Do you even care about XFL football? 
Here is the 2020 television schedule…but I’m wondering if that entire schedule will get played before the plug is pulled.
I bought a Seattle Dragons t-shirt because their logo is pretty cool.
I’ll probably watch some games. On TV. No interest in going to any.
Here is a list of confirmed rule changes. Here are some highlights:
-No fair catches
-Extra point kick replaced with a scrimmage play
-Outside of the two-minute warning, the clock will run continuously. During this time, the clock would only stop during a change of possession.
While the NFL is at least nominally making changes to increase safety, the XFL is trying to kill their players.
The XFL tried using the “no fair catches” as an advertising gimmick in its first attempt. What they forget to mention is, there’s a halo rule, and it’s five yards.
I am assuming the reason the best tickets cost $5-10 more on the visiting team’s side of the field at LA’s stadium is, they’re on the west side, so, during afternoon games, the fans don’t end up staring into the sun - but why are the tickets in the south end zone $10 more than the ones in the north end zone?
Which is what the CFL has done for years.
I especially love how it’s nothing like the UAB logo. Nope. Not at all.
It’s so much better though.
So from what I’ve heard, Vinny Mac has actually done his homework this time. Go figure, now that his industry rivals are no longer blind, stumbling imbeciles he can run circles around, he actually has to understand things like optics and public relations and social justice. Some of the new innovations look like they have the potential to be really good. The absolutely critical thing is to make this an alternative to the No Fun League, not an inferior version of it, and it looks like that’s exactly where it’s headed. Then there are things like no testing for cannabis, which, while they won’t make a huge impact, will give the league progressive cred and draw in both players and fans who otherwise wouldn’t be interested.
Best of all, he’s not only learned from his own mistakes, but also the failure of the AAF. Remember that one? There were a great many people who wanted it to succeed, and there were many dedicated professionals wiling to do what it took to succeed. Slight problem: Reggie Fowler and Tom Dundon weren’t among them…which was extremely bad because they were the money men. With mediocre attendance, which was inevitable for a franchise just getting off the ground, it was absolutely imperative to get an absolutely ironclad investment guarantee from someone who wasn’t afraid to take a big hit. Fowler backpedaled until he was in the ocean almost immediately, then Dundon went 28% of the way (itself nothing to sneeze at) before saying the hell with it, and the league’s death warrant was signed. McMahon knows that this XFL will absolutely be his last chance at a football league and he cannot go any less than 100% on this, and the money will be there no matter how big a drain it is.
Say what you will about the man, he’s not a fool, and he’s done everything possible to give the new incarnation of the XFL the best possible chance of succeeding.
And then we get to the 9,000 pound tank in the room…the players. There’s absolutely no way around this. He will have the dregs of the dregs to put on the field, and it’s going to seriously hurt the quality of play. We’ve already seen him water down the “no arrest record” restriction (now only felonies are grounds for barring), and don’t be surprised if he ends up relenting completely. When the crowd sees their quarterback overthrow the receiver by 10 yards for an interception, or their offensive line crumble like a stale muffin, or their strong side cornerback get burned for yet anther 40-yard gain, and then realize that it’s probably never going to get any better, how long will they still be willing to pay money for this? Bad players are the #1 obstacle that needs to be overcome for a fledgling league to be viable, and there’s been nothing that leads me to believe that McMahon has any answer to this.
We’ll find out in a few months.
yeah, but why cant the xfl go to the undrafted college guys and run a combine type of thing and run its own draft? I mean there’s probably hundreds of “pretty great to solid but not up to nfl godliness” types that wouldn’t mind a chance …
I mean all ya would need to do is get a list of everyone who entered the draft and take out anyone who didn’t get picked and say " hey wanna try this ? "
That is exactly who they do have as players (they allocated players to each team via a draft in October).
The thing to remember is that the NFL has locked up the best 1900 or so players in the US (53 players per roster, plus each team has a 5-man practice squad, and a few more on injured reserve per team). The best quarterback in the XFL is going to be something like the 95th-best U.S. professional quarterback.
And, as we saw in the AAF (which drew from that same player base) last spring, those players aren’t necessarily “pretty great to solid,” but more like “sometimes solid, sometimes not that great.” As DKW noted, what’s likely is that play will be pretty inconsistent – players of that caliber are going to make some good plays, interspersed with some poor play.
Heritage
I think the problem is that football requires a team effort. You can’t have one or two stars carrying a team of average players. Even a great football player needs to have other great players on the field with him.
Exactly. No fair catches, but the halo rule, and the receiver must make an attempt to run the ball back after catching the ball. This is how we played in high school, under CFL rules. If high schoolers can do it, then pros (in whatever league) can. Why the NFL allows fair catches, I’ll never know. You catch the ball on a kickoff, you run it back. That’s football. No fair catches.
Anyway, I’ll watch the XFL, but I’ll be critical. If it plays a good honest game, then great; but if it’s a reiteration of the trash-talking, badmouthing, smashmouth football that Vince McMahon tried to promote last time, then no. Football is not pro wrestling; it is an honest game played between two honest teams.
At least this time around, the team names are not menacing. Well, they are, but not like they were. Anybody remember the Chicago Enforcers, or the New York/NewJersey Hitmen or the Las Vegas Outlaws? At least the Dallas Renegades, the New York Guardians, and the Seattle Dragons, are reasonable team names.
When Vince tried this the first time he had the right time, there was some general dissatisfaction with the NFL and an alternative might have had a chance if it was done right, but it wasn’t. I don’t see any demand right now for an alternative to the NFL. The brain injury issue is concerning to the fans and they’re accepting of changes to the game that address that problem.
The new XFL is better organized, has a real plan to develop interest and make the league legitimate while the old XFL depended entirely on gimmickry. You can’t plan demand though.
And the CFL no-yards is 15 yards if the player is catching the ball (ie most vulnerable because he may be jumping), 5 yards if the ball hits the ground before being touched.
You can protect the players without a fair catch rule.
In my case I get to watch football in the NFL’s offseason. I think that’ll be a big part of the demand. As long as the games aren’t forcing me to choose between watching/following the NFL and the XFL, I don’t see how this has to be an alternative league. It seems like it wants to be a supplemental league instead.
If people are sick of football after the Super Bowl and don’t have any interest in watching more of it, being played by inferior players, this will definitely fail. If people say “football is football, this will tide me over until next Fall” it might have a chance.
The spring league concept is the best thing going for it, but one of those just failed rapidly. XFL is better financed to try to for two years without needing any specific attendance or viewership goals. TV coverage is supposed to be limited to local markets for those two years also. A lot can change in two years.
Another way to look at it, is that you’ll essentially be watching a league made up of the best college players… who didn’t go to the NFL.
Or if you prefer, it’ll be a lot like the NFL replacement player teams in the 1987 season, except without the small percentage of real NFL players thrown in.
If you look at the list of XFL quarterbacks from that link I shared to their recent player draft, you’ll only see three guys who have any significant on-field NFL experience: Landry Jones, Matt McGloin, and Josh Johnson; all three of them were primarily backups, who were occasionally pressed into duty. And, none of them are young, either – Johnson is 33, Jones and McGloin are 30.
The rest of the QBs are guys who never got on the field in the NFL (most were practice squad players).
So, that’s the caliber that the XFL has, at their most important position.