I would’ve been a fan of the Birmingham Patriots

As a fan of the New York Jets, I can’t imagine ever rooting for the New England Patriots. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m legally required to loathe them.

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

But the Birmingham Patriots?

Yeah, I’m guessing I could’ve gotten behind them, even if it meant I had to drop Joe Namath, Don Maynard and the Flyboys to my No. 2 spot.

New England rallied to defeat Jacksonville on Sunday in the AFC Championship Game, again advancing to the Super Bowl and adding another chapter to the legend of Tom Brady and legacy of Bill Belichick.

You can hate the pretty boy QB and evil genius coach all you like, but theirs is a dynasty unlike any other with five Super Bowl conquests.

And if about 40,000 more fans had shown up at Legion Field back in September of 1968, the American Football League’s Boston Patriots might have morphed into the National Football League’s Birmingham Patriots – and I would’ve been wildly celebrating the win of my hometown team last weekend.

I suppose a bit of background is in order.

Boston was having stadium issues at the time (they played their 1968 home games at Fenway Park), and owner Billy Sullivan threatened to move the team if a suitable stadium wasn’t built. In fact, as part of an impending merger with the NFL, which became official in 1970, each AFL team was required to have a venue that seated at least 50,000.

That led AFL commissioner Milt Woodard to suggest the Patriots play a “test” game – which would be an actual regular season contest – somewhere else.

Legion Field seated 68,821 and, at the time, was one of the top facilities in the United States. So Sullivan decided to play a home game there against the New York Jets.

If a big crowd showed up, it might be enough to convince him to take his team to the Deep South.

The pot was sweetened since Namath, a University of Alabama product, was quarterbacking the Jets. Surely that would entice mass numbers of Crimson Tide fans to pack the stadium.

Sadly – at least for those of us who longed for an NFL team in the Magic City – Broadway Joe’s appearance did not have the desired effect on attendance.

A day after 63,759 fans watched Alabama beat Virginia Tech 14-7 at Legion Field, only 29,192 made a return trip to the “Gray Lady” to witness the Jets beat the Pats, 47-31.

Obviously, there’s no guarantee that the Patriots would’ve moved even if a capacity crowd had shown up to cheer them on.

Owners like to use cities as pawns, and a market the size of Boston would’ve been a tough one to leave. Plus, there would have been plenty of other suitors lined up. (Ultimately, Sullivan got his new stadium and the franchise has lived happily ever after).

Still, the less than enthusiastic response knocked Birmingham out of the running. In retrospect, that brief window half a century ago was arguably the last real chance the Ham had of landing a franchise in an established, United States-based professional football league.*

*Birmingham did have a team in the Canadian Football League in 1995, one of the rare times the franchise died while the league survived.

When the World Football League folded midseason in 1975, both the Birmingham and Memphis clubs petitioned for admission to the NFL, but that mini-merger was never seriously considered.

Besides, the NFL had already announced that Tampa Bay and Seattle would join the league in 1976.

So while Birmingham has also been home to the United States Football League, World League of American Football and XFL, it can likely forget about ever becoming part of the NFL.

Therefore, instead of wearing an oversized blue jersey and tricorne while supporting the Birmingham Patriots on Sunday, I cheered wildly for the Jaguars (a team I otherwise care nothing about) simply because there is no team in professional football I like less than New England.

Man, jealousy sucks.

 

 

For the second time, Alabama wins crown via the wildcard route

What does the 2017 University of Alabama football team and the 1980 Oakland Raiders have in common?

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

They are the first teams in their respective leagues to win championships via the wildcard route.

Oakland beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, in Super Bowl XV in New Orleans, and they did it the hard way. The Raiders finished 11-5 in the AFC East, which was good enough only for a second place finish in the division.

That meant the NFL squad had to win an extra game on its way to the Superdome – with two of those contests coming on the road.

As for Alabama, its 21-0 victory over LSU came after losing to the Tigers in the 2011 regular season but managing to get a do-over in the BCS National Championship Game.

Oh, you thought I was talking about Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship?

We’ll get to that shortly.

The Crimson Tide’s first wildcard success – like its second – came with a bit of controversy.

LSU earned a spot in the BCS title game by finishing 13-0, complete with a 9-6 victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa and a 42-10 thrashing of Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

Thanks to some upsets during conference championship weekend, though, 11-1 Alabama ended the pre-bowl polling ranked No. 2 and got a shot at redemption in New Orleans.

There were many who thought one-loss Oklahoma State, which won the Big 12 title, deserved a berth in the championship game, but Alabama was voted in and made the most of its second chance.

Six seasons later, history kinda/sorta repeated itself.

The Crimson Tide’s 26-14 loss to Auburn back in November resulted in a second place finish in the SEC West and no chance at an SEC title.

But just like the 2011 “wildcard” season, that setback actually worked to the advantage of Nick Saban’s charges. In essence, it gave them an extra bye week to gear up for the College Football Playoff.

As expected, a debate raged over whether or not the Tide deserved to be in the four-team field. Again the point of contention was that it not only didn’t win its conference, it didn’t even finish atop its division.

But a 24-6 thumping of No. 1 Clemson in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day was a “statement game,” setting up a winner-take-all showdown with Georgia in Atlanta.

And in a College Football Playoff Championship that was a dud until it suddenly wasn’t, Bama rose from the canvas in the second half behind freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and knocked out the SEC champs in overtime, 26-23.

When it was done the team that calls Bryant-Denny Stadium home had made its case in front of 28.4 million people, the second-highest cable audience in history.

It was the 17th national championship claimed by the program, fourth since 2011 and 12th as awarded by a wire service.

So while 13-0 Central Florida celebrates a self-proclaimed national title – and no law prevents the Knights from doing that – the 13-1 Crimson Tide is hoisting the CFP trophy. More importantly, at least as far as the record books are concerned, it finishes the 2017-18 campaign ranked No. 1 by every recognized poll.

It’s Saban’s sixth national championship and fifth at Alabama – and two of the countrywide crowns came without an SEC Championship trophy to go with them.

You can call that last tidbit of info a quirk in the system (or even a glitch), but it doesn’t change the fact that Alabama now has another piece of hardware for the trophy room.

Nor does it dismiss the weirdness of the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division 1A.

Unlike virtually every other sport (and every other level of NCAA football), it has spent most of its existence fighting like hell to avoid having a clear-cut champion.

The bowl system gave rise to a “mythical” national championship, one voted on by writers and/or coaches and often made next to impossible due to conference tie-ins to specific bowls.

Even the BCS and, before that, the Bowl Alliance, relied on polls and computers to manufacture the top two teams for its title clash.

And now we’re four years deep in the CFP, which is technically a playoff but one in which committee members determine who gets in and who gets left out.

So maybe attributing wildcard status to two of the Tide’s crowns is slightly misleading.

Oakland – and any other NFL team that makes the playoffs without winning its division – gets in based on won-loss records and, when needed, tiebreaker systems.

Those teams aren’t invited to the postseason, they simply play their way into the field.

In major college football, though, it’s what you do on the field and who you do it against – along with how impressive committee members think you look doing it.

You can love that system or hate it, but the team owning the two-foot tall, oblong trophy will tell you it works out just fine.

Wildcard or not, Alabama’s season still ended in a confetti shower.

CFL gives Manziel another opportunity

The Canadian Football League has been a proving ground for a handful of quarterbacks who went on to star in the NFL.

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

Before Warren Moon was rewriting passing records in Houston and Joe Theismann was guiding Washington to a Super Bowl title, for example, they were playing – and starring – north of the border.

Sometimes, though, it works the other way.

Doug Flutie had a few highlight moments in the NFL, but had much greater success in the CFL and is one of the greatest signal callers in its history.

Thing is, playing QB under American rules is vastly different than running an offense that features 12 players to a side, lots of acreage and three downs to make a first.

Just ask Vince Ferragamo, who helped the Los Angeles Rams to a Super Bowl appearance before chasing some Canadian coin. He thought he would be a superstar with the Montreal Alouettes, but never adjusted to the extra man in CFL secondaries and simply didn’t have the mobility to be effective as a dual-threat signal caller.

His one season was memorable only in the sense that he was a bust.

So where does Johnny Manziel fit in?

The Heisman Trophy winner out of Texas A&M has played a total of 14 NFL games over two seasons in Cleveland, throwing seven TD passes against seven picks.

Considering his limited action with the Browns, he isn’t so much an NFL “has been” as he is a “never was” (or maybe a “hasn’t yet”).

Now, though, the CFL is opening another door for “Johnny Football.”

The question is, will he open it, walk past it, or slam it in his own face by continuing to be a person who can’t get out of his own way?

The CFL has given the Hamilton Tiger-Cats – the team that owns the league’s rights to Manziel – its blessing to sign him up and the club began negotiations with him on Sunday.

“As per the negotiation list process, Johnny Manziel and his agent recently notified the Tiger-Cats that they had activated the 10-day window during which the Tiger-Cats must offer him a contract or lose his negotiation list rights,” reads a statement from the team. “That window closed (Sunday) and we can confirm that we made an offer to Manziel, and that his rights will remain on our negotiation list while discussions with he and his agent continue. We will have no further comment.”

When announcing its decision to allow Manziel an “in,” the CFL issued a lengthy statement – part of which mentioned his off-the-field controversies:

“It has included an ongoing assessment by an independent expert on the issue of violence against women, a review by legal counsel, and an in-person interview of Mr. Manziel conducted by the Commissioner. As well, Mr. Manziel has been required to meet a number of conditions set by the league.”

The CFL didn’t spell out the confidential conditions, but insists they are “extensive and exacting.”

Anyone who follows American football knows that Manziel has been his own worst enemy, which explains why the CFL statement is so bulky.

His drinking and partying have likely been a major detriment to his on-field woes, and the domestic violence issue made him toxic.

It’s ironic that he could join the Ti-Cats, the same organization that last season gave a job to disgraced former Baylor coach Art Briles before rescinding the deal (at the behest of the CFL).

Briles, you remember, was fired by Baylor amid reports of rampant sexual assault allegations against athletes and an “above the law” culture within the program during his tenure.

Hamilton took a big PR hit for the move and has spent the months since repairing its image.

In this instance the Ti-Cats have done their homework, but what if they sign Manziel and he reverts to his “old” ways?

He was charged with domestic assault during an altercation with his girlfriend in 2016, and that charge has now been dismissed after he completed an anger management course and met other conditions mandated by the court.

That’s all well and good, but you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

The fact that the charge has been erased doesn’t mean the stain has disappeared.

Physically, of course, Manziel has uncommon tools. There were times at A&M he seemed like an Xbox player in human form.

But while he enjoyed the money provided by signing a pro football contract, he didn’t care for the responsibilities that came with it.

Now, however, the CFL and Hamilton is offering a shot at redemption.

There will be a lot less cash involved, but his skillset is perfect for the CFL and could result in some dynamic moments in North America’s other major professional football league – if he can beat out presumptive starter Jeremiah Masoli.

Masoli took over as starter for Zach Collaros last season, and Collaros has been traded to Sasketchewan.

“I think he’d be the best player to ever play up here,” Hamilton coach June Jones told CFL.ca last month. “He can throw it and he can run it like nobody ever has been able to do.”

Should Manziel make the most of his chance, he might become a CFL legend – or make it back to the NFL.

Yet if he squanders this opportunity, it very well could be the last one he gets.

It’s all up to Johnny Football now.