Prepare To Remember A Lot Of Guys
So the XFL starts tomorrow! Are you ready to play the game of “Oh hey, I remember him!”? This year we might even be remembering these guys from the AAF!
If that surprised you don’t worry, it surprised me too. The XFL has gotten a fair amount of press for returning, but I’ve seen remarkably little information on the actual season. I feel like they failed at the marketing this go-round, which was arguably the only thing they got right last time. But yeah, the XFL returns this weekend. We technically don’t have to miss football this week!
To get my first opinion out of the way, starting this early in the year was a huge mistake. The Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year and I genuinely don’t need more football for a while after it ends. It actually feels like a nice release. I certainly don’t need worse football. It feels like following up a porterhouse at the best steak house in town with an Applebees appetizer. Give us a little time to actually miss football first. Giving us this new league so soon is a great way to highlight how sub-par the play will be in comparison.
I’m also not thrilled by the teams. One of the novelties of the original XFL was how far they allowed the gimmick. The team names were outrageous. The colors were garish. It wasn’t a gimmick meant to last but it had personality. These new teams do not. Nothing about this feels Xtreme. Nothing here feels like it would be out of place in the AAF, which was trying to appear classy and professional in the NFL style. I actually think the XFL’s branding history and the new toned down look clash with each other. So this is two marks against it in my book.
When it comes to teams, I suppose I have to be a Seattle Dragons fan due to proximity, but I’ll be honest the St. Louis Battlehawks are the only team that looks cool and feels like it lives up to billing. The rest of the names and branding is fairly generic. The Houston Roughnecks logo is just ripping off the Oilers logo. Most of the uniforms are pretty gross, the best ones of the bunch being the least risky ones (I like St. Louis and DC the best). The Vipers are just discount Oregon uniforms. The Seattle Dragons, outside having a kind of neat helmet decal style, look atrocious to me. The LA Wildcats at least have the kind of look I was hoping for from the XFL. Everything is just trapped in this depressing in-between of the XFL of old and attempting to be legit NFL fakers.
Do I think this league has a chance? I do not. Spring football has a 100% failure rate. As much as I like the idea of spring football, in practice it has not held my interest, even when I willingly invested myself like I did for the AAF. I found Arena football largely unwatchable.
I think it’ll last longer than the AAF did. Swole Granddad McMahon at least has experience in this field and appears to be taking a better long-term approach than last time. There appears to be effort going into the actual product instead of just marketing and assuming wrestling fans will just automatically fuel the revenue. I have no doubt the actual on-field play will be AAF levels of passable. If I took away anything from the AAF, it was the value of professional broadcasts. Even the mediocrity that league offered was pretty watchable when you caught a game on CBS with real production value. If McMahon can keep his games getting at least one quality broadcast team, it’ll go a long way to making this watchable long-term.
What I am most interested to see is how the rule changes affect the game. Here’s a rundown for anyone interested, but I want to highlight the parts that really interest me:
-Kickoffs feature both teams lining up on the return side of the field, but can only move once the ball has been caught or has bounced for 3 seconds. They are attempting to reduce high speed collisions but still encourage runbacks. I’m very intrigued to see this, because kickoffs are a sore spot in the NFL game right now.
-No PAT kicks. Teams can go for 1, 2, or 3 extra points by running a single play from the 2, 5, or 10 yard line. You could get 9 points per score this way, and this kinda rules.
-Touchbacks seem to be placed at the 35 yd line, trying to dis-incentivize them in any way.
-Multiple forward passes are allowed as long as they all happen behind the LOS
-Overtime is more of a shootout than more play.
-The clock will stop after every play inside the two minute warning
-The clock will not stop for incompletes or out of bounds before the two minute warning, speeding the game up
-There is an all-powerful replay god who can make every ruling on every play from his skybox
-There is an official dedicated to ball spotting (spot them balls)
I’ll likely catch some of it this weekend out of curiosity but I’m not terribly excited. I might make more comics if it gets interesting. Let me know what you guys think.
The best new rule is the extra 1,2, or 3 points. That and I like the kickoff rule. Let’s see what happens
The angle of your foot is making me very uncomfortable
LA uni makes me hungry for Reese’s Pieces
I didn’t know about the kickoff rule. The rule I was most looking forward to was the gunners not being allowed to start running until the ball is punted, but now it’s the kickoff. At the very least those two should give some exciting returns
Is Hackenburg there? That would be fun…..but probably not.
Aww is this the first time you’ve included your dog in a comic? What’s her name again?
Also I clicked on the link to see all the uniforms and the tweet from the DC Defenders introducing their uniforms has the hashtag #DefendTheDMV. Defend that annoying place where you wait in line for your license and other dumb shit. You can’t make this up.
I’m pretty sure he’s had actual photos, but this might be the first time drawing her.
“Are those delicious socks?” will always make me smile.
Is it bad that I kinda like most of these rule changes?
Not really. The last time the XFL came around, while the league itself divebombed before its first season was finished, it still introduced a lot of things that the NFL later incorporated, although in that case it was more related to production. I have no doubt that if the kickoff rules are well-received and help cut down on concussions during kickoffs, the NFL will consider incorporating it.
If the NFL is Triple H, the original XFL was Scotty 2 Hotty. Loud and in your face, but not much fun to watch after a while.
This feels like Just Joe the Messenger. Bland as balls and trying to stir things up for its own sake.
The announcement for the XFL was trying to capitalize on the angry white guys mad at Colin Kaepernick having a political opinion but by now that’s old news.
HEY! Too Cool’s gimmick might have gone stale in like 5 seconds but Scott Garland was a great in ring worker and good on the mic as well.
no
Excited to see 2017 preseason star Kasen Williams tear it up for the Dragons.
Quinton Flowers is gonna be a beast. #VipeHype
Seattle’s look was good when UAB introduced it years ago. Like the rest of XFL.2, it’s just a pale rip-off.
Stick to sprorts!!!#.
that was me. sorry i was drunk. normally, i’d tell you to sitick to sprots with impeccable grammar and diction.
Fool that you are, for not realizing that the Roughnecks “just ripping off the Oilers logo” is exactly the best thing they could have done. The Roughnecks’ entire branding is “screw you Tennessee we’re taking our team back”. They should have gone whole hog on it and made the uniforms powder blue.
I ended up with a free ticket to the debut Roughneck game. Without Elway nostalgia to compete with they might actually have a chance of being a Houston team I care about. Might.
I love this comic damn near as much as I miss remembering some guys.
Officials please be good
I think they are doing an ad revenue sharing deal in lieu of actually getting paid for broadcast rights, but the XFL TV contract is nevertheless impressive… over-the-air ABC and FOX and regular cable ESPN/2 and FS1 every single game and every single week. This isn’t the AAF on CBSSN, the UFL on HDNet, NFL Europe on regional Fox Sports networks, or even the original XFL under pressure to deliver the kinds of TV ratings non-NFL programs were expected to get on NBC and UPN in 2001. This is major OTA and cable network coverage of every single game with the primary initial expectation likely being that it outdraws whatever programming the networks would air instead. I think that is achievable, and if it is achieved then the league may have a future.
All those unis look like the ones Madden 06 makes when it adds new franchises to your franchise mode. I swear the logos were stolen exactly. Wonder if we’ll see a Tiburon Sharks team.
The unis look really mild compared to what they could be. You know that I’m speaking from some experience here, I think could do better. They really look like alternate Madden team unis from ten years ago, the ones you scroll past not finding what you want.
They don’t have to be 2020_ExTyEmE_XFL_XXX_69! but there’s subtle stuff that you can do to be dressy.
The USFL had the right formula for spring football but they invited one magalomaniac too many. Multiple owners, a set financial plan, be willing to take losses as you build up a following slowly over a few seasons. The AAF died in part due to one guy playing for everything and seeing one massive losses. If he had seen 1/8th of those losses he might not have pulled the plug on his team. And even if he did, it would have been one team out of eight.
Not really sure what to say about the quality of the play but I kinda liked some of the rule changes. The pace of the games felt pretty good and I really, really enjoyed hearing the refs chatter about calls and hearing the reviews being made.
Even if this crashes and burns, I sort of hope the NFL adopts some of these things.
I absolutely loved their review system. Having it all be done by the booth instead of the referee who made the call was good, but turning the video and mic on the review as it was going on was just great. They got the reviews done quickly and accurately. The games were fun to watch too. The NFL should take some notes.
Only thing better about the first version of the XFL was the cheerleaders. And they probably should have put the LA team in San Diego or Oakland instead
I’m rather late but I must point out that Rahim Moore–the owner of the XFL’s first interception–was a member of the New York giants for a single offseason. I knew I recognized his name from somewhere but couldn’t put my finger on it until he mentioned how his last pick was with the Texans