CS85

After watching the Vipers play in someone's backyard surrounded by crumbling scaffolding and a couple rows of bleachers, this league can't sniff at maximum attendance. If the field and venue are in decent condition, that is a gift horse.

Agreed, it was a pleasant watch, and not only because of the score. The Golden Knights fauxbacks weren't great on first inspection, but in the context of a Winter Classic I thought they held their own nicely.

Ah, sorry; updated my post.

TL;DR: the college football "how to choose a champion" methodology was dramatically botched one final time before playoff expansion, and the elite shadow cabal of knights templar* looks forward to screwing around again in the coming years.

Personally I'm fine with an 8 team league to start things off. Teams gotta have home fields and not hubs, and they have to be close enough to keep travel costs down and likely all teams will again practice/operate out of a central location. They have to stabilize next season to demonstrate that they can begin and end a season without issue, turn a profit that stirs interest, and ideally build off of the gains the 2023 XFL made during their regular season. They can likely keep the branding and materials allotted to un-included teams for easy, quick expansion should the league have a huge debut season, which would also be appealing financially, you'd think. I'm assuming they'd also have to acquire the UFL trademarks and such. It's a poor name for a league, IMO, but whatever. I still think they should go with LOAF: League of Alternative Football, with the catchphrase, "Let's Get This Bread."

Reaching the point of the Bears season where I give them about a half of football before opting to do literally anything else that is in any way productive. There's absolutely nothing to look forward to about the team. The coaching staff will all be fired, Fields and Bagent are both pretty crappy, they've struck out on most of their free agent signings, and the season is a long way from over. I wish I could smother this franchise with a pillow so we could all just move on with our lives and properly grieve for an organization that's been chugging arsenic for decades now but has a Rasputin-esque unwillingness to die.

I was browsing my Facebook memories yesterday and my status from 13 years ago was "Once again, the Chicago Bears continue to curate new and fascinating methods to lose that defy belief." An evergreen take on this bumbling-ass franchise, it appears.

There's a thread in the goldmine, some of you old timers may recall, that had a "concept" done in msPaint for the...steamboats, or something? I can't recall if that was Lee's work or what.

WEEK 7 Jaguars/Saints Falcons/Bucs Raiders/Bears Browns/Colts Commanders/Giants Lions/Ravens Bills/Patriots Cardinals/Seahawks Steelers/Rams Chargers/Chiefs Packers/Broncos Dolphins/Eagles 49ers/Vikings

WEEK 6 Denver @ Kansas City Baltimore @ Tennessee Washington @ Atlanta Minnesota @ Chicago Seattle @ Cincinnati San Francisco @ Cleveland Carolina @ Miami Indianapolis @ Jacksonville New Orleans @ Houston New England @ Las Vegas Arizona @ LA Rams Philadelphia @ NY Jets Detroit @ Tampa Bay NY Giants @ Buffalo Dallas @ LA Chargers

It looks like the "Who's that Pokemon?!" silhouette for a lame pokemon that's a cartoony steak.

Chicago vs. Washington Jacksonville vs. Buffalo New Orleans vs. New England Tennessee vs. Indianapolis Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh Carolina vs. Detroit Houston vs. Atlanta NY Giants vs. Miami Cincinnati vs. Arizona Philadelphia vs. LA Rams NY Jets vs. Denver Kansas City vs. Minnesota Dallas vs. San Francisco Green Bay vs. Las Vegas

Make fun if you want, it's the only way this nickel-and-dime endeavor succeeds.

They need to realize that the XFL and USFL brands have so very little equity. You're better off looking for a Shad Kahn/AEW situation where an ostensibly non-insane billionaire can be the owner/backer to provide the surface legitimacy of a new brand straightaway and cover the up front cost hurdles of localization, travel, facilities, etc. Without that, this league is going to be just another bubble scam that lasts for a year before some scoundrels pick the bones after it inevitably perishes.

You can't do football in front of no fans and expect engagement or success. It doesn't work. People don't want to go back to covid-era games. Football can't be golf. I know it's expensive as hell but local investment has an enormous long-term ROI compared to hoping for a couple years at best of TV ad buys before you founder the league and run away with what little money is left.

If they're going to do hub cities, which is league suicide, they need to drop all the cities from the team names. Don't insult our intelligence.

It's an improvement.

Detroit vs. Green Bay Atlanta vs. Jacksonville LA Rams vs. Indianapolis Baltimore vs. Cleveland Minnesota vs. Carolina Cincinnati vs. Tennessee Tampa Bay vs. New Orleans Miami vs. Buffalo Denver vs. Chicago Washington vs. Philadelphia Pittsburgh vs. Houston Las Vegas vs. LA Chargers Arizona vs. San Francisco New England vs. Dallas Kansas City vs. NY Jets Seattle vs. NY Giants

Cormac McCarthy rolled in his grave at the amount of punctuation in this post.

Hub cities is the death knell of the league. Local support is all that keeps business and interest going. Just call the whole operation now and don't waste anyone else's time.

Ye verily, to my everlasting suffering, I have seen the Bears trot out (and I'm probably forgetting some) ABHORRENTLY AWFUL: Cade McNown CFL legend Henry Burris Jonathan Quinn Craig Krenzel Jimmy Clausen Caleb Hanie Todd Collins Chad Hutchinson Kordell Stewart Mike Glennon David Fales FORGETTABLE: Shane Matthews Chris Chandler Brian Hoyer Jason Campbell Matt Barkley Andy Dalton Nick Foles Nathan Peterman Trevor Siemian Brian Griese Chase Daniel Tyler Bray DECENT I GUESS, AT LEAST BY BEARS LOW STANDARDS: Rex Grossman Jay Cutler Kyle Orton Josh McCown Mitch Trubisky Jim Miller Justin Fields (trending down) GOOD: HALL OF FAME: Tyson Bagent

The Bears have, especially in recent years, been Not Great at PR basics. They don’t handle the unexpected well at all. As far as the Williams stuff goes, as of now it’s an addition by subtraction. Eberflus calling the defense could mean he’ll be too occupied to push dumbass strategies on the offense, which is already run by a Rodgers beneficiary, so I dunno. This whole mess is just another in the long miserable tenure of Bears fandom.

If the rumors about Alan Williams are true, the Bears are, uh, it's not good.