Category: Alternative Football

I’ve always been jealous of sports fans who live in cities large enough to support multiple professional teams in the same sport.

In New York, for example, you can choose between the Jets and Giants, Yankees and Mets, Rangers and Islanders and Knicks and Nets among the “Big Four.”

Los Angeles has the Rams and Chargers, Dodgers and Angels (Anaheim is close enough), and Lakers and Clippers.

And of course Chicago (home base of my friend and “From the 55 Yard Line” podcast partner Greg Smith) features a Windy City split between the Cubs and White Sox.

Well, gentle reader, I can now join the club because I have a choice to cheer for either the Alabama Airborne of Major League Football or the Alabama Airmen of the Freedom Football League. I mean, both these leagues are coming soon, right?

Right?

With all the news about the new United States Football League and XFL 3.0 dominating alternative pro football talk, there’s a chance you’ve tabled your discussions about MLFB and the FFL (for the record I’ve written about both before). Major League Football was founded in 2014, while the Freedom Football League was announced in 2018. So what else do we know about them?

Well, MLFB has threatened to get up and running several times during its seven years of shelf-sitting. It was originally designed to be a bridge league between college football and the NFL, similar to the Alliance of American Football (BTW, MLF bought some of the AAF’s used equipment after that league went cleats up before completing its first season in 2019). Trademarks were filed for the Alabama Airborne, Arkansas Attack, Florida Fusion, Northwest Empire, Ohio Union, Oklahoma Nation, Oregon Crash, Texas Independence, Utah Stand and Virginia Armada, with a spring/summer season format.

Rule changes were to include four-point field goals (kicked from 50 yards or longer) and PATs attempted from the hash mark furthest from where the touchdown was scored, creating a more severe angle.

And as a publicly traded company, fans could own a piece of MLFB.

In May the league announced it was “continuing its plan for a late summer 2021 demonstration season” although summer has less than three months left and MLF has yet to demonstrate it still has a plan.

And what about the Freedom Football League? It unveiled team names right out of the gate: Austin Revolution, Birmingham Kings, Connecticut Underground, Florida Strong, Oakland Panthers, Ohio Players, Oklahoma City Power, Portland Progress, San Diego Warriors and St. Louis Independence.

That was in 2018. Since then there have already been name changes. The Birmingham Kings are now the Alabama Airmen, the Portland Progress is the Portland Power, the Austin Revolution is the Texas Revolution and the St. Louis no longer has a nick – that’ll be for the fans to decide.

The league, founded by Ricky Williams and a handful of other former NFL players, is built on the cornerstones of social justice and activism. And according to its website, “… the FFL will be owned by a unique consortium that includes former NFL players, active players from each FFL team, the local franchise operators, and most uniquely, the fans.”

In the past few months the FFL has conducted some interesting “Founders Roundtable” discussions and provided profiles of front office personnel. As for the kind of football the Freedom League will play, though, that’s one of the best kept secrets in sports. I’ve gone over its website with a flea comb and still can’t figure out if it’s indoor or outdoor, spring or fall, touch or tackle – no clue whatsoever. Those of us with an alt-football addiction go into a frenzy when we read about rule innovations, so related tidbits of information are vital if that frenzy is to continue.

I mean, I need more info if I’m going to pledge allegiance to the Airborne or the Airmen.

The new USFL is rushing to market next spring, but since it’s run by The Spring League founder Brian Woods and FOX Sports (which televises TSL), it at least has the makings of an infrastructure.

Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson and RedBird Capital bought the XFL, which was a solid product before the 2020 season – and second version of the league – was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. If it reboots as a third incarnation of itself or in alliance with the Canadian Football League, it’ll already have a boilerplate.

But new sports organizations that pop up out of nowhere have to show people they’re going somewhere to be taken seriously. In other words, when forming a league at some point that league actually has to take form.

And with MLFB spinning its wheels for seven years and the FFL still a mystery, they aren’t doing themselves any favors to that end. But maybe someday they’ll finally hit the field and I can have two pro football teams to choose from.

Then again, maybe not.

At this point I’d be happy if the two leagues merged and became the Major League of Freedom Football and my hometown clubs combined to create the Alabama Air.

It wouldn’t give me a multiple choice option like my friends in major markets enjoy, but it would have the perfect nickname. Because like air, this is a football team I’ll never be able to see.

If the new United States Football League gets off the ground, fans of the old USFL might get to move their retro apparel back to the “active” pile.

I have several Birmingham Stallions tee shirts, so if they come galloping back to Legion Field (or the new Protective Stadium) next spring, I’ll be ready to suit up without having to buy new stuff.

But here’s a bit of trivia for you … back in 2015 the Denver Gold, Los Angeles Express, Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, Philadelphia Stars and Tampa Bay Bandits – brands from the original USFL – were supposed to take the field again.

Instead of reviving America’s gridiron spring fling of 1983-85, though, they would be competing in something called the A-11 Football League.

Founded in 2013 and ultimately abandoned in 2014, the A11FL hoped to bring familiar USFL names to a wide-open league – one in which all 11 players on offense (hence the name) could be eligible receivers.

In its fan guide released on April 16, 2013, the primary game plan was unveiled:

The A11FL makes ONE rule change to the game of football, allowing for all eleven offensive players on the field to wear eligible jersey numbers. This rule change creates a game where every athlete can be interchangeable within any formation depending on the strategy of each play. The offense still needs to have 7 men on the line of scrimmage and 5 of those 7 players will be considered “restricted linemen” if they are not aligned on the end of the line of scrimmage – the same formation eligibility requirement mandated at every level of football.

The A-11 offense is the brainchild of Kurt Bryan and Steve Humphries, who popularized the attack at Piedmont High School in California. The scheme basically turned the kicking formation into a scrimmage play, but the National Federation of State High School Associations closed the loophole after two seasons.

Bryan was the executive vice president of league development for the A11FL and wanted to show that the free-for-all style could not only go national, but go pro.

“As a football coach for 25 years, I’ve seen a lot of things come and go, which I refer to as fads,” Bryan told the San Francisco Examiner for a February, 2014 story. “We started having success in the A-11 offense, and the phones never stopped ringing. Coaches from all over wanted to know about this offense.”

In the same article, A11FL commissioner Scott McKibben said the new league was the right product at the right time. He expected attendance to average more than 30,000 per game with fans paying $30 per ticket.

“This country thirsts for more football and the live action sports content value has never, ever been higher,” McKibben said. “We believe football played in the spring, at the highest level, in the greatest markets, with the greatest players, will be successful.”

ESPN signed on to televise a pair of “showcase games” for the spring of 2014, and by 2015 eight inaugural franchises would play a 14-week regular season followed by three weeks of playoffs. Players were to be selected via a late winter territorial draft.

Alas, the wheels came off quickly.

A couple of months after the Examiner piece ran, the scheduled showcase games were canceled and it was revealed that the L.A. Express (and any other California-based teams) would not be part of the league at the outset due to workers’ compensation issues in that state.

By July, 2014, A11FL officials announced that the league was sticking with the A11 offense but dropping its original name. And when February, 2015, rolled around, organizers had abandoned the idea altogether in favor of forming a different league based on more traditional rules.

That league – whatever it was supposed to be – never materialized.

With or without the USFL nostalgia trip, I would’ve been intrigued by an A-11 pro league. It would be the ultimate representation of a spread offense, and every play would be tricky, if not a trick play.

As I’ve said before, if you can’t be as good as the NFL talent-wise, try to be better than the NFL gimmick-wise. And the A-11 Football League would’ve been about as gimmicky as it gets.

The last time I watched an August 5 CFL game from the comfort of my Birmingham home was back in 1995 when I tuned into ESPN2 and saw the Shreveport Pirates dismantle the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 65-17.

The next time I watch an August 5 CFL game from the comfort of my Birmingham home will be 26 years later when the Blue Bombers once again grace my TV screen. And in the annals of my CFL fandom – which is now in its sixth decade – this will surely be a date to remember.

After having the 2020 season wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic and faced with the prospect of seeing the Canadian Football League drown in the maelstrom of a second consecutive lost work year, the CFL is back. August 5 kicks off a 14-game regular season and in a happy coincidence my favorite team – the Hamilton Tiger-Cats – will provide the opposition for the reigning Grey Cup champions.

The Canadian game is my preferred brand of tackle football, and I truly couldn’t be more excited to have it back on the field.

“To say this is a happy day for the CFL is a monumental understatement,” commissioner Randy Ambrosie said during a video conference on Monday. “Obviously we’ve all been waiting for this for a very long time. It’s taken an awful lot of hard work to get here. Perhaps it’s best to say being disappointed in 2020 just doubled and redoubled and redoubled again our resolve to get back on the field in 2021.”

Of course as pleased as we armchair quarterback types are, it’s nothing compared to how the players must be feeling. The CFL is a brief stopover for some, yet for many more it’s their career.

And while working remotely is highly desirable in some professions, professional football is not one of them.

“CFLPA members are looking forward to getting back to the game as well as the communities they proudly represent,” the Canadian Football League Players Association said in a statement. “We will continue to closely monitor decisions made by the various levels of government to understand how we can meet pandemic safety protocols and get players back to work.”

In CFL parlance, I’m what you’d call an “import.” Neither Canadian by birth nor naturalization, I still claim membership in the league’s family of fans. Teams have ratio rules that limit the number of international players, but there’s no such restriction on who cheers or where we cheer from. And while on game day foes of the Ti-Cats are my “enemies,” I like to think supporters of any of the nine franchises are my friends.

It’s a bond I can’t explain, other than to say many of us – most of us, I hope – want the entire league to succeed. I like nothing more than seeing Hamilton defeat Toronto, but that doesn’t mean I somehow want the Argonauts to list.

If it were up to me, every single CFL stadium would be packed to the rafters for every game. It’s one of those “rising tide lifts all boats” kind of deals.

I can honestly say of all the leagues that were locked down, shut down or limited during the height of the pandemic, it was the absence of the CFL that I felt the most. And when word came Monday that it was less than two months away from returning, I felt real joy.

“We’re so excited to kick off this season,” Ambrosie said. “Excited for our players, our coaches, our partners and especially our fans, who have stuck with us and stood by us. It’s going to be a great season leading to a Grey Cup that promises to be an incredibly special moment in history for our game, our league and our country.”

I’m anxiously counting down the days to August 5. And when the Tiger-Cats and Blue Bombers storm onto IG Field at 7:30 p.m. CDT, it’ll be like seeing old friends again. Man, have I ever missed them.