Thoughts on the Alliance of American Football

Football fans didn’t have to wait long after Super Bowl 53 to jump right back into the action. Just six days after the Patriots hoisted their sixth Lombardi Trophy, a new league, the Alliance of American Football (AAF) kicked off action for their inaugural season.

The eight-team, single entity league will have a ten-game regular season followed by two weeks of playoffs, during which it hopes to establish itself as an entertaining secondary football league during the NFL’s offseason. It’s a move many a league has tried before, and like I mentioned a few years ago while writing about then-new developmental league The Spring League, the previous failures have left me rightfully skeptical about the viability of any attempt at a professional football league outside of the NFL.

Currently, The Spring League is still active, although more of a showcase than a real league, and impressively, over 40 of its former players have found their way to AAF rosters. But can the AAF fulfill its goal of providing something of a minor league and potential NFL springboard?

I’m not sure, but I do think the AAF has a better chance than any league we’ve seen in a while. For starters, this isn’t an operation run by nobodies. Founded by Charlie Ebersol, the son of XFL co-founder Dick Ebersol, and longtime NFL general manager and team president Bill Polian, just about everyone associated with the league has plenty of NFL experience. Troy Polamalu, Hines Ward, Jared Allen, Justin Tuck, and Jeff Fisher are just some of the league’s executives, while Steve Spurrier and Mike Singletary are notable coaches.

Additionally, the league has struck up some impressive media rights deals, with games airing on CBS and CBS Sports, NFL Network, TNT, Bleacher Report, and the AAF’s own app. Regardless of whether people tune in or not, the league is certainly making itself available.

And people did tune in for Week 1. The AAF’s CBS debut on Saturday narrowly edged out the NBA’s Rockets-Thunder matchup, drawing a 2.1 overnight rating. However, it is worth nothing that this figure pales in comparison to the 9.5 rating and 15.7 million viewers who watched the XFL’s debut in 2001. XFL ratings plummeted after that initial week, and the league never played a second season.

I tuned into the San Antonio Commanders vs. San Diego Fleet game for a minutes, long enough to see Fleet quarterback Mike Bercovici get absolutely clobbered on a play which went viral and attracted many fans to the league. Overall, reports on quality of football, which I consider one of, if not the most important factor for the future of the league, were mixed. Many quickly embraced the new league, while others dismissed play as sloppy. However, I’m sure that will improve at least somewhat over time, as it was just game one and teams haven’t had too much time to practice yet.

The league does boast a number of former NFL players, perhaps the most widely known being running back Trent Richardson, who scored two touchdowns in his opener for the Birmingham Iron. However, the overall lack of star power and inevitable struggle to create diehard team fandoms that come with the history of a league like the NFL strike me as two of the biggest reasons why I still wouldn’t bet on the AAF sticking around too long, despite assurances the league has taken steps to make sure it keeps playing into the foreseeable future.

It is worth noting that the league had highly varied attendance in Week 1, from nearly 28,000 in San Antonio to just 15,000 in Arizona, which already houses an NFL team. Atlanta is the AAF’s other franchise located in an existing NFL market, and it will be interesting to see the Legends’ attendance numbers for their home debut.

One potential advantage of starting a new league is the ability to adjust the rulebook, and the AAF has certainly made a number of intriguing changes to the game. For starters, the league has eliminated kickoffs, the most dangerous play in football. The AAF has taken extra points out of the game, forcing teams to go for two, and instituted a single overtime period which gives each team one possession from the 10-yard line, which can result in a tie.

From a pace of play perspective, the league has shortened the play clock from 40 to 35 seconds, and to enhance the viewer experience, has greatly reduced commercials , which led to the San Antonio-San Diego game being played in just two hours, 33 minutes.

The league has also innovated from a refereeing perspective, creating a new sky judge position which can quickly overrule certain calls made on the field, and added transparency in replay review by having the replay official mic’d up, a move which was largely applauded over social media.

Ultimately, time will tell how the AAF holds up over the rest of its inaugural season, and if it comes back for year two. If it does, it will be in direct competition with the revived XFL, which aims to make its debut in Spring 2020. I see this as another problem. There might not even be room for one Spring football league, so there certainly isn’t room for two. For now, though, the AAF has us all to themselves, and are giving themselves a shot at hanging around.