St. Louis Battlehawks coach Anthony Becht admits he’s very “NFL-centric” when it comes to running a football team.
And why wouldn’t he be?
The former National Football League tight end spent 12 years competing on the gridiron’s biggest stage, playing for five different teams.
But when it comes to spicing up the game – and tweaking the rules – he’s all-in.
The United Football League will debut next weekend with a combination of innovations used by the XFL and USFL. As part of those leagues’ merger into the new entity, mixing and matching rules was to be expected. And Becht is excited to see how it all plays out.
“I’m totally for the way the NFL does it, and that’s where our guys want to be,” Becht told me on Thursday. “But I look at it a little differently … I think about the entertainment value. We’re in the entertainment business, too. I think about when it’s my guy who can make a one-handed catch in the back of the endzone and he taps one toe down, I mean – hell – let’s make that a touchdown, right? That’s college-esque, but it’s entertaining and something that can be tabled.”
“Receiver needs only one foot in bounds” isn’t in the UFL rulebook this spring, but there are plenty of other twists that will give fans a different experience from watching the NFL.
Becht was part of the XFL 3.0 in 2023, and one of the more dramatic alterations involved kickoffs.
The kicker lined up at his 10 while the rest of the team stood at the opponents’ 35-yard line – five yards away from the receiving team.
The kicker and returner were the only players who could move until the ball was fielded.
“I wasn’t in favor of the XFL kickoff originally when I came here, because I had never seen it or had seen what it did,” he said. “But then I did like that because, you know, less running, guys were a little closer, and you didn’t have the contact.”
The UFL opted to go with the USFL kickoff; it takes place from the 20-yard line and a kickoff out of bounds will give possession to the receiving team 30 yards from the spot of the kickoff, or at the spot where the ball went out of bounds.
A kickoff that’s untouched by the receiving team may only be recovered by the kicking team up to 20 yards from the spot of the kick.
“I do understand why the league went the traditional way, just because the NFL still does it and (the UFL) wants to keep it close. We do have some tweaks where there’s a zone where guys aren’t colliding as much, and I’m okay with it. It’s something that can be revisited next year and if it does (change), it does and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
“The NFL has talked about using the XFL rule, but they haven’t had the votes to really make that change yet.”
Becht is also a fan of the coach challenges, although he wouldn’t mind taking it a step further. In the UFL, a coach
can challenge any ruling, including “fouls or potential fouls,” once in a game if the team has a timeout remaining. A successful challenge will preserve the timeout, while the timeout is lost on an unsuccessful challenge.
“With the challenge flag, it’s so hard to figure out when to use it,” Becht said. “(Something to consider is) if you did use it early and you weren’t correct, you get another one after that. But I really do think it’s a quick process because (XFL head of officiating Dean Blandino) was pretty quick and (USFL head of officiating Mike Pereira) gets those things pretty quick. That’s something that can be tabled for next year.”
The UFL has eliminated the extra point and will have tiered conversions that can be scored via a run or pass; two forward passes are allowed on one play; overtime games will be decided via a conversion “shootout”; and a fourth quarter 4th-and-12 scrimmage option from the 28-yard line is an onside kick alternative.
And Becht says that like the NFL, any rule can be reevaluated at the end of the season.
“I’m all in for everything that the league has decided on because the majority of the stuff is the same as last year,” he said. “And things can always be revisited next year and we can have those conversations (with UFL executive vice president of football operations Daryl Johnston). We can do the data, we can run the analytics on it and see, you know, does it make sense to maybe change it, and I think that’s what’s good about leadership in our league.
“They’re willing to have those conversations each and every year.”
The Battlehawks, who finished the 2023 XFL season with a 7-3 record and led all spring leagues in attendance with an average of 35,104 fans per game, travel to face the Michigan Panthers on March 30. Kickoff is set for 3 p.m. CDT on FOX.
