Dealing with December's distractions

NASCAR calls it their “silly season.”

That’s a time when drivers are jumping from race team to race team in advance of the new season. It’s a time when stock car fans speculate who will end up where.

College football doesn’t seem to have an official name for the time of the season when coaches come and go.

For lack of something official, call it the “coaching carrousel.” It generally starts spinning each November and rewards new hires with multi-million dollar contracts — or those fired, expensive buyouts — both making the public gasp.

It’s a seemingly constant whirl of fact, speculation, rumo...