So Punxustawney Phil, the “seer of seers, the prognosticator of prognosticators,” has informed the world that there will be an early spring.

Not early enough.

Here in Broncoland, the winter has been a cold one both metaphorically and literally. Nearly every square foot of open, non-paved ground has been covered in snow since the blizzard that paralyzed the region on Dec. 20 and kept many organizational personnel in a sleepover at team headquarters. On many side streets, the asphalt vanished, to be encased in layers of ice and packed-down snow that have yet to be cleared, turning a visit to a friend’s house into a Himalayan odyssey minus a helpful sherpa.

This morning, the thermometer plunged to an Antarctic nine degrees below zero at Centennial Airport, just a long Jay Cutler strike from Dove Valley.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t put much stock in the weather forecast of a quadriped who speaks in a concocted language of “groundhogese.” But given how snowfall projections from some so-called meteorological experts on television have been so inaccurate throughout the winter, I’d rather trust an enlarged squirrel.

OK, I know how a lot of you probably don’t like the personal-type of blog entry. If so, feel free to skip on to another chapter in this increasingly dense log of all things Broncos. There’ll be more to come on the players and coaches in the coming days.

Anyhow …

I’m convinced the answers to a multitude of life’s questions arrive in one’s head in the middle of the night. Somehow people seem less guarded and more honest at this hour. If I had my way, I’d make all my phone calls between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m.; conversations seem more insightful under the cover of darkness and the silence of the overnight.

If the clichéd query “Why are we here?” is ever properly answered, it will be done at about 2:21 a.m. My own crackpot theory. This must be why no one wanted to sit with me at lunch when I was in middle school.

The roads are virtually deserted. Most people adhere to the recommendations of the governor, so-called experts, or the hysteria-fueled pleas from the television — stay where you are. I can’t vouch for the advice of on-camera personalities — I mean, you might see me on Broncos TV on this site, but why would you trust me? I’m just some guy. But plenty of people around here took the advice to stay in place.

It’s camp-out night at Dove Valley, with representatives of a multitude of departments who work a variety of different shifts — some starting about two hours before sunrise — turning Broncos headquarters into a hostel. I’d like to think everyone else is asleep by now. I’d like to think that I’m the only person up in the middle of the night in front of a monitor and a keyboard, going nocturnal so the home page can blast forth with this morning’s date rather than yesterday’s while transcribing an interview for a story I’ll write in the coming days.

I’m here in a conference room, overlooking practice fields that could well emerge verdant after days spent absorbing a soaking of moisture from a snowfall that is now measured in feet rather than inches. For now, it’s nothing but snow — somewhere down there in the darkness. The blizzard rages; some 10 hours still remain in the warning period, and there is no moon to peek through to the breast of the new-fallen snow, as Clement C. Moore once wrote. It is as dark as a snow-covered field can possibly be.

From here on the second floor, it doesn’t seem as though the snow is that treacherous. It might be piled high, but it is so smoothly spread out over the field that one could walk on it, right?

Wrong. That’s merely an assumption; I have no plans to venture outside and learn the answer. How pathetic is that? A question of life that I could answer with certainty, and I am unwilling to seek the certain word on it because I don’t want to have bullet-like snowflakes flying in my eyes while further soaking my still-drying coat.

Maybe it’s because there are so many questions to which I don’t need to know the answers. I ask enough of them in the locker room. Those replies are ones I need to know — and I’d like to think you, gentle reader, would want to know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be on the Broncos’ Web site, n’est-çe pas?

In this job — which is exactly why I’m here right now, to ensure that our site has its usual presence for Thursday’s Dove Valley doings — the question of how Stephen Alexander’s ribs feel or what kind of pain Javon Walker felt practicing after separating his shoulder are more important than whether one could walk on the frozen water that covers the field. I might be curious about that, but as long as I’m here, I’ve got a job to do — whether it’s 2 p.m. or 2 a.m.

And that’s precisely why this building hums with the presence of people tonight. There’s a job to do — whether it’s as trivial to the team as a Web site update or as vital to the collective endeavor as working on the practice plan for today, or anything else without which the team couldn’t properly function, for that matter.

Which brings me back to the well-worn question. “Why are we here?”

In our infinitesimal corner of the universe, the answer is simple:

There’s a job to do.

Talk to you later today.