It is the loneliest, darkest feeling an athlete can have, when your heart believes that the men who own and manage the team you play for and the head coach who decides that you are no longer the right man to quarterback his team — your team — stop believing in you.
It shakes you to your core, so much so that you need time to steady yourself as you ponder the sudden, unceremonious end of the dream that was going to take you to your first playoff football in January, finally, after all these trying years and all those places you called home.