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XFL Buy/Sell

Superior product to the AAF and its not close. With that said, the QB play is still atrocious.

Once the novelty wears off, regardless of the skill positions being pretty decent, the QB play is going to turn people off.

Watching QBs go 12/28 for 125 yards with 3 ints stagnating the offense gets old quick.

They are never going to pull NFL starting QBs but they need to up the money and attract legit NFL back up level QBs that can manage an offense and distribute the ball to the skill guys.

If they dont solve the QB issue the league wont make it long term.
 
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Buy big time. The only gripe I have with it is that they should not have put a team in LA. They don't even care about their NFL teams. I know they needed a west coast market but I feel a smaller market may have been a better option. Maybe San Diego?
 
Empirical Cane said:
I've been surprised how the rival networks mention the upcoming XFL game being shown across the channels.

V McMahon is a marketing genius for the markets he participates in. More success than failures (all anyone can strive for right?).
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It's vastly different than the original XFL was treated.

I remember everyone on ESPN ****ting on it. Stuart Scott and other sportscenter anchors mocking it during the highlights, Mike Lupica and sports reporters trashing it, PTI, all saying the league was ***. Then you had Bob Costas openly calling the league fraudulent with rigged results. The reason Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura were the announcers is because major media outlets suggested the league was fixed and none of NBC's sports announcers wanted to be associated with it.

20 years later, Steve Levy isn't making He Hate Me jokes, he calling the ******* game.

That's funny to me.
 
Dan E. Dangerously said:
It's vastly different than the original XFL was treated.

I remember everyone on ESPN ****ting on it. Stuart Scott and other sportscenter anchors mocking it during the highlights, Mike Lupica and sports reporters trashing it, PTI, all saying the league was ***. Then you had Bob Costas openly calling the league fraudulent with rigged results. The reason Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura were the announcers is because major media outlets suggested the league was fixed and none of NBC's sports announcers wanted to be associated with it.

20 years later, Steve Levy isn't making He Hate Me jokes, he calling the ******* game.

That's funny to me.
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Oh how times have changed.

McMahon likely learned many hard lessons. Less WWE, but give fans more of what they want and fixed from their frustrations over the NFL.

XFL officiating seems smoother as well. Seems past two seasons NFL zebras have been as much the story as play on field--and not in a good way.

The NFL rules and expectations have become impossible to satisfy with on-field refs. They, and NFL fans, either need to live with imperfection, or get rid of all refs and go with booth officials monitoring multiple camera angles frame by frame and player by player.

As a side note...is that type of officiating what the fans want? I'm not a hard no, but not an enthusiastic yes either.
 
Dan E. Dangerously said:
Not sure. It's almost like they promote things well when they have the rights to them or something, and **** on things that air on rival networks.
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I think that's the key behind it. The football is better than the last go round, but the big difference is this time the major machines are backing and pushing it.
 
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ZCanes said:
Superior product to the AAF and its not close. With that said, the QB play is still atrocious.

Once the novelty wears off, regardless of the skill positions being pretty decent, the QB play is going to turn people off.

Watching QBs go 12/28 for 125 yards with 3 ints stagnating the offense gets old quick.

They are never going to pull NFL starting QBs but they need to up the money and attract legit NFL back up level QBs that can manage an offense and distribute the ball to the skill guys.

If they dont solve the QB issue the league wont make it long term.
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That's a good point. Narratives tend to be the quick death of these type of leagues. So if ratings fall off a cliff after the first few weeks or it becomes clear that the QBs can't hit wide open receivers and people can harp on it then it usually snowballs badly for these unestablished entities with no loyal fanbases.

It's probably a really tough sweet spot to hit. You have to be perceived as being at least a slightly better product than college ball but with innovations that differ you from the NFL but you can't be tooooo gimmicky or have your games lean too far in one direction offensively or defensively.
 
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Sell. Every game I've watched has been bad, mainly the QBs can't buy a completion. I do like the changes to he extra point. NFL should steal that, extra points are ... pointless.
 
Sell. It's the equivalent of watching the MLS after watching Premier and Euroleague. No matter how compelling and well put together the product is, you realize you are not watching the best in the world. That matters to me at least. I'm not interested in watching bench warmers/practice squad players ball out.
 
Empirical Cane said:
XFL through week 2...

Buy/sell?

I remain a buy.

PJ and Cardell with excellent play. Wouldn't be surprised if rules innovations (at least some) eventually make their way into NFL.

Smart changes for sure.
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Sell. It’s stupid, just like every other off season league that pops up. The only one that had a chance was the USFL in the 80s but they got greedy and tried to go up against the NFL which was a stupid decision. Had the USFL stayed a spring/summer league they’d still be around today. There was a good 30 for 30 on it.
 
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supersaiyanshel said:
Sell. It's the equivalent of watching the MLS after watching Premier and Euroleague. No matter how compelling and well put together the product is, you realize you are not watching the best in the world. That matters to me at least. I'm not interested in watching bench warmers/practice squad players ball out.
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That's interesting coming from someone on a CFB site, isn't that exactly what CFB is?
 
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NicKane said:
Sell. It’s stupid, just like every other off season league that pops up. The only one that had a chance was the USFL in the 80s but they got greedy and tried to go up against the NFL which was a stupid decision. Had the USFL stayed a spring/summer league they’d still be around today. There was a good 30 for 30 on it.
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Something tells me hes not going to like that one given who was largely responsible for that league folding 🤣
 
As long as they tailor the game to be more like college and less like the NFL, it can work. The way the NFL is officiated, it pretty much forces you to have an elite quarterback to be successful. The good teams have good quarterbacks, the bad teams have bad quarterbacks. Let's face it there's only a handful of people talented enough to be a "good NFL quarterback" in the whole world. College rules are interpreted differently and it allows for an offense to still be effective even if their quarterback doesn't have 100% pinpoint accuracy and a cannon arm. Good QB play always trumps bad QB play but at least in college, your entire team's level of success isn't based solely on having spectacular QB play like it is in the NFL.
 
How can anyone be buying into this? It's going to fizzle out quickly. They can't pay enough for talent to sustain interest. No QB worth a **** is going to go to the XFL.

The officiating seems better. The NFL could take some lessons there.

An NFL practice squad pays more. You're literally getting bottom of the barrel players. Unless they can pay a somewhat comparable salary that is enticing because it would get some of those players on the field it's not happening.
 
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