Alliance of American Football - season begins Feb 9

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Boris13c
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the new Alliance of American Football (AAF) begins its inaugural season this Saturday February 9 2019 ... here's some info on what it's all about

as a note, Mike Singletary is the HC of the Memphis Express

What is AAF football? Teams, coaches, notable players, schedule for new Alliance of American Football league
AAF stands for Alliance of American Football, which was announced in March by co-founders Charlie Ebersol and Bill Polian, the latter of whom spent decades working as an NFL executive. It is an eight-team league that exists to both complement the NFL during the offseason and showcase local, developing talent. Its leadership board features former NFL players Jared Allen, Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu, and its mission is to provide "high-quality professional football fueled by a dynamic Alliance between players, fans and the game."

here is their home page with schedules and other details :

Alliance of American Football


and the games will be telecast

2019 Alliance of American Football (AAF) Week 1 TV and Announcer Schedule
Founded by TV and film producer Charlie Ebersol and Hall of Famer Bill Polian, The Alliance of American Football features eight teams with 52-player rosters playing a 10-week regular season schedule beginning February 9, 2019, followed by two playoff rounds and culminating with the championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas on April 27, 2019. The league’s broadcast and distribution partners include CBS, CBS Sports Network, Turner Sports — TNT and B/R Live (Bleacher Report) — and NFL Network.

The eight cities, stadiums and head coaches are as follows:

* Orlando Apollos / Spectrum Stadium / Steve Spurrier
* Atlanta Legends / Georgia State Stadium / Kevin Coyle
* Memphis Express / Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium / Mike Singletary
* Salt Lake Stallions / Rice-Eccles Stadium / Dennis Erickson
* Arizona Hotshots / Sun Devil Stadium / Rick Neuheisel
* San Diego Fleet / San Diego County Credit Union Stadium / Mike Martz
* Birmingham Iron / Legion Field Stadium / Tim Lewis
* San Antonio Commanders / Alamodome / Mike Riley
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Otis Day
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I will watch. It is football so it can't be all bad. Kind of excited to see it. Outside of hockey, this is a down time for me. Baseball doesn't excite me and I have kind of gotten over college buckets until tourney time.
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I'll be watching as well, sounds like they want to improve issues in the NFL game compared to trying to add more glitz and glamour like the original XFL attempted to do.

Like Otis said, it's football so it can't be bad... it should be better quality than some of the lesser college football programs.
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Interesting chat about this on the Business of Sports podcast today:

https://www.podcastone.com/the-business ... rew-brandt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
RTAB #130: Charlie Ebersol
Charlie Ebersol, Co-Founder of the Alliance of American Football is this week's guest with Andrew. They talk about how the AAF got its funding, their use of data & analytics, the value of the teams, its relationship with the NFL, & much more.
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I'll probably watch... but man, that's a lot of bad coaches.
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I'm all for these secondary/tertiary leagues to succeed, but because there's so much crosshatching with the NFL, I worry it's built with the intent to fail.
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UOK wrote:I'm all for these secondary/tertiary leagues to succeed, but because there's so much crosshatching with the NFL, I worry it's built with the intent to fail.

I'm taking a more positive approach on this as it being the NFL's legitimate effort to have a minor league for development

that was kind of what NFL Europe was supposed to be, but then they didn't properly fund it which always struck me as strange ... you have the NFL commissioner gushing all about establishing an overseas market, yet they then allow their own overseas developmental league to fail

I would like to think they learned from that, so we'll see
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The XFL doesn't have any draft eligibility restrictions... so a guy like Trevor Lawrence can get drafted for that league instead of the NFL. I don't know if that helps the NFL or hurts it... I think it helps it.
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haven't checked on the new XFL of late ... I do know they don't get rolling until 2020

wonder if their schedule will be as a competitor to the AAF rather than the NFL
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I'll be checking it out.

6 months without football is a long time.

plus...the more people who watch the better the odds it stays/better quality players being trained up for the pros.
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Mike Martz, retirement has not been good to you. You been eating too many cheeseburgers!!!! DAMN dude, must have put on 50 lbs, at least.
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Watched (recorded as I was at a miserable UofA basketball game)..the new AAF..
The game was entertaining as much as some NFL games. No corny XFL bullshit..and Martz is crazy and fatter than always..

Wasn't bad..for a guy who craves football.. Not a lot of scoring..but looked ok..competitive..and some of these guys may make it to the NFL..
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I watched a little of the San Antonio game. Martz looks like he ate someone. I enjoyed what I watched. The uniforms were more distracting than anything. Don't know why these off shoot leagues think they need busy unis.

If home when the games are on, I will watch.
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https://www.bearsfansonline.com/forum/v ... =8&t=13248" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I started it in the lounge since it wasn't directly NFL ... maybe mods can merge the 2 threads into whichever forum they deem most appropriate
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Otis Day wrote:Mike Martz, retirement has not been good to you. You been eating too many cheeseburgers!!!! DAMN dude, must have put on 50 lbs, at least.

he looked like he was struggling just to remain upright on the sidelines
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no longer a mystery why Christian Hackenburg never got any playing time with the Jets ... dude was playing against mostly practice squad players and couldn't complete a meaningful pass
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Merged. This is the AAF thread. If it gets wildly popular I'll give it it's own forum.
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Boris13c wrote:no longer a mystery why Christian Hackenburg never got any playing time with the Jets ... dude was playing against mostly practice squad players and couldn't complete a meaningful pass
He had a major flaw in his mechanics that were supposedly fixed...

https://www.pennlive.com/sports/2019/02 ... areer.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think the major flaw is that he's just bad at football.
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The Alliance announces Week 1 Players of the Week
Offensive Player of the Week: Arizona Hotshots quarterback John Wolford

The Arizona Hotshots put up 416 yards of total offense led by quarterback John Wolford, who completed 18 of 29 passes for 275 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. The effort was good enough to net a 132.9 passer rating -- and a 38-22 win over the Salt Lake Stallions at Sun Devil Stadium on Sunday.

Defensive Player of the Week: Orlando Apollos linebacker Terence Garvin

Orlando Apollos linebacker Terence Garvin led his team to a 40-6 victory over the Atlanta Legends on Saturday with a team-high 11 tackles and two interceptions -- returning one of them 51 yards for a touchdown. Garvin’s pick-six was the first defensive touchdown in league history.

Special team Player of the Week: Birmingham Iron kicker Nick Novak

Birmingham Iron kicker Nick Novak accounted for 12 points in his team's 26-0 win over the Memphis Express on Sunday, converting all four of his field goal attempts en route to Tim Lewis’ first win as a head coach.
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im rooting for birmingham iron, best uniforms
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CB Bausby is back.

San Antonio.
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AAF Needed $250 Million Investment to Avoid Missing Payroll
The Alliance of American Football is only a few weeks old and already it has encountered the biggest problem that plagues most startup leagues.

According to a report from The Athletic, the AAF despite a good ratings debut, was running low on cash with the possiblity of missing payroll before its second weekend of play.

But then Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon stepped up and made a $250 million investment in the league. With the new infusion of funds on hand, Dundon will reportedly be named the league's new chairman on Tuesday.

Dundon paid $420 million for the Hurricanes in January 2018.

“Without a new, nine-figure investor, nobody is sure what would have happened,” a source told the Athletic. “You can always tell people their checks are going to be a little late, but how many are going to show up on the weekend for games when they don’t see anything hit their bank accounts on Friday?”

The AAF, which has been billed as a way for former NFL players and coaches to get another shot in the game, has eight teams in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego and Tempe. The league is scheduled to have a 10-week regular season before it has its championship game on April 27.

The stories before the season began indicated NFL support for this league, but apparently that is not fully correct?

Missing payroll and bounced paychecks is what doomed the WFL, so is the AAF going to be following that failed path in spite of the NFL "endorsing" the first 3 seasons?
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Just think of the startup costs for any new league.

-uniforms
-equipment
-practice facility rent
-staff

That shit if before you even think about paying the players. I have never heard what they are getting paid, but damn I really don't know how any of these leagues make it.
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Otis Day wrote:I have never heard what they are getting paid, but damn I really don't know how any of these leagues make it.

Players in new league to get 3-year, $250K contracts
Less than eight months before the scheduled start of its new pro league, the Alliance of American Football has rolled out details about player allocation, a combine, a draft and salary expectations.

League co-founder Bill Polian, an ESPN NFL analyst, said the league will give players three-year, non-guaranteed contracts worth $250,000 each.

Players can leave the league, which is set to kick off Feb. 9, to go to the NFL. Polian said it's currently unclear whether a player's rights will revert back to the AAF after a three-year period expires or if the clock stops ticking on a team's three-year rights when a player gets "called up" to the big time.

alaries will be in line with AAF competitor the XFL, which has said it will pay players an average of $75,000 per season. That league launches in 2020.

Polian said a contract will include state-of-the-industry health insurance and an education stipend to any player who completes a year in the league.
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standings and stats after week 3 :

AAF Standings and Results
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AAF’s Sky Judge makes first key call, throwing a flag that had been missed
As the NFL contemplates whether to add a video official who would be responsible for correcting certain obvious blunders in real time, the Alliance of American Football already is using this approach. And, for the first time during the AAF’s inaugural season, the Sky Judge made a call that the officials on the field had missed.

It happened in the third quarter of Sunday’s game between the San Antonio Commanders and the Birmingham Iron. Commanders defensive back Duke Thomas applied a big hit to Birmingham receiver Tobias Palmer on a pass that fell incomplete. No flag was thrown on the field, but the Sky Judge intervened, ordering a penalty of Thomas for targeting a defenseless receiver.

“The Alliance added the Sky Judge to correct obvious and egregious officiating errors without going to replay and unnecessarily delaying the game,” AAF officiating consultant Dean Blandino said in a statement. “We place an emphasis on player safety, and want to ensure a win or loss doesn’t come down to a missed call.

“In this instance, the Sky Judge observed the hit on . . . Palmer and determined it was a violation of the defenseless player rule and put him at risk, so the decision was made to enforce a penalty. It was the first time the Sky Judge has come into play this season, and player safety is certainly a trigger for such a ruling.”

With the annual league meetings only three weeks away, here’s hoping the NFL is paying very close attention to what the AAF is doing when it comes to quick and easy ways to fix mistakes, to promote player safety, and, ultimately, to preserve the integrity of the game.
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Talks ‘ramping up’ between AAF and NFL
Could the Tampa Bay Buccaneers one day identify or tag certain players to an Alliance of American Football (AAF) affiliate for developmental play in the NFL off-season? If AAF co-founder Bill Polian has his way, it certainly seems possible.

Talking with USA Today recently, Polian commented about the possibility of the two leagues partnering in some fashion, saying,

“The talk is ramping up - I’ll say that.”

While those words alone may not seem all that impactful, the fact the two leagues are talking, and that talks are ‘ramping up’ is big by itself.

Right now, the idea seems to be centered around players who don’t take a whole lot of physical abuse in the regular season. Guys like third-string quarterbacks and practice squad players.
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I could see anyone who wasn't active for X number of games or were on NFL practice squads being eligible to play in the development league.
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