XFL 2.0 Preparing to Re-Reinvent Football

After so many leagues have tried and died, it still remains to be seen if pro football in the springtime is an impossible dream or a wet one.

WWE's Vince McMahon, as we know, is gonna see if the second time's a charm.

As if dude doesn't have enough going on in his business life.

 

With XFL 2.0, McMahon's got $400million of his own dosh riding on the idea that no one will be.

So far, the league's got teams and secured the services of stadiums and coaches. Unlike the quickly departed AAF, the XFL has taken measures to ensure the coaching hires won't jump at another job in the NFL or college.

 

Cash and stability weren't the only failings of previous spring leagues, including the original XFL.

In North America, the four major pro sports leagues have well-orchestrated a year-round presence. With post-season awards, free agency, scouting combines, and the draft, the NFL basically has headlines on speed-dial.

By inference, then, any pro spring league's gonna be seen from the start as minor-league.

 

That's why they need to carve out a space for themselves through novelty.

This approach is nothing new, but as the other leagues have found, simply making tweaks in an already popular game can't make what's already a popular sport unrecognizable.

Enter Oliver Luck, a dude with ultra-cred in the football world who McMahon has given carte blanche to remake the XFL's product on the field.

 

Here are a few of the innovations he's tested in scrimmages:

• A running game clock, meaning it won't stop after incomplete passes or rushes outta bounds.
• A shorter game clock between plays, something the AAF tried. In the NFL, offenses need to execute a play every 40 seconds. In the XFL, this could be as short as 25 seconds.
• A three-point conversion. After a TD, offenses will have a third option of trying a scrimmage play from the 10-yard line. If it works, they'll get three points.

 

Bingo on that one.

Moving along ...

• Allowing multiple forward passes behind the line of scrimmage.
• Eliminating kneel-downs and increating the potential for late-game comebacks because the clock's gonna stop after every play in the final two minutes, anyway.
• Overtime shootouts where each team's offense and defense line up at opposite ends of the field and alternate attempting five two-point conversions. Yes, that's 44 players on the field at the same time.

 

What's the first clue Luck was a QB?

He clearly did a great job with his kid, but somehow, the techie nature of those tweaks -- with the possible exception of the go-for-broke three-point conversion -- don't exactly light up the thrill-o-meter like, say, the AAF's 4th-&-12 from the 28 rule to replace the onside kick did.

 

The only other item on his list that looks even close to exciting is the overtime rule, but even that's just a warmed-over version of what soccer does, which is annoying enough.

Has there even been anything close to a national outcry to change the NFL's overtime rule over and above the current proposal?

Didn't think so.

What happened to the rumored suggestion that everyone would be eligible to catch a pass? That had chaos -- and by extension, XFL -- written all over it.

 

The most exhilirating aspect of the original XFL was wondering if someone was gonna pull a knife or something at any given time during a game.

 

When the old American Basketball Association challenged the NBA, its three-point line was a change that revolutionized the game.

If the XFL expects to have any sizzle besides living vicariously through the train wreck that is Johnny Manziel's career, it's gotta do better.

 

Players who couldn't make an NFL 53-man roster but who can make two forward passes behind the line isn't gonna cut it.

McMahon and Luck have still got a lotta thinking to do.