Category: Alternative Football

Protective Stadium will officially become home of the new United States Football League on Easter weekend, with one game on April 16 and a triple-header scheduled for April 17.

Six of the teams, however, decided today was as good a time as any to move on in.

The Tampa Bay Bandits and New Jersey Generals met in the morning; the New Orleans Breakers and Houston Gamblers scrimmaged in the afternoon; and the Birmingham Stallions and Pittsburgh Maulers wrapped things up in the early evening at the Uptown Birmingham venue. The squads not only got a sneak peek at what USFL competition will look like this spring, but they also got to make trial runs in their primary gridiron digs.

The Michigan Panthers and Philadelphia Stars will play a test game on Friday.

“We had a team meeting this morning and I think everyone is ready to get started,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said. “This is a fun step going forward. We’ve got head sets, coaches in the box, communication with the players via the headset … I’ve never experienced that. I’m excited about today, but it’s just one more step educating everybody and preparing everybody for what this is gonna look like on game day in about a week.

“It’s been a great couple of weeks, the attitude of the players has been great and they’ve been working extremely hard across the board.”

The scrimmage featured frequent shuffling in and out of personnel and a good deal of situational work, including plays involving some of the 2022 rules such as 3-point conversions and the fourth-and-12 onside kick option.

And although plays ended with wrap-arounds instead of takedown tackles, there were still some excitement.

The Maulers blocked a punt and took it the other way, while the Stallions turned a fumble recovery into a touchdown.

The Maulers are coached by Kirby Wilson, who was on Mike Tomlin’s first Pittsburgh Steelers staff and spent 23 years as a running backs coach with eight NFL teams. Thursday gave him a taste of what’s to come in his first year as head man.

“It’s extremely exciting to let the guys out of the gate and let them hunt a little and have some fun,” Wilson said. “It’s been very rewarding. I feel like we picked the right guys, we did extensive background checks on everyone … we wanted to make sure we had the people who were the right fit for the Maulers and the brand of football we’re gonna play. We think we’ve been successful.”

Holtz said one of the best things about camp has been finding out what motivates his players to play on in the USFL.

“Every meeting, we have a player stand up and talk about his ‘Why,’” he said. “Why are they playing the game, what’s their passion, what’s their motivation, what drives them to do what they’re doing right now – and the whys are incredible. When you listen to why these young men are here and what they’ve had to overcome to be here and what they want to accomplish being in this league, it’s been really rewarding.

“Every player under that helmet has a story. Everybody’s overcome adversity to get here and everybody has dreams and visions of where they want to go. This is another opportunity to keep those hopes and dreams alive.”

Wilson agrees.

“We’re all about development and building relationships with players, and we look forward to seeing our players perform at a high level,” Wilson said. “This is an opportunity … an opportunity to show that they still have a passion for the game of football and they want to go out there and show the country what they’re all about.”

The games that count begin on April 16 when the Stallions and Generals meet at 6:30 p.m. CDT in a contest that will be televised by Fox, NBC and Peacock.

On April 17 the Gamblers and Panthers meet at 11 a.m. (NBC/Peacock) followed by the Stars vs. the Breakers at 3 p.m. (USA Network) and Bandits vs. Maulers at 7 p.m. (FS1).

“Come out and support these guys,” Holtz said. “They’re humble and they’re hungry. They want to do well. I’d love to see people in the stands.”

With the new United States Football League cranking up in 10 days and even Major League Football – which I thought had been declared legally dead – showing a pulse in recent weeks, the third incarnation of the XFL has remained mostly low key in 2022.

That changed today when XFL 3.0, set to play again in 2023, unveiled its rebrand. There was no red meat for fans in the way of city names or coach announcements, but there is a new logo and a sizzle real that teases what’s to come when the league joins the spring football wars next February.

“We are proud to unveil the new identity of the XFL – a strong, dynamic and modern look that embodies our vision of pushing football forward and unleashing the dreams that football makes possible,” Dany Garcia, co-owner and chairwoman of the XFL, said in a release. “This is a significant milestone for us, and one that encapsulates the teamwork that has gone into building this league from the ground up with our experienced leadership team, led by Russ Brandon. As we continue to march towards our 2023 kickoff, we will invite our fans, partners and athletes to co-create with us.  We are putting in the work today to define football’s future; Together, we are building tomorrow’s league.”

The logo was leaked Tuesday night and quickly generated buzz – see Twitter for the “I love it!” and “I hate it!” testimonials – but as long as people are talking about it, that’s a good thing for Garcia and co-owners Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Redbird Capital Partners.

“For us, this is more than just a new pro football logo; this is a new era of the XFL,” Johnson said. “You can already begin to feel the energy and mana building behind our brand, and it has been amazing to feel the incredible support from fans, players, coaches and media, that we continue to be blessed with. We have a passion and vision to push the boundaries of sport and entertainment, to grow the game of football – and most importantly – unlock the dreams of all the talented and hungry football players out there. “I’m pumped to reveal our new XFL logo to the world as we continue to strategically build our XFL organization and shape our one-of-a-kind XFL culture. 

“Here’s the bottom line of what our new XFL logo stands for: The X represents the intersection of dreams and opportunity. So, to our hungry XFL players, coaches and fans – you bring the dreams, and we’ll bring the opportunity.”

Based on that, you can kinda/sorta see what they were going for with the separated “X” in the logo. (To me the X looks like a “greater than” symbol about to collide with a “less than” symbol, but I doubt it’s part of a Rorschach Test so I should stop overthinking it).

Regardless of your opinion of the rebrand, what’s important is what happens between now and the scheduled launch in 10 months.

And while it was hardly earthshaking, the news coming out of the new XFL brings back personal memories of the other two.

The first version in 2001 originally appealed to me because the Birmingham Bolts were one of the eight teams that made up Vince McMahon’s league. But the play was sloppy, the TV presentation was sleazy, and Birmingham was far and away the worst team in the league. On my end, there was not a lot to like.

When it folded after a one-and-done campaign I felt bad for the people who lost their jobs, but as a fan I didn’t care because I had already lost interest in it.

But the 2020 version was much, much better, even though Birmingham wasn’t on board.

The rule innovations were terrific, the games I watched were entertaining, and it seemed to be doing everything a spring league needs to do to make a go of it. But then COVID-19 hit, the season was canceled at the halfway point, and McMahon pulled the plug.

It failed again, but for very different reasons than the original.

While the new owners certainly want to put their stamp on the XFL – and it’s their league now, so they should certainly do that – I hope they’ll incorporate the many positive aspects of the 2020 adaptation.

“Since acquiring the League in 2020 with Dany and Dwayne, we have envisioned the XFL as a platform of opportunity that converges the worlds of sports and entertainment,” Gerry Cardinale, founder of RedBird Capital, said. “We are building the XFL so that we can bring new possibilities to the future of football – this will give our players new opportunities for turning pro, our partners new platforms to expand and enhance their brands, and our fans opportunities to engage with the sport of football and our players in new and innovative ways.”

One of the reasons I’m drawn to alternative football leagues is because, usually, Birmingham has been linked to them. The Magic City’s gridiron history is tied to the World Football League, original United States Football League, World League of American Football, the Canadian Football League during its “American experiment,” the first XFL and Alliance of American Football. (It did miss out on the United Football League and the second XFL).

Beyond the home team angle, however, is the fact that any new league offers a fresh start for everyone involved. The players and coaches get a new avenue of opportunity, and football fans get more football.

And after living through these various circuits I’ve discovered that’s the one aspect of alt-football (and any upstart sports venture, for that matter) that intrigues me most – the initial build itself.

Before the February draft, the eight coaches of the 2022 United States Football League had little more than a general idea of the kind of players they wanted. After the supplemental draft in March, they had 45 flesh and blood athletes – 38 who’ll be on the active roster once the season begins a week from Saturday.

And the opening weekend is exciting for me because I’ll finally get to see the “something” that coaches made from “nothing.”

“This isn’t rebuild, this is build,” Birmingham Stallions head coach Skip Holtz said following a light workout in Hoover last week. “When we get into next year we’ll still have a good nucleus of this team back, and you’ll then have ‘rookies’ … you’ll have new guys. But in this case, everybody was a rookie, everybody was a freshman coming into this year. Now they’ve got a lot more background and been around a lot more football (than college freshmen), and have a lot more knowledge with their age and how much football they’ve played, but they’re all freshmen in this defense and rookies in this offense.”

The Stallions and New Jersey Generals will launch the USFL on April 16 with a 6:30 p.m. CDT kickoff at Protective Stadium, a game that will be simulcast by Fox – which owns the league – as well as NBC and Peacock. On Sunday at the same venue, the Houston Gamblers meet the Michigan Panthers at 11 a.m.; the Philadelphia Stars play the New Orleans Breakers at 3 p.m.; and the Tampa Bay Bandits and Pittsburgh Maulers close out Week One action with a 7 p.m. contest.

While Holtz has put together the Stallions roster and Mike Riley is architect of the Generals lineup, the other league coaches charged with construction are Kevin Sumlin (Houston), Jeff Fisher (Michigan), Bart Andrus (Philadelphia), Larry Fedora (New Orleans), Todd Haley (Tampa Bay) and Kirby Wilson (Pittsburgh).

Once Sunday night is done, everyone will have at least some idea of how successful the build has been across the league.

“That part of it has been pretty fun, and all us coaches are in the same boat,” Holtz said. “It’s a little longer and a little painstaking because some are at different levels than others, and some guys learn in different ways than others, so you’ve just got to make sure you get to know these young men and give them the opportunity to get out here and learn what we’re starting to do so we can go out and put our best foot forward on April 16.”

Obviously getting a head start was important to all the staffs, and Holtz says he and quarterback Alex McGough stayed in frequent contact after McGough was selected as Stallions signal caller.

“I had an opportunity to meet with Alex quite a bit after we drafted him and told him what we were going to call everything, and every time we’d FaceTime or Zoom and he’d be going, ‘Coach, look, I’ve got them right here,’ looking at flash cards,” Holtz said. “He’s learning calls, he’s learning plays, and he’s done a nice job picking it up, and I think J’Mar (backup quarterback J’Mar Smith, who played for Holtz at Louisiana Tech) has done a nice job helping him because he knows the offense as well as he does.”

McGough says Holtz has made the transition easier for all the Stallions players due in large part to his enthusiasm.

“He’s very energetic and very uptempo, always has energy and he’s running around trying to get everybody more energy,” McGough said. “I was with Pete Carroll in Seattle, so he’ll probably match Coach Holtz’s energy. But he’s a great coach, knows his stuff and is a player’s coach. That’s what you want.”

Birmingham cornerback Brian Allen agrees.

“Coach Holtz is full of energy, great guy … he starts us off at eight in the morning full of life,” he said. “We might come in sleepy but by the time we hit the field we’re ready to go. That energy he gives us translates to the field and makes us want to come out here and have great days every single day.”

And while Holtz and all the coaches are trying to build a championship team in the USFL’s inaugural season, Allen says it’s up the players to build their resumes.

“Everybody has real intensity to the point where Coach Holtz has had to tell us sometimes, ‘Guys, slow down,’ because everybody’s so excited and energetic,” Allen said. “You can see it in their eyes – the guys are hungry. This USFL season is gonna be great for everybody. Most of us are striving for one goal, which is to get back in the NFL.

“A lot of guys have old teammates on other teams so there’s a lot of trash talk in the hotel, but at the same time a lot of us are making friends and trying to build a bond, not just with our team but other teams as well.”