Coaching in the NFL, either as a head coach or as an assistant, is a heckuva lot of fun.

It’s really, really, REALLY cool.

Most of the time, anyway.

But it does have its drawbacks – er, as it were, its drawback, at least the biggest one by far.

I remember doing a magazine feature on Chris Palmer when he was hired as the head coach of the expansion Browns.

Perhaps Palmer isn’t NFL head-coaching material, but he has proven to be a very good assistant coach on the offensive side, and an even better man. He’s just a great guy – kind, courteous, polite and friendly in a business that often times does not lend itself to such.

We sat there for well over an hour one morning a couple months before the start of that 1999 training camp. We discussed all kinds of things, but there’s one part of our conversation that I’ll always remember most.

“Being a coach in the NFL is great. There’s no doubt about it,” Palmer said. “Just like the players who dream of making it to the NFL, it’s what every coach shoots for he gets into the business. And when you get to the pros, you have to pinch yourself every once in a while to see if it’s real.

“The money is incredible. The facilities are beyond belief, and the travel is off the charts. It’s a wonderful life, and a wonderful job.”

Then he paused for a moment and, with the smile leaving his face and being replaced by a very somber look, he added, “But there are drawbacks. It’s the time you have to put into the job. You get here at 6 in the morning, or earlier, and you don’t leave until midnight, or later. You do that every day, day after day, week after week, month after month. It’s get to be a real physical grind.

“But more than that, it’s what all that time away from home does to your personal life. You miss a lot of things – the ninth birthday party, the school activities, the first communion, the little league games, the anniversaries. It’s not that those things get postponed until you can get home to be part of them. No, they still go on, just without you. You get to hear about in a phone call when it’s over, or late at night when you finally get home. And when those events are gone, they’re gone. They’re not coming back.

“To not be there for all those things is difficult. It’s a part of the job you definitely don’t like.”

So on Father’s Day, as every day, dads need to make sure that as their wife, children and grandchildren shower them with love, hugs and kisses, they shower them right back with the same – and then some.

After all, life is short, and the clock is always running.

And there are no timeouts or two-minute warnings.