher was the senior MVP and Most Inspirational Player from a recruiting class which left campus with four B1G titles, a national runner-up, two BCS bowl rings and four Gold Pants. These seniors have none of those things, but the 12-team playoff presents an interesting opportunity.
They have a legitimate shot at a one-year Sanzenbacher sweep (there's a postseason path which includes a Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl followed by an Orange Bowl or a Cotton Bowl, and then the final game of the 2024 season. They would like all of that. We would like all of that.
There's also a plausible but highly unlikely scenario where the Buckeyes are tragic underperformers this season and a dozen guys opt out of whatever non-CFP destination the team finds itself in. Even Olave excused himself from Pasadena after Ohio State failed to make the 2021 playoff.
An astounding 11 draftable Ohio State players looked at what college football has become in 2024 and saw the world prior to 1990 coming to life.
I'm not preparing for that, and neither should you. I am preparing to say goodbye to Oshie Sanzenbacher, though I don't know exactly when. You can be prepared but you'll never be ready.
I'll be at the Akron game and a bunch of others, but the ones I skip I hope I'll be able to watch with her watching me to try and understand which way the game is going. Football is less interesting to her than my body language and well-being during games. She always wants to help.
Unless she can be a serviceable blocking tight end or get to the quarterback a half-second sooner, she can't help. But I always appreciate the effort. Oshie Sanzenbacher will always be my MVP and MIP (pooch, ibid).
I'm prepared to say goodbye to the most selfless, unified and inspired senior class I can remember going back to my childhood days of cheering for Chris Spielman and his father. We have had eight months to prepare for what's coming. It still doesn't feel real.
I cannot believe we're getting a TreVeyon Henderson senior year. I cannot believe we get one more season of Emeka Egbuka, Denzel Burke or JT Tuiomolau. One of those guys coming back would have felt like a coup. They could all be in NFL training camps right now.
I cannot believe we're getting a Jack Sawyer senior year, who enters it coming off a six-game stretch of unblockability rivaled only in my lifetime by Nick Bosa, Vernon Gholston and MIke Vrabel. The last guy stayed for his senior year, in large part because his best friends were lined up next to him. The 1996 defense wins a national title in most seasons. Bad timing.
I cannot believe we're getting another year of wide-awake Tyleik Williams. We're getting a Donovan Jackson senior year as well. Will Howard is a one-and-done who isn't treating Columbus like he just got here - he understands the assignment. The Buckeyes raided the transfer portal, but not in a way any cynics would lead you to believe.
Twenty-four scholarship players entered the portal from last year's team. The program got seven scholarship players out of it in return. It's a focused program, a senior-heavy program, an unentitled program, a talented program and it's operating with urgency at the same time that it's bonded and unified. This isn't like anything we've seen before.
And they'll play a football game next weekend, hopefully the first of 16 or so. This collection of seniors and circumstances won't come around too often, which means your anxiety and high standards might benefit from a break for the next few months - you shouldn't need too much of them.
We'll be better served by gratitude and appreciation for what this is and how it all came together. Three months to enjoy this and savor it before we have to prepare ourselves to say goodbye.
This senior class came together and chose to stay eight months ago, which means we spent twice as long preparing to say hello. I hope they get everything they stuck around for to achieve. I hope they have the times of their lives playing one more season with their best friends. I hope they're prepared for what will be a memorable goodbye.
I hope that won't happen until after 16 glorious games and four confetti showers.
