On June 15, 2012, I launched Football Perspective. Since that day, Football Perspective has posted at least one new article every single day. This is the site’s 1,249th post, so I won’t blame you if you’ve missed an article here or there. At the top of every page is a link to the Historical Archive, a page that is updated after each post is published.

In what is becoming an annual tradition, I use this space every June 15th to thank the people who have helped make this site successful.  And, as it turns out, every year I feel indebted to even more people.   And this year, that starts with you.

“Never read the comments” is a meme that has near-universal support on the internet.  But that’s not true here, and that’s because Football Perspective’s regular commenters are not just some of the smartest football minds on the planet, but some of the nicest.  And that means the world to me.

Consider, for a minute, what Brad Oremland is doing.  Brad’s a senior writer at Sports-Central, and he planned on writing a series on the greatest quarterbacks of all time this off-season.  And while he’s running that series there, he’s co-running it here, too.  Why? Because of you. Because when smart people put out great work, they want to hear what other smart people have to say.  The fact that a great football mind like Brad is eager to post stuff here just to get feedback from this site’s commenters is a remarkable advertisement for this community.  I remain indebted to the many great folks who comment on this site, and your love, intelligence, and civility motivates me to keep this thing going.

I say that because a few months ago, I decided to slow things down. Instead of posting daily, I decided to cut back to 3-4 posts a week. That plan was supposed to go into effect in … March.  So far, I’m off to a really bad start.  But what’s obvious to me is that if it wasn’t for the great community that’s present here at Football Perspective, the daily streak would have ended a long time ago.  I wrote last year in this space that I hope to continue to earn your trust and devotion.  That rings even more true now as the site has grown: with new readers and commenters come new challenges, and I will give it my best effort ^[1]Or, at least let you know when I don’t have time to give it my best effort! Having a very time-consuming day job requires me to cut some corners every once in awhile, but I will always be … Continue reading to make them as satisfied as I’ve made the regulars.

I also want to take some time today to thank some specific folks for the success of the site.  I know that reading other people’s thank yous is about as interesting as hearing about your co-worker’s vacation, but there are a lot of people out there responsible for Football Perspective, so please bear with me.

My parents and my brother are responsible for shaping me in countless ones, and I’m lucky to have gone 3/3 in that lottery.  My girlfriend is much more supportive of this website than she probably should be, and I’m very grateful to her as well.

There have been so many great influences in my football life: David Dodds and Joe Bryant at Footballguys.com, Sean Forman, Neil Paine (now at 538), and Mike Kania at Sports-Reference.com, and Doug Drinen at both sites.  Without each of those six people, this website may not have ever existed.

We all have busy lives, and there are some folks I don’t keep in touch with near as often as I’d like.  But I know I could not speak to them for six months, and then call on a Jason Lisk or Chris Brown or Sigmund Bloom or Matt Waldman or Maurile Tremblay or Jason Wood or Scott Kacsmar or Mike Clay and get an immediate response.  There are a lot of great writers out there, and I’m honored that so many of them always make themselves available for me in my times of need. It’s a special privilege to consider those guys friends.

Brian Burke at Advanced Footbal Analytics (although check the news!), Aaron Schatz at Football Outsiders, Bill Barnwell at Grantland, and Neil at 538 have done so much to promote this site that I really don’t know what else to say but thank you.  Bill in particular has been kind enough to use his large platform to frequently drive traffic to this site, and those four gentlemen are some of the best in the business. They’re as smart as they are popular, and I’m honored to call them friends.

I’d also like to thank Toni Monkovic and Melissa Hoppert, my editors at the New York Times over the last five or so years.  Sure, they haven’t directly impacted this site, but they’ve been a huge boon to my writing career.  They have been a pleasure to work with and make producing content on a deadline seem easy.

The only reason The Streak is still alive — an incredible 1,096 days and counting with at least one post — is because of some guest writers.  A sincere thank you to Bryan Frye, who has done a remarkable job as a frequent guest commenter, and Andrew Healy who was so successful here that Football Outsiders stole him.  But there have been so many great guest writers here — Brad Oremland, Jason Winter, Adam Steele, Munir Mohamed, and Adam Harstad have all published material here over the last 12 months — and the site would not be the same without those contributions.  And just as importantly, those guys are pretty frequent posters in the comments, too.

So today is a day worth celebrating. It’s the third birthday of Football Perspective, one of the luckiest sites on the internet.  It’s one place where it’s safe — no, recommended — to read the comments.