Category: History and More

In case you haven’t heard (but I suspect you have), Vince McMahon is bringing back the XFL in 2020. You remember the XFL, right?

It was the one-and-done league from 2001 that mixed bombast and sleaze with subpar football. It went out of business because – by the end of its lone campaign – so few people cared about it there was no reason to keep it around.

That McMahon is giving football another try isn’t all that puzzling since he seems to have a genuine passion for the game. Not sure why he is reviving the XFL brand, though, because it will only remind us what a failure the original was.

But he’s got some disposable income and really wants a gridiron do-over, so more power to him.

He mentioned last Thursday when he announced the revival that he wants suggestions on how his league should “reimagine” the sport. About the only things he seems intense about are shorter games (around two hours) and no halftime (a move which might make for some really sloppy play by tired players in the fourth quarter).

But, as a fan of Brand X leagues I have a few ideas and am not shy about sharing them.

The first and best, of course, is to raid the NFL for talent and field teams with the best players possible. But even though Vince has deep pockets, I doubt they’re that deep.

Most likely the new XFL, like the old XFL, will be stocked with players not good enough to stick on NFL rosters.

But that’s OK … if you can’t have the best players, you can make up for it by being wildly creative and having the best rules.

So here are some outside-the-box changes to consider …

Touchdowns will be worth 7 points instead of 6 (I stole that from the old World Football League), and the PAT kick is eliminated in favor of a run or pass from the 2-yard line with a successful conversion worth 1 point.
(There was no extra point kick in the old XFL, either, by the way).

I also think there needs to be creative ways for defenses to score points.

You can keep the safety, of course, but the unit can record a single point for their team by recovering a fumble or making an interception.

Radical? A little, perhaps.

But not nearly as radical as this; the new XFL should have no kickoffs, no punts and no first downs.
Each game begins with the team that wins the toss starting at its own 20-yard line. From there, it has 10 plays to try to score a touchdown or field goal.
If it fails to score, the opposition takes over wherever the drive ends. Or, if on its final down (the 10th down) a team finds itself deep in its own territory, it can concede two points to the opposition in exchange for the other team starting at its 20.

You always hear that football is a game of field position, and these rules truly up the ante when it comes to strategy.

McMahon said he wanted the new XFL to be concerned with player safety, so from that standpoint the elimination of kickoff returns should go a long way toward lessening the likelihood of concussions. I know fans love the “headhunter hits,” but I think it’s time we evolve when it comes to how the game should be played.

Other changes that would differentiate XFL 2020 from what you see in the NFL and college football:

• End zones are 20 yards deep (that rule is borrowed from the Canadian Football League) and goals posts are situated on the goal line.
• All backs are allowed in motion toward the line of scrimmage (also borrowed from the CFL).
• Receivers need just one foot in bounds to be credited with a reception AND as long as the pass catcher has the ball and keeps the ball from touching the ground up to the point that his knee hits the turf and ends the play, it will be ruled a completed pass.
• Any pass that is “thrown away” is considered intentional grounding (spiking to stop the clock is excluded).
• Teams have 20 seconds to snap the ball after officials give the “ready to play” signal.

Anyway, if you’re reading this Vince, I hope these suggestions help. And if, in 2020, I can see the Birmingham Brigade faced with a 10^th and goal situation against the San Diego Surf, I’ll feel that my work here is complete.

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.

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.

 

 

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

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 17^th national championship claimed by the program, fourth since 2011 and 12^th 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.