Anyone Watching The New USFL?

DeepGreen · May 1, 2022

Birmingham vs New Orleans

Not bad football. I think I’d rather see Mason Fine play in the USFL rather than the Canadian Football League. Maybe more exposure in the USFL? I mean, who actually watches the CFL?

97and03 · May 3, 2022

On 5/1/2022 at 8:09 AM, DeepGreen said:

Birmingham vs New Orleans

Not bad football. I think I’d rather see Mason Fine play in the USFL rather than the Canadian Football League. Maybe more exposure in the USFL? I mean, who actually watches the CFL?

I’ll take “things Canadians watch” for $400, Alex.

DeepGreen · May 3, 2022

6 hours ago, 97and03 said:

I’ll take “things Canadians watch” for $400, Alex.

Be honest 97and03. If Mason Fine was not playing in the CFL would you ever even think about watching a CFL game??

Marty · May 4, 2022

I have watched the Pittsburgh Maulers to see how EJ Ejiya does. Also watched the 3-0 Birmingham team coached by Skip Holtz & just wondered what he could do here at NT.

Arkstfan · May 4, 2022

I watch a bit of CFL but the three down business leads to a lot of punts, like watching late 90’s AState football.

I’ve enjoyed most of the USFL games I’ve watched. They obviously haven’t had a lot of time together and it shows at times.

rcade · May 4, 2022

17 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

Be honest 97and03. If Mason Fine was not playing in the CFL would you ever even think about watching a CFL game??

I watch the CFL, which starts its regular season on June 9 this year. It's a different game than the NFL because of three downs instead of four, the wider 110-yard field, receivers allowed to be in motion before the snap and singletons (one-point scores when a field goal is missed and the defense can't get out of the much deeper end zones). But it's entertaining and has better talent than the upstart spring leagues.

Being a CFL fan has the advantage of making the NFL offseason feel much shorter. I watch the CFL until the NFL is back, then usually don't watch again until the playoffs.

Edited May 4, 2022 by rcade

Coffee and TV · May 4, 2022

CFL would be infinitely better if they just did the 4 down rule. Most of the other differences in rules are unique or have their place, but 2 downs and a punt is just too boring. Watched only a tiny bit of the USFL but I don't really understand why they brought it back with the same cities and mascots like nothing has changed in 35 years.

Arkstfan · May 5, 2022

15 hours ago, rcade said:

I watch the CFL, which starts its regular season on June 9 this year. It's a different game than the NFL because of three downs instead of four, the wider 110-yard field, receivers allowed to be in motion before the snap and singletons (one-point scores when a field goal is missed and the defense can't get out of the much deeper end zones). But it's entertaining and has better talent than the upstart spring leagues.

Being a CFL fan has the advantage of making the NFL offseason feel much shorter. I watch the CFL until the NFL is back, then usually don't watch again until the playoffs.

I can’t completely agree about CFL talent.
The 44 player game day roster has to have one player who isn’t from the US or Canada. Not less than 20 Canadians must be Canadian and when you name your starting roster at least 7 have to be Canadian. If your starting roster has 4 Canadians on defense then every defensive series you must have four Canadians on the field. No more than 20 US players (22 counting QBs)

Also the CFL has that weird protected player rule that allows them to own the rights to US players they don’t necessarily want. I know AState had a QB who was protected but the team with his rights was loaded at QB and the team that wanted him wouldn’t pay what the club wanted to release his rights. He didn’t even know he was protected until his agent started talking to some teams interested.

I’d say a CFL team’s 22 US players are better right now than the first 22 on a USFL team but there are plenty of national and global players who wouldn’t make a USFL roster.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Arkstfan

Arkstfan · May 5, 2022

12 hours ago, Coffee and TV said:

CFL would be infinitely better if they just did the 4 down rule. Most of the other differences in rules are unique or have their place, but 2 downs and a punt is just too boring. Watched only a tiny bit of the USFL but I don't really understand why they brought it back with the same cities and mascots like nothing has changed in 35 years.

Funny thing about football is no sport has such constantly evolving rules.
Way back when Shula was on the rules committee for the NFL they came within one vote of having every quarter start with a kickoff and have a 2 minute warning every quarter to get the drama of last minute drives every quarter.

About 30 years ago NCAA rules committee debated adding a single. Any kickoff, field goal attempt or punt touched in the end zone or field of play or hitting in the end zone and not advanced out would be one point for the kicking team and the receiving team would get the ball at the 35. Ball that went out without being touched or hitting in the end zone would be a touchback and ball goes to 20, unless it was a missed FG which would go back to the line of scrimmage.

I like it but it encourages returns so won’t ever see that brought up again.

As to the old names and cities in USFL.

Marketing and brand recognition. I went to quite a few Showboats games and loved that team. Easier to get people into a familiar brand (ruined that Breakers helmet)

The plan as I understand it is to take the advice given Ebersol before he started the AAF. He met with GMs, coaches, owners, and TV professionals from NFL along with failed leagues and the constant theme was spring football can be profitable and popular but if you can’t fund it for three years don’t waste your money because you need three years to build the team brands and the league and to get viewers in the habit of watching. He obviously didn’t follow that because he wanted to beat XFL 2 to the punch.

USFL all in on keeping costs down, working out the kinks and building a following.

The hope is next year they will line up franchise holders for up to four cities. They aren’t super into the idea of playing in NFL stadiums. So they’d like to find an owner in Houston who can work a deal to play at the Cougars stadium or the Dynamo stadium, New Orleans likely to Tulane, etc.

They want to have all teams except the Stallions moved out of Birmingham for the 2024 season. The unknown is what they do if a team can’t find a franchisee in a market. That might mean that the Michigan Panthers take a different USFL brand and become the Oakland Invaders or another city with no USFL history gets them so you get St Louis Panthers or St Louis something else.

Rumor (or likely rank speculation) is the target is to grow to 16 in 5-10 years.

Of course who knows what happens when XFL 2.1 comes along.

We know Fox has an ownership stake in USFL and we know ESPN/ABC is all in on XFL 2.1 so could get interesting. Fight to the death? Mutually Assured Destruction takes both out? Merger?

As it stands NFL can’t assign players to minor league teams, it’s prohibited in the CBA. But as is done in soccer and used to be done in baseball there could be some potential in signing a guy to a multi-year contract and selling the contract to the NFL. With the USFL saying they will consider any player entering the transfer portal eligible to be signed things could be radically different in football in a few years.

greenjoe · May 6, 2022

How many 50 yard lines do you need ?

Marty · May 16, 2022

EJ!

NT80 · May 16, 2022

Speaking of rule changes, the NFL has to get it's act together on Overtime. The College overtime rules are so much better. Simple, fair and more entertaining....which is why the NFL won't use them. The NFL instead will be experimenting this next preseason with tweaks to their own rules.

peanuts104 · May 16, 2022

7 hours ago, NT80 said:

Speaking of rule changes, the NFL has to get it's act together on Overtime. The College overtime rules are so much better. Simple, fair and more entertaining....which is why the NFL won't use them. The NFL instead will be experimenting this next preseason with tweaks to their own rules.

Whoever puking eagled this reply deserves to be banned. This is the most correct take ever.