Category: History and More

Before the United States Football League, World League of American Football, XFL, United Football League and Alliance of American Football, we almost had the North American Football League.

And by “almost” I mean “it was discussed.”

And by “North American Football League” I mean what better name for a proposed league that was to incorporate all the existing Canadian Football League franchises with new United States-based teams to form a 16 or 20-team league?

We all know what happened when the CFL dipped south of its border in the mid-1990s, but would an early 1980s USA/Canada gridiron hybrid have fared better?

Since we’ll never know I can pretend it would’ve.

The concept first came to my attention when I read a 1981 story in the Birmingham News (picked up from the Boston Globe) about a possible pro football league returning to the Magic City.

Since the demise of the World Football League in October, 1975, my hometown had to settle for glorified semi-pro circuits. I was excited about the prospects of a new “serious” NFL alternative.

The good news (I thought) was that this league was the brainchild of Nelson Skalbania. I knew him as the guy who owned the World Hockey Association’s Indianapolis Racers and engineered the signing of Wayne Gretzky, and by 1981 he was the owner of the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes.

Not only that, he was set to turn the Als into a super team thanks to luring quarterback Vince Ferragamo away from the Los Angeles Rams and inking several other NFL and NCAA stars.

Aside from having a name worthy of a James Bond villain, I was young enough and naïve enough to believe he was a real mover and shaker in the sports world.

“Nelson has recited to various people his concept of expanding the Canadian league into certain American cities,” Skalbania attorney Grant McDonald said. “The CFL would have a better revenue base by including the larger American cities.”

The story went on to say that Skalbania was working on some big money cable television deals and had reportedly talked to New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner, and Oakland Raiders managing general partner Al Davis about joining the league.

But …

The story also quoted Alouettes vice president Bill Putman as enthusiastically supporting Birmingham as a flagship U.S. franchise.

Putnam was the owner of the WFL Birmingham Americans which – like the league itself – left a lot of bills unpaid. The World Football League was forced to reorganize after a financially disastrous first season and the Americans, meanwhile, folded and were replaced by a new franchise under new ownership.

Putnam’s possible involvement harshed my buzz somewhat, but I was able to overlook it because I already loved the CFL and badly wanted Birmingham back in the pro football biz.

A mixture of major markets (New York and Los Angeles) and small markets (Syracuse and Shreveport) would serve as U.S. franchise locales, while the British Columbia Lions, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Eskimos, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Montreal, Ottawa Rough Riders, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers would jump from the CFL to the NAFL.

I was pumped.

It would be a callback to the WFL days in that the season would start in the summer, and with the TV money that would inevitably come and geniuses like Skalbania plotting strategy, the NFL would have some real competition and I’d live in a pro football city once again.

Would U.S. fans embrace CFL rules?

Would the owners have deep enough pockets to raid the NFL for stars?

Would I fall harder for the NAFL than I did for the WFL?

I couldn’t wait to find out.

There were a couple of problems, though.

One, the rest of the CFL wasn’t interested in any of this and two, Skalbania wasn’t really, um, “solvent.”

“In theory, it sounds great for us to expand,” CFL commissioner Jake Gaudaur said. “However, it’s not an anti-American feeling, but we feel certain that if we lump in the big American cities, some of the Canadian cities in the league would drop by the wayside.”

The Canadian Football League constitution requires that all teams be based in Canada, and that rule could only be overturned if seven of the teams voted in favor of it.

The motion to even vote on the matter wasn’t seconded.

“We have problems in our league to solve without expanding, and Montreal is one of them,” said Jim Spavital, who was general manager of the Roughriders in 1981 and former head coach of the WFL’s Chicago Fire. “Skalbania should concentrate more on improving the Canadian talent on his Alouettes.”

While Skalbania was known for real estate “flipping” he did the same to sports franchises, and in a one-and-done season with Montreal he flipped the franchise into oblivion. The Alouettes finished 3-13 in 1981, Ferragamo was a flop (he had the worst completion percentage in the CFL and the most interceptions), and ultimately the franchise folded – millions of dollars in debt.

There was no internet back then so much of this happened out of the spotlight, but as a CFL fan I kept up with CFL news. When I heard what happened with Skalbania in Montreal, my hopes for the NAFL (or whatever it might’ve been called) were dashed.

The USFL came along in 1983 as a spring “major league,” and ultimately that would become my favorite football circuit outside the CFL and NFL.

Still, I remain fascinated by the might-have-beens of a 1980s CFL/American football blend.

Ultimately it didn’t work in the 1990s – and will likely never happen again – but in a different time and different sports landscape, who knows?

 

 

The original version of this column appeared in September, 2018. Since the Alliance of American Football ceased operations earlier this week, I decided to tweak, update and repost it.

Goodbye, Alliance of American Football – I really liked you, but only had eight weeks to get to know you.

Hello, XFL – not the old, stinky XFL from 2001, but the (supposedly) better version set for a February 2020 launch.

Like the AAF, it’ll feature players hoping to work their way back to the National Football League.

The Alliance was angling to become an “official” developmental league for the NFL, and I’m guessing the XFL might have similar plans at some point.

But …

While you can claim any minor league is a de facto farm system for the NFL, a traditional one has never truly existed.

College football fills the void relatively well, especially now that so many more elite players are physically and mentally ready to make a quick transition to the pro ranks.

Still, it’s not like the Carolina Panthers can call up a lineman from the Clemson Tigers during the season.

That’s why I’m a little surprised that the NFL doesn’t have a legitimate minor league system.

As close as it came was the World League of American Football, which morphed into NFL Europe and finally NFL Europa.

Again, though, it was played in the spring, so it didn’t follow the model of, say, Major League Baseball affiliates.

If I was tasked with putting together an NFL developmental league, all 32 franchises would have a “B Team” that would also incorporate the scout teams.

These squads would not only be a good proving ground for rookies, but give playing time to backups and paying jobs to a lot of guys who otherwise would be out of football work after training camp. I’d think it would be relatively easy to put together a 40-man per club developmental league roster.

Every year there are roughly 3,000 draft-eligible players from the college ranks, and NFL teams each have 90 players when training camp starts. There are currently five pro indoor leagues and myriad semi-pro circuits, so there would be no shortage of men wanting another – and better – opportunity.*

*I deliberately left out the Canadian Football League because I love the CFL and don’t want it screwed with. But, obviously, an NFL developmental league would raid it for players.

In order to control expenses, my NFLDL would be divided into four, eight-team quadrants (North, South, East and West) that played regional slates.

For example, the South Quadrant might feature franchises in Birmingham, Charleston, Jackson (Miss.), Louisville, Memphis, Orlando, Raleigh and Shreveport. Teams would play each other twice over the course of a 14-game regular season, and then the four quadrant champions could meet in a four-team playoff.

And to be a real, working farm system, the season would need to run (mostly) concurrent with the NFL schedule, not in the spring or summer. It could start maybe two weeks after the NFL season begins.

If games were played on Tuesday or Wednesday nights, any given player would be ready to compete on any given Sunday after getting a “call-up.”

On the other hand, if a skill player is trying to work his way back from an injury (or a rookie QB needs some real game reps), the NFLDL would be the place to get them.

The farm system would also be a laboratory for rule changes and innovations.

Each year the NFL competition committee considers several tweaks, but only a handful make it to the field.

Why not give them a test drive in the NFLDL?

I think such a league would certainly be a benefit to the NFL in terms of player development. A key question, though, is how to fund it and how to get the NFL Players Association to agree to it.

Would the farm teams be owned by the same person or groups who own the parent clubs?

Would the NFL teams pay the salaries of all of the NFLDL players, or just the ones on loan?

Would fans even support what amounts to a Triple A football league when they’re already being overloaded with NFL and college games?

There’s a good chance we’ll never know.

Still, it’s something to think about – even if I’m just thinking out loud.

For someone who lives roughly 1,000 miles from the nearest Canadian border crossing, I’m a little protective of the country.

Well, that’s not entirely true – I’m a little protective when it comes to the country’s professional football league. (I’ll trust the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to handle the other stuff).

Anyway, when the Montreal Alouettes announced on Wednesday that Johnny Manziel was off the team and out of the Canadian Football League – permanently – I didn’t bat an eye.

I was even a bit relieved.

While you can argue that Manziel might’ve created more interest in the CFL from fans based in the United States, I never thought his presence was required to make the league better. As far as I’m concerned, the league was already just fine in the QB department, thanks.

Manziel was originally the gridiron property of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, which set off alarm bells for me. I’m a Ti-Cats fan, and I liked Jeremiah Masoli as the presumptive starting quarterback before the 2018 season. I feared “Johnny Football” would be allowed to step in and take over for no other reason than he once won a Heisman Trophy.

At best, he’d be a distraction.

“We’re excited to add Johnny Manziel to our roster, particularly getting it done now so that Johnny can join his new teammates and the coaching staff for a full training camp,” then-Ti-Cats coach June Jones said at the time. “We feel like we’ve got an excellent group of quarterbacks, and the addition of Johnny only improves our football team in our pursuit of the ultimate goal, which is to win a Grey Cup Championship.”

That was coach-talk, of course, but it didn’t stop me from worrying that Jones would move Manziel to the head of the class – especially after he said he thought Manziel could be one of the best QBs to ever play in the CFL.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen.

Manziel never took a regular season snap for the Tim Hortons Field tenants and was traded to Montreal in July.

He did get plenty of playing time for the Alouettes – completing 106 of 165 passes for 1,290 yards, five TDs and seven interceptions – but now he’s gone because he, and I’m quoting from the CFL press release here, “… contravened the agreement which made him eligible to play in the league.”

I don’t know what he did and, really, couldn’t care less.

What I do know is the CFL has plenty of quarterbacks who I enjoy watching.

Masoli is my guy because he plays for my team, but it’s not blind loyalty. The dude threw for 5,209 yards and 28 touchdowns last year, and tied a league record for most consecutive 300-plus yardage games with 10.

Like Manziel, he’s dealt with off-the-field issues (second-degree burglary while in college at Oregon and misdemeanor drug and traffic offenses before landing at Ole Miss).

Unlike Manziel, though, he has apparently learned to stay out of trouble and now makes headlines only for what he does on the field.

Mike Reilly is also a boss; he threw for 5,562 yards and 30 touchdowns last year with the Edmonton Eskimos – his second consecutive 30 TD season. This year he’ll be behind center at British Columbia, giving the Lions a turbo boost during his second stint with the franchise.

Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell is creeping up on legend status as he engineers the Stampeders’ offense.

In seven seasons with the Horsemen he has thrown for 24,473 yards and 150 touchdowns; last year he accounted for 35 major aerial scores.

Edmonton’s Trevor Harris, Winnipeg’s Matt Nichols, Saskatchewan’s Zach Collaros – the CFL is full of talented and capable signal callers, which is kinda important when you only have three downs to make 10 yards.

And I guess ultimately I like the fact that most of these quarterbacks – even though they harbor NFL dreams – come to Canada and grow as CFL players instead of looking for the nearest exit.

I never got the impression Manziel was fully committed to the league, and that’s why I never caught “Johnny Football Fever.”

Look, I’ve got nothing personal against Manziel. Whatever problems he has I hope he can learn not to “contravene” again. If he gets a chance in the Alliance of American Football this year or the XFL in 2020, I wish him the best.

But when it comes to the Canadian Football League, I don’t need a “big name” to have big fun.

Just show me a field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, and I’ll trust the players on the field to make it worth my while.

Especially the quarterbacks.