I can’t do anything right tonight - that should have been BC Lions, not the Als.
In my opinion, the XFL can be expected to put out just as much real sports as the WWF does. The same crowds that like the WWF will probably like the XFL as well. Maybe they will come up with full contact golf next.
Would they get to use the clubs? How about full-contact tennis? 
Okay jti, now you’ve done it! 
Canadian football is defititely more fast-paced an lively than the NFL, but I think if the Super Bowl champ played the Grey Cup champ, the NFL would win. But only by running the ball and keeping the Canadian team’s offense off the field. I think any NFL team with a good running game would punch right through a Canadian team with a small, fast defense designed to stop a Canadian style offense. But if that Canadian offense got on the field, they could really do some damage. This is assuming its line is big enough to hold out the opposing defensive linemen.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to watch such a game. Maybe I’m wrong, and the Canadian team would cream the NFL team with its speed. That’s be a real eye-opener.
Small correction : TitanSports is now knows as WWFE (World Wrestling Federation Entertainment). So yes, it’s run by the WWF.
Only in name similarities only. Linda McMahon is in charge of the WWF, while Vince is in charge of the parent company, now known as the WWFE as you say. In short, it’s different management.
Hey, jti,
Concerning those two teams with the virtually identical names, Roughriders and Rough Riders – does it bother anybody in Saskatchewan and/or Ottawa? It feels a trifle strange to me.
OK, enough about the CFL/NFL comparisons. jti, I appreciate you interest in understanding the NFL, but theres an entire book’s worth of subtle differences and rule variances that we can’t hope to cover in this thread. It would however be great in a thread of its own, and there very likely is one in the archives somewhere.
[/hijack] <—pay attention, take your ritalin
As for the OP. I haven’t read the full rule book for the XFL, but I have heard the first few mentioned here. The no fair catch rule is a terrible one. Yeah it will inspire some great hits, but it is virtual suicide, and you’ll see alot of bad special teams play. Neglecting the recklessness that this rule has with its players safety, it is going to have people playing scared, and thats how careers and lives are destroyed. Very very bad rule. There are a few other nuances like this that are poor choices on their part. Its a fine line between rugged old school football, and unreasonable danger. Elininating the intentional grounding rule isn’t quite as bad, and while risky isn’t reckless. No fair catch means 225 pound helmeted missles spearing stationary unprepared targets. You couldn’t pay me to play that position.
Milo, name me one football field in Detroit that’s outdoors and has grass. Thats your first problem (highly doubt you’d see U of M letting them use the field, and its pretty well outside the city nor do I see the XFL putting money up to convert new Tiger stadium when other cities have facilities in place, and multi-use facilities are considered losing propositions anyways). Your second problem is that every sport in that city is failing miserably in attracting fans when they aren’t winning. Up and coming sports like the XFL can’t risk losing a franchise in a city when they aren’t winning, they’ll be depending on diehard fans and TV viewing.
Do I think the XFL will be over the top? No, not really. The players are going to take it seriously, and no matter what the league wants they aren’t going to have a bunch of characters out there. The play for pay rules sound like a stroke of genious, and will make everygame competitive. The only nugget of WWF I think we’ll see is the miking everything stuff. The broadcasters pushing the limits of censorship, which is a good thing IMHO. NBC however is probably one of the most conservative networks, so I expect that to be interesting. Theres gonna be face painting, and obnoxious announcers, lots of bleeps on the sidelines and in the locker rooms, and some wild football games, but I don’t think this will be much more sports-entertainment than Arena Football, no matter how zany the broadcasting staff is.
SPOOFE, get over it. Football is football in this country. When we start speaking anouther language and call the NFL Füßball then I’ll listen, but for now what the Brits call soccer has no more bearing on the US than what Singapore calls a Vietnamese Fuck Swing.
Your points are well taked, and I doubt that U-M would let them use it either (although, for enough money…), but I don’t think the distance is a problem. Firstly, the XFL is kind of marketed toward the college crowd, and secondly Ann Arbor isn’t too much farther than Pontiac, where the Lions play now (though Pontiac is certainly more “urban” than Ann Arbor).
Tigers Stadium. Next question?
Yeah, Tigers Stadium. It’s still completely intact, and the Lions only played there for several decades.
I think the NFL tries to be too sterile and antiseptic. Rules about how high a player’s socks are pulled up? Whether their jersey is tucked or untucked? When they take their helmet off and how they show exuberance?
The NFL also has a certain self-loathing about it. It wants to pretend that it’s not a violent, gladiator-type sport.
If the XFL not only rejects all of the above, but flaunts things in the opposite direction, I think they stand a good chance of being highly successful.
The Vietnamese Fuck Swing, a.k.a. The Hammock in Lizard’s Back Yard.
Yeah, I wish.
On with the debate!
Lizard,
the two are connected. The rouge only works if you are standing in the end-zone behind the goal post, catch the ball on the missed kick, and run it out. If you move the goal posts to the back of the end-zone, where does the receiver stand?