Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

sheajets wrote:One of the first plays I saw the other day (at the Metlife Stadium game, not sure the names of the teams but one was wearing neon clownsuits)

Well, that's just like your opinion, man.

sheajets wrote:Perfectly clean hit down the middle on a pass completion, and out come the flags once again penalizing good quality textbook hitting (no targeting, no leading with the helmet) because they deem somebody "defenseless". The TV went off immediately.

Fair enough although it is a shame you will accept that from the NFL but not from a lesser league. The XFL is really up against it here if a lot of people take this stance.

Somehow minor league baseball, basketball, and hockey exist but minor league football does not. If this XFL does not work it would be a real shame. This XFL has some good rules and ideas. The kickoff, while bizarre-looking, worked. It was an actual play again. In the NFL the kickoff is usually a nothingness play. The transparency with the reviews was great. There were some other things here and there that I liked. The broadcasts were professional.

It seems the majority of people end up saying stuff like this-
months, weeks, days before the first game- "I'll take a peak."
the day of the first game- "It's not the NFL."
a few days later- "It sucks. I'm ready for baseball."

JWL wrote:Somehow minor league baseball, basketball, and hockey exist but minor league football does not. If this XFL does not work it would be a real shame. This XFL has some good rules and ideas. The kickoff, while bizarre-looking, worked. It was an actual play again. In the NFL the kickoff is usually a nothingness play. The transparency with the reviews was great. There were some other things here and there that I liked. The broadcasts were professional.

It seems the majority of people end up saying stuff like this-
months, weeks, days before the first game- "I'll take a peak."
the day of the first game- "It's not the NFL."
a few days later- "It sucks. I'm ready for baseball."

Minor league football does exist and it is called college football and there is no way any of these upstart leagues are going to be able to compete with that. Minor league baseball, basketball, and hockey don't try to get tv ratings out of their games and if they did people would probably respond similarly to them that they do to these minor league football leagues that try to start up. When players start getting paid to play there is a certain expectation that needs to be met and players that simply aren't good enough for the NFL don't really meet those expectations.

I started following the major XFL discussion groups on Facebook and if the discussion in those groups is any indication of how this league will do, it will likely fail. It's not that people don't like the league, and if you go on their web site the authentic footballs are quite popular (and sold out--I contend because of the way they look when you throw a spiral), but the discussion in those groups focuses largely on expansion, comparing the XFL to the AAF, and hope that the XFL becomes a minor league. If that's what people are interested in, I contend the league will fail, because sports has always been about stories. People want to be witness to a great story and I don't think there's a story. People aren't talking about players, plays, teams, etc. (At least not to the degree they're talking expansion and other concepts.) That's why I think this league will fail.

RyanChristiansen wrote:I started following the major XFL discussion groups on Facebook and if the discussion in those groups is any indication of how this league will do, it will likely fail. It's not that people don't like the league, and if you go on their web site the authentic footballs are quite popular (and sold out--I contend because of the way they look when you throw a spiral), but the discussion in those groups focuses largely on expansion, comparing the XFL to the AAF, and hope that the XFL becomes a minor league. If that's what people are interested in, I contend the league will fail, because sports has always been about stories. People want to be witness to a great story and I don't think there's a story. People aren't talking about players, plays, teams, etc. (At least not to the degree they're talking expansion and other concepts.) That's why I think this league will fail.

Here in Mexico there is a semi-pro football league founded about three years ago, with players who played college footblall in Mexico and a few abroad (the past weekend I saw a game and I was surprised, the two QBs were American and had played NAIA football). Even Chad Johnson (Ochocinco), the former Bengals WR, played a couple of games with the Monterry team in the first season, and some players went the past season to thye practice squads of the CFL (they have an agreement between the two leagues).
I am amazed that the league stays afloat, the games are played at smaller stadiums (non-soccer, which in Mexico they are the largest stadiums by capacity) with NCAA rules. All the uniforms have the players last names in their backs, which is surprising since usaully in Mexico the college teams don't. The games are televised by a smaller cable network, and as they are day games usually, they don't have much TV audience.

RyanChristiansen wrote:Some interesting rules differences planned for the XFL. They claim their kickoff rule will make returns safer and make big returns more possible. The double forward pass behind the line of scrimmage is interesting.

https://www.bing.com/amp/s/www.sporting ... 6993zxdynx

I haven't seen much, but I wonder: how it compares to last season's AAF?

lastcat3 wrote:
Minor league football does exist and it is called college football and there is no way any of these upstart leagues are going to be able to compete with that. Minor league baseball, basketball, and hockey don't try to get tv ratings out of their games and if they did people would probably respond similarly to them that they do to these minor league football leagues that try to start up. When players start getting paid to play there is a certain expectation that needs to be met and players that simply aren't good enough for the NFL don't really meet those expectations.

Okay, but there is college basketball, college baseball and college hockey in addition to minor league basketball, minor league baseball, and minor league hockey.

I agree these football minor leagues are trying to get ratings and that may be their biggest reason for failing. "Our ratings keep dropping every week. Let's not try to make this league better. We'll just fold it." Imagine if the APFA/NFL had this type of defeatist attitude?

JWL wrote:

lastcat3 wrote:
Minor league football does exist and it is called college football and there is no way any of these upstart leagues are going to be able to compete with that. Minor league baseball, basketball, and hockey don't try to get tv ratings out of their games and if they did people would probably respond similarly to them that they do to these minor league football leagues that try to start up. When players start getting paid to play there is a certain expectation that needs to be met and players that simply aren't good enough for the NFL don't really meet those expectations.

Okay, but there is college basketball, college baseball and college hockey in addition to minor league basketball, minor league baseball, and minor league hockey.

The problem is that those minor leagues are supported/subsidized by their major leagues (MLB, NBA and NHL). The NFL is too big and successful and impatient - look at how they pulled the plug on NFL Europe and the Arena League - to run any kind of minor league that isn't going to draw NFL-sized crowds and viewers and make billions.

I tried watching some of the Landry Jones game because I watched him play while he was at OU. I tell you the quality of play of that game (and seemingly week 2 in general) was just terrible. If this league wants to make it into year 2 and still have anybody still caring about it at all they really need to do something about the qb play. The other issue is that if the quarterback manages to throw it accurately and the receiver manages to catch it you can pretty much count on a big YAC play because the tackling is so terrible. Tackling seems to be better in college than it is here. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that they have played together longer in college but the poor tackling and defensive coverage in the XFL is very noticeable.

I'm honestly not sure why Bob Stoops chose to come into this league instead of taking over another major college program.

lastcat3 wrote:I tried watching some of the Landry Jones game because I watched him play while he was at OU. I tell you the quality of play of that game (and seemingly week 2 in general) was just terrible. If this league wants to make it into year 2 and still have anybody still caring about it at all they really need to do something about the qb play. The other issue is that if the quarterback manages to throw it accurately and the receiver manages to catch it you can pretty much count on a big YAC play because the tackling is so terrible. Tackling seems to be better in college than it is here. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that they have played together longer in college but the poor tackling and defensive coverage in the XFL is very noticeable.

I'm honestly not sure why Bob Stoops chose to come into this league instead of taking over another major college program.

What can they do to improve QB play? There aren't enough quality QBs to go around in the NFL and most of the league's back QBs are suspect, to say the least, so what kind of quality can be left over for another league?