The end of the year is a time for reflection and re-commitment, for thinking about what worked and what didn't, and how we can improve in the months ahead.
My sense is that 2021 was a lot better for most folks than was 2020, but as we head into yet another year amidst yet another surge of the coronavirus, we are again reminded that we are still a long way from normal. Whatever "normal" means in the year 2022.
Among other things, it seems like the nation's overall psychology has deteriorated. We've spent so much time physically isolated from one another that we've now become emotionally isolated as well. This has not been good for anyone. Somewhere there's an inflection point between physical health and mental health, and as a nation, I feel like we're already teetering.
I know what this means for my family and my career. It's less clear what it means for my writing and/or As For Football.
I've done year-end wrap-ups like this before, but this is the first time that I've ever tried to integrate my writing for AFF with either my social media footprint and/or with my personal blog. It's been a somewhat fraught experience, introducing even more subjectivity into the process than normal. It's never been the case that the "best" posts of the year were necessarily the most widely read, but when we add in the effects of social media influence, we exacerbate the weird, giving potentially widespread voice to some truly random thoughts.
Making this list was therefore something of a balance. Some of it spoke to me. Some of it spoke to you. Some of it was randomly retweeted by the rich and much-more-famous. What can you do? My all-time favorite post on any platform has had just 387 readers since July 2016. I don't know what that means other than that what speaks to me doesn't always speak to all of you.
Anyway. The Top 15 Posts of 2021 are after the jump.
