With the volume of high-quality college football players, and the NFL having no minor league, there is an available talent pool good enough to entertain people.
Some people are annoyed by the prima donna behavior of NFL players.
People love bad-weather football games.
People are nostalgic.
Proposed: The OSFL (“Old-School Football League”).
[ul]
[li]Franchises in places like Duluth, Fargo, etc.[/li][li]Season occurs in the dead of winter (Dec-Mar).[/li][li]Old hulking concrete stadiums (preferably named after WWI).[/li][li]Grass, dirt, cleats.[/li][li]No heated benches or other amenities like that.[/li][li]Old-style uniforms with no names & minimal logos.[/li][li]No tolerance for crybabies.[/li][/ul]
Inevitably, someone’s going to come in and suggest just having a Rugby league. Having an exciting, forward pass-based game lends itslef to primadonnahood, I think. Count me in for tickets to opening day of Toledo versus Scranton.
Make it like an old version of rugby by getting rid of the forward pass and having unlimited downs. Everyone will love watching big guys repeatedly slam into each other for minimal gain all day.
Didn’t someone try this a few years ago . . it was called the XFL?
I’m not sure who all these people are who want to see bad weather, all rushing 3-0 football games. I imagine there’s even less who would want to sit in a stadium in Duluth, Minnesota for three hours in the middle of January.
There’s a reason the football rulebook is littered with rules to encourage more offense. Also, while yes, there is a lot of leftover undrafted talent, most of the players that want to play professional football play in the CFL and Arena football, the rest have just moved on to take real life jobs that pay real money.
In addition, there is a shortage of good quarterbacks as it is in the NFL, so there wont be any good quarterbacks, and unless you are going to outlaw the forward pass, these games will be nothing but missed pass after missed pass. There’s a lot of minor league sports that get away with being less than “high” level. You can disguise bad baseball, bad hockey, and even bad basketball. But there’s nothing more brutal than a slipshod football game.
That said, to build on your thought, I was always curious what football looked like in 1905, and 1925. I think it would be fun to have an exhibition under those rules (with todays padding, of course). I always wanted to see the flying wedge, in real time, not in those wind up black and white films.
I think the rugby league makes more sense, its really a cool sport to watch, the problem is rugby is so far off the radar in this country that most college clubs are privately funded.
