In the 70’s, the World Football League appeared and fizzled instantly. In the 1980’s, the USFL was born. A league that lasted for 4 years. It was a new league with many new ideas. It was known as the fun league. It was a league with many young superstars. It was a league with many old veterans not quite ready to hang up the spikes.

It had celebrity owners. This league had hot cheer leaders. They played in Spring time. The league had some great years and some down years. It was a good brand of football as the games were mostly well fought to the end. Especially the playoffs. Perhaps this league could have stuck around longer. Then the owner of the New Jersey Generals, Donald Trump, screwed that up. His great idea was to compete against the NFL. Change it up and play fall games instead of the spring games like they had been playing in the previous three years. The league folded. Then the NFL took all the moving parts, all the good ideas, and stripped down the USFL carcass to the bone.

Other leagues like World League of the American Football league appeared in the 90’s. It had teams from Europe. Eventually the NFL bought this league. Then they made it NFL Europe subtracting the American teams. The United Football League had four whopping teams. The Canadian League still existed through all of this. They made changes. They had some American teams at one point.

Before the UFL had their cup of coffee, the XFL was a one year wonder as well with more teams and more money to spend. Vince McMahon, the head of WWE, the guy that brings you all the wrestling was like Vanilla Ice, a one hit wonder in the football world.  In 2001 the league started with a bang. Then in week two it definitely had a whimper. The combination of wrestling and football did not go smoothly and like that another football league was born and died in the same year.

In 2020, the XFL is coming back. Same owner Vince McMahon is giving it another go. A do over. This time he’s not going to combine the wrestling aspect with Football. So the WWE will not advertise for the XFL like they did in the past. That means no wrestlers giving the play by play. Vince McMahon says this go around will have reformed his rule book. His game will be safer. Everyone will have to stand up during the National Anthem. There goes Colin Kaepernick’s comeback attempt.

In the original XFL, Vince McMahon rushed things that resulted in poorly played football early in the season. The games got better but nobody was watching. He had crazy rules in his brand of football in the beginning. No fair catches. He had a mad scramble for the coin toss. Two guys running for the ball at midfield. Whoever got the ball won the toss. Resulting in players diving for the ball. One player separated his shoulder out for the year. Teams empty out the strip clubs for cheerleaders. Which could be bad and good. Mom may not like it. Players got to wear nick names on the back of the jerseys rather than their last name. The famous Rod Smart aka “He Hate Me.” The announcers were exhausting to listen to. Like a Mean Gene type doing the play by play. The names on the helmets were from horror movies gone bad. It was a bad scene. Which included rule changes in the middle of the season. Football on the fly.

Vince McMahon and the XFL the second go around could learn from the past mistakes. They even have time to improve their brand of football before 2020. So far they are talking about a quicker game. They will only play ten games. Plus playoffs. They will only have 8 teams to start. They have 40 man rosters with winning incentive contracts.

Is there enough meat left on the bone to add another league like the XFL? The NFL season and the College Football season followed by all those bowl games. Then to continue to watch football after the Superbowl. February is a very bad sports month. Don’t we need time to decompress from all the football?  Then in the month of March things get better. Are we going to watch football during March Madness? The NBA and the NHL games get interesting with playoffs on the line. Will we care to watch Johnny Football battle it out with Tim Tebow for a week five match up in the XFL?

When I was younger I loved the USFL. That was a different league. It was a different time. They had players. They had top players. Players that are in the Football Hall of Fame. The XFL will have players that failed in the NFL. They will have players that have never been drafted in the NFL. I think its just a bad time to bring in another football league with all these concussions. Will the XFL have looser rules? This becomes dangerous. Hope they have a lot of lawsuit money in the kitty. Would an Insurance company go belly up backing that kind of league? How many great players will play for contracts with only incentives and not a worthwhile base salary? In the state Of Illinois the government is trying to ban football under the age of 12.That tells you football in the future might be like the Gladiator fights. Might be prisoners playing the game to get out of their cell for some better food. More yard time.  Plus to go up against the NFL never works well. This league will be like a train that is going too fast and is about to derail. Yes people will be there to watch the derailment. But after that it will be back to re runs of Gomer Pyle and Barney Miller.