It is kind of fun to scan the rosters for former first-round NFL picks (the aforementioned John Avery, f’rinstance) and those guys who were big names in college and you always THOUGHT could make it in the big time.
I’m gonna offend everyone reading this thread here, I can feel it! 
My XFL experience:
I woke up, blurrily turned on the TV as I headed for the shower (I like to hear the TV while I shower; I live in a dorm room, so the shower is only about 10 feet away from the TV), notice in the shower that the TV seems to be playing a football game!!
“Huh?”, I thought, “But the superbowl is over! There ain’t supposed to be any more of this shit!”
I suddenly realized that I must be listening to the XFL, and I was pissed! I HATE televised sports! Hate hate hate!! I like to play sports, but to watch a bunch of over-paid idiots play on TV is, to me, a waste of time of phenomenal proportions… Add in the fact that here in Korea, there is only ONE regular English broadcast station… and I’m fucked! The English station, AFKN (Armed Forces Korean Network) is the armed forces channel, and plays WAY too much sports… and now there is another sport for them to televise! :mad: I thought we were done with football for a few months, but nooooooooooo…
What a hoot(ers)!! McMahon’s got the right idea with the sideline ornaments. Slutty is good. Demure/keep yer hands off/I’m still a virgin/I have a boyfriend NFL cheerleaders are now passe.
They were the most honest things about the game… if you overlook the silicon.
OK, I think Vince McMahon pissed in Gazoo’s Cheerios.
Some random thoughts, its too late in the thread to organize them.
I hate the team names and most of the uniforms/number fonts.
I LOVE the cheerleaders, I’m a guy and they are generally really hot. So far the act of cheerleading is strictly optional, but I love that they are playing them up more than usual. I like testosterone with my football. It’d be a huge bonus if they managed to get some of the Nitro girls (yeah, I know thats the WCW) polish and style to rub off on these girls.
The players intro-ing themselves is lame, theres enough mikes around to let them talk things up during the game.
The play quality by the Hitmen was fucking horrible on all levels, starting with the coaching. But, as a whole the playing was acceptable, especially considering they haven’t had very long to practice compared to the NFL and college. And lets be honest, a true football fan will enjoy watching a high school game on tv.
I liked the anti-coin toss idea, but I can see it becoming to predictable, if you’ve got the fastest guy in the league, why should you get the ball every time?
Jesse Ventura is wearing pretty thin, and i liked that he got elected at first. Now he’s losing his credibility faster than he did his hair. He doesn’t know football, I don’t think he’s watched much of it in the last couple decades. I think this is why most of his comments are so bad when compared to the NFL guys. A happy medium between the two would be best. I will say that its obvious he doesn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about what he says. This is very good thing, and it showed a couple of times. Mainly when he burned the NY/NJ QB for falling without being hit, and getting that phantom dinger. The only thing hurt on that guy was his pride, Jesse was dead on when he said he needed to toughen up. You’d never hear that honesty in the NFL. Now, I wish it was someone else saying it, but its one of Jesse’s high points.
Great move to switch the games, should have happened earlier. Especially since i was pissed to learn i didn’t get to watch the entire Chicago game.
The camera angles were iffy, and I’ll blame it on a bunch of rookie/rusty producers, directors and engineers in the broadcasting department. This is one aspect that you must judge again in a few weeks. Thumbs up to the steady cam guys.
Not sure why they only have the home team cheerleaders at the games, I’d imagine you could get some pretty cool dance competitions going and try and create a reason to show alot of them. More cheerleaders is always a good thing.
Black ball, really stupid choice if you play all night games.
More Dick Butkus, less Vince McMahon.
I do like that there is no PAT kick, but i don’t like that there is no 2-pt conversions. I’m not sure how the best way to reconcile this, but a 2-pt try would have made the Chicago game’s finish more exciting.
I’ll have more after the next game.
Hey Astroboy, I’ve got a real brain-cruncher of a question for you.
If you don’t like watching sports, why do you watch them?
Before you go on the, “I’m in Korea and only get one channel” defense, allow me to inform you that while living in Italy, I was not even able to receive the AFN Radio broadcase, let alone the Television.
Go do something. Study. Sheesh. Just don’t cry me a river of piss then complain that you don’t like the smell.
Man, I must be a glutton for punishment. I just talked to a buddy on the phone and we’re getting together to watch today’s game. We’ll see how it goes, maybe they can win me over yet, but I’m not holding my breath. (Why, Dear Lord, must I love football so much!!??)
Well for the first time my wife and two daughters joined me in watching a football game. They asked me questions on rules etc. and I thought great, maybe this is the kind of program we can all enjoy. Well, nobody was watching the second half because for me, the quality of play was lower than college level and the WWF style of entertainment which my womenfolk are attracted to just didn’t cut it. As for the cheerleaders, I much prefer the sexy wholesomeness in the NFL.
On the opening rush for possession, an Orlando Rage player (Hassan Shamsid-Deen) separated his shoulder.
Also, those empty seats in the Orlando game weren’t for sale. Over 1,000 people were turned away after the 36,000 available tickets were sold out. I only saw the 4th quarter of the Rage/Enforcers game, but the cheerleaders looked very much like normal cheerleaders. Not really anything risqué. The Vegas/NY-NJ game was probably quite different. I need to see a full game to get a better idea of what it’s like.
The XFL sucks.
The level of play is college division 2 at best. There were so many dropped passes that I had to take off my shoes to keep count.
I am gonna love the first time one of those on the field camera guys gets in the way and becomes an extra blocker.
Jesse sucks:p
NFL castoff John Avery runs through the defense like the second coming of Gale Sayers, although he probably could have had the same success against the Viking defense, but thats not sayin’ much.
Overall it was a little disapointing, I thought the players would be better, but it was the first game.
Can’t wait to watch next week, because, after all it is football.
Well, sort of.
Anyone unfortunate enough to watch the Sunday XFL matches? I saw them while flipping through channels. The color man for the SF-LA game was Brian Bosworth! I thought he was dead! (I’m afraid we might get a lot of this in the XFL this season.) Despite the fact that both games were close, they were also both pretty boring–a monumental achievement. I don’t get it–whereas the WWF is one of those things you don’t want to watch, but somehow get sucked in because you can’t believe how bad it is, I sort of wanted to see how the XFL did, but couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
As others have posted on this thread, the standard of play, especially receiving and tackling, is dire. I’ve seen NCAA Division III games that were better–a sad statement considering about 80% of the players are ex-Division I. It could be that the teams haven’t had enough practice, but unfortunately it’s more likely that many of the players have been away from football for too long. If the standard of play doesn’t improve soon, the novelty value is going to wear off in a hurry.
See, Mr. Cynical I knew I was gonna offend someone!
FYI: I don’t watch it! As I said, I like the background noise while I’m in the shower, and for some reason I can’t get any radio reception in my dorm room (or I’d listen to the radio)…
>>>Um,
Did any of you expect this to be a pro football game?<<
Um, yeah. They’re getting pay checks, aren’t they?
An overhyped high school football game with a bunch of half-way decent fotball players giving their best for love of the sport.
For the life of me, it seemed as if most of the participants were almost embarassed to indulge in the usual WWF antics no matter how much in demand they were.
For all of the football junkies out there, the short play clock and post-superbowl fix that the XFL represents may keep it alive. Look to the defunct WFL for further insight.
The XFL is lame and the games this weekend looked like a bunch of high-school games played by older dudes. It’s not a sport, it’s a TV show - just like the WWF. (I like the cheerleaders as much as the next fellow, but porn-tease alone won’t get me to watch anything.)
I give it 2 maybe 3 seasons, then it tanks and gets dismantled just like every other lame-o “alternative” football league in US history.
An opinion from someone who is not a football fan.
In 85 I watched every minute of every game as the Bears marched towards the Superbowl. This past NFL season I doubt I watched a total of an entire quarter of NFL/college ball combined. Flipped on the tube Sunday afternoon. Caught from the middle of the 1st to the middle of the 2d of the LA/SF game.
Didn’t really strike me as any better or any worse than any other football game. There were some exciting plays both on offense and defense. During the time I watched they didn’t show the cheerleaders much at all IMO. The commentators seemed pretty brainles, but so does much of what passes for “expert” NFL commentary IMO. The stands were full - did they charge for tickets? I did not see any undue violence, and did not hear any vulgarity. I think someone flipped the bird on camera. That’s about it.
I ended up switching to David Attenborough’s Secret Life of Birds. They were doing meateaters. Now THERE was some over the top violence!
To all of you XFL-bashers: what is wrong with you? It’s football people. Football. Like the kind you can go out and play in the backyard with some buddies. So what if there’s less penalties? They (and by they I mean McMahon and his PR cronies) are telling you there’s more violence and it’s ‘kill the QB’ but it’s like that in ALL football, they are just making a big stink about it here. Most of the crap they got rid of is not the violence-related penalties. In fact, they really didn’t get rid of much, the XFL is not a far shot from the NFL. what they’re doing is showing the trash talk that MOST players give to each other.
The level of play I saw was beter than the Cleveland Browns (my favorite team, so screw flaming that) or the San Diego Chargers (who I don’t like, so flame away). If I hear about people dropping balls I advise you to take a look at, say, Keyshawn Johnsen (Johnson?). Dude gets paid tweleve million dollars to join my Bucs because ‘he got hands’, right? Wrong. For how much he was hyped, and how much shit he threw around, he dropped waaaay too many catches that were right there. He’s just one guy I can name out of the hundreds in the NFL. The level of play was easily NFL or college, if you don’t agree I’d like to know at teams you’ve been watching.
Finally, to all the peeps here who think this is a flash-in-the-pan, I have one thing to say: Pro Wrestling. If there’s anything McMahon knows it’s how to stay around. I hate pro-wrestling. Absolutely can not stand it. Is it going anywhere? Nope. Why? Because it’s marketed to the right people… from the Orlando Sentinel (newspaper)…
"Like it or not, the XFL laid the smack down on the competition Saturday night by posting a startling 10.3 TV rating during its debut telecast on NBC, making it the network’s highest-rated night since the final night of competition at Sydney Olympic Games on Sept. 30.
The rating – a preliminary number based on the 49 leading national markets (about 65 percent of the viewing nation) by Nielsen Media Research – means that 10.3 percent of the nation’s TV sets were tuned to the game at some point. The XFL also had a “17 share,” which means 17 percent of the sets in use were tuned to the game."
There are a lot of testosterone-driven, cheerleader wantin’, angry or not, young and old, beer drinkin’ blue collar people in this country. As long as the XFL doesn’t try to out-class itself or shine at the same time as the NFL, and as long as network television is free, there will be plenty of people to watch. It’s more violence on TV. why do you think Nascar is so popular? Because people want to see a car go around a track? No, people watch for the wrecks.
punk snot dead,
broccoli!
I didn’t like it either. It was just as boring to watch as regular NFL football.
Note: Their target audience is Males aged 12-24. Something to take into account. They want the same people who watch wrestling to watch the XFL. If they can pull that off, then it’ll be around for quite some time.
As someone who watched parts of close to three-quarters of all the NFL games played this year (Thank You Sledman and NFL ticket), I can say this “No, they weren’t even close to the NFL in level of play.”
**This is going to fall off in a hurry, and I’d bet it even fell off drastically as the game progressed. People watched the first night to see if it would be any good. It wasn’t. Most people won’t come back to watch more. Hell, I’m in an XFL Fantasy League, for money, I live and breathe football during the NFL season, and I won’t go out of my way to watch a game again. I’ll check the box scores after the games are over.
To Gazoo and others who bash the XFL’s quality of play, please explain something to me. Are you a football snob, and if so, why? Isn’t being a football snob as silly as being a beer snob, or a junk food snob? Assuming you’re correct, and that the XFL’s level of play isn’t up to the NFL’s - an assumption I find dubious, having heard about Kerry Collins’ performance in the Super Bowl - what difference should that make to you as a sports consumer? My point is that if you like football watching the NFL brand really isn’t that much diffence, from a TV spectator’s standpoint, than a Division II college game.
OK, I can’t resist. My response to XFL Week 1:
ME HATE THEY