Ty Kinda Watches the AAF

On Saturday night we had my folks over to see the kids and my dad and I decided, during a game of kid's Monopoly, that we would check out the new "pro" football league, The American Alliance of Football. I had only recently remembered that the league was a thing because I follow a lot of Michigan football stuff on social media, and a few of their notable players, mainly Denard Robinson, are on some of the teams. Unfortunately for me, none of them played during the one quarter of the one game that I watched this past weekend. With that one quarter of play, I made a few observations.

Now, I have seen a few articles since Saturday saying that the viewership was very high, and that this is the "perfect cure for anyone that is already missing football". First off, I get that viewership was high. Football is now America's pastime. It is the most popular sport. It has surpassed baseball, and even though I may think it is a better, and more fun sport to watch, the NBA is not even close in popularity to pro football. That all makes sense. But, to call this the "cure" for football fans. I highly disagree. I don't get it. One, the Super Bowl just happened a week ago, and it was a trash game. It's not like we have been without football for a month or 2. We didn't miss any football in fact. There was zero break.

Secondly, as far as the "cure" for what ails football fans, this was a garbage product. This was not even high level college football fun. This wasn't even Pro Bowl fun, in that the Pro Bowl is just a stage for the NFL's all star's to dick around. In fact, I would rather watch the skills competition that the soon to be pro players do, or even watch something like the Senior Bowl, or any of those other college football all star games. I found the one quarter of the AAF game I watched to be very, very low level "pro" football. I'm sure it will be better than the return of the XFL, because the XFL is so dumb, but not by that much. I did not recognize a single name of either player on either team Saturday, and I do watch a ton of football, mostly college football. The AAF should have been right in my wheel house because I should have been able to recognize someone. I did not. And sure, I saw the highlight of the big hit on the QB in the very same game I watched, but that type of hit happens in every NFL game, and in pretty much every college football game.

The people that want this league to thrive were grasping at straws trying to make this opening weekend seem like this league will be legit. I mean, I don't even remember the teams that were playing. All I remember about the game was that it was played at the Alamaodome, so I would assume one of the teams is based in San Antonio, and that Mike Martz is either a head coach or coordinator of one of the teams that was playing Saturday night. That's it. And that is not a good thing, at least in my opinion.

As far as the on field stuff I saw, I, clearly, was not impressed. It was all shot gun. It was all read option football. It was like watching Oregon or any other Pac 12 team, except it wasn't as good or fun. The run games were non existent. The QB's were downright dreadful. I have no idea who the skill position players were. Save for that one big hit, the defenses were very, very vanilla. Needless to say, I was pretty underwhelmed by the AAF. I did watch because I am a football junkie, but the fact that I turned it off after a quarter, and my dad didn't gripe at me for this, should speak volumes. We were more than happy to watch the Thunder complete a 26 point comeback win over the Rockets. We also stuck closer to the Duke-Virginia game, and a few other college basketball games. We did not need low grade football.

Football is a great sport, and I love to watch it, especially college football. But, at least for me, the AAF, after one week, was a big time disappointment. It can always make a revival, but I doubt it. This was some low rent football. There is no questioning that.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Ty does not remember the USFL at all. As a matter of fact most of us only know about the USFL because it showed us that even in the 1980’s, Donald Trump was a terrible leader.

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I Will not Fall for this XFL Garbage Again

Just leave the XFL in the trash, where it belongs

To finish up my week of sports stories I missed out on one week ago, today I'm going to talk about the announcement of the return of the XFL in 2020.

I could not care less about this. This is one of the dumbest things to happen in sports, and only dumbass people are excited by this news. Seriously, do you guys remember how stupid and pointless and terrible the football was in the XFL? I was one of those idiots way back in the 2000's that was excited by this idea of football returning to its glory days of rough and tough. I was fully on board with the idea of no fair catches, fighting for the ball for the opening kickoff, the picked names by players on the back of the jerseys, I bought into all that nonsense.

I was a high school student back then. I was a teenager who played football. I don't know, maybe my brain was messed up from high school football, and basketball and baseball, and that was why I thought the XFL was a good idea. You know what else I thought was cool in the early 2000's? JNCO jeans, chain wallets, pagers, sweatpants and frosted tips. You guys remember all that cool shit that is still relevant today? Didn't think so. The same can be said for the XFL.

Hell, I was so excited for the premiere of the XFL, I had my girlfriend at the time come with me to a friend's house so she could watch the first game with us. And, I wasn't the only football player that dragged his girlfriend there. There were 5 of us that wanted to watch, and all of our girlfriends were there. I'm so sorry to any of you ladies if you are reading this now. We all acted like morons. We were hooting and hollering and almost foaming at the mouth for the XFL. When they finished with their pregame stuff, and the opening race and fight for the ball to see who started the game with it was about to begin, we all shut our mouths and were glued to the screen. It was going to be great, or so we thought.

Then, it happened.

The race began and the scrum for the ball happened and one of the guys, I don't remember who, probably He Hate Me, got  the ball and his team started with it. It was kind of a dud to watch. We figured, okay one bad thing, but the game will be so much more violent and fast paced and the hits will be so brutal that it will be worth it.

Wrong again.

The football was bad. There was a reason that these guys were in the XFL and not the NFL or even the CFL. They were bad at football. They just so happened to be in shape I guess, but they were bad. They couldn't execute simple run or pass plays. When they tried to run slants or deep routes it was an exercise in futility for both the offense and the defense. Running the ball should have been easy, but they made it hard. These dudes couldn't find a hole that was as big as a mack truck. It was pathetic.

The game got so bad we tried to find something, anything, that was good and this was when we turned to the names on the back of the jerseys. This was an enormous letdown. As I stated before, the only guy I remember is He Hate Me, and I remember it for how dumb I thought it was. I'm sure the rest were even dumber.

The whole thing was a mess. My friends and I, and our girlfriends, couldn't even finish watching the first game. We dipped out before halftime. I think most of the other people that tuned in to watch that night did the same thing too. I instantly forgot about this league until the 1 Million Dollar Game, their Super Bowl. I saw it advertised on TV and thought, the XFL is still a thing? I was dumbfounded. Also, 1 million dollars? That is a drop in the bucket for real pro athletes.

So, when it was announced last week that the XFL would be returning I thought, why? Who wants this? Were people actually clamoring for this to come back? What guys would go play in this league? How will it last longer than one season again? I had these, and many, many more questions that I don't think will ever be answered.

Also, when that alleged sexual assaulter Vince McMahon announced the league and said the rules that the players would have to abide by, I wanted to smash his stupid face through my TV. Screw him. He is a punk and a coward. He is trying to force players to stand for the anthem people. That is an atrocity and it goes against free speech. He claims that the players will have to be good upstanding Americans. What does that even mean anymore? This is going to be a disaster, just like the first time around.

It is such a joke already that guys like Jared Lorenzan, shouts out to him to for trying to get his life together, are reaching out to try and get a roster spot. How long until Robert Griffin and Johnny Manziel are knocking down the XFL's door? Hopefully for them, sooner rather than later.

I loathe this idea. I loathe the whole thought process and development of the XFL. I loathe the people involved. I feel sorry for the guys that will legitimately try and make a team as a last ditch effort to get to the NFL or CFL. This is gruesome on every single level. This is all coming from a guy that watches the G League too. But, I know that the basketball in the G League isn't good, but it is better than anything the XFL will put out there, and at least some G League guys get NBA deals, shouts out to former Michigan player Trey Burke. I cannot name one player from the XFL that went on to even be signed by a NFL team.

Screw the XFL and everyone involved. And if you are excited for this, please, I implore you, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you really want to watch something so painful that it will make you angry that you wasted any amount of time on it. I hope that it fades away quietly, just like it did the first time around. What a horrendous idea it was to bring this league back. It is a big, big joke.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. How could Ty forget the excitement of watching Tommy Maddox lead his LA Xtreme squad over the upstarts with the San Francisco Demons in the Million Dollar Game. The Head Editor forgot and needed a little help from Wikipedia to get the details right.

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