XFL 2023: Third Time's the Charm!

[MJWalker45]

ESPN says at the start of the game Seattle needed to score 34 points. Apparently they need to check their math because they got in with a 28-9 win.

[Red Comet]

Sucks the Battlehawks didn’t make it, but, they should’ve beat Seattle when they had the chance.

 

Still, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the XFL’s play so far. I look forward to next week’s games. Particularly DC vs Seattle

[McCall]

4 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

ESPN says at the start of the game Seattle needed to score 34 points. Apparently they need to check their math because they got in with a 28-9 win.

It technically went to the 5th tiebreaker because they didn’t reach 34. Seattle had it with that one.

[McCall]

The XFL should’ve adopted the Crossover Rule from the CFL. For a league this small, it makes the most sense.

[Cujo]

26 minutes ago, McCall said:

It technically went to the 5th tiebreaker because they didn’t reach 34. Seattle had it with that one.

 

It was done by halftime. They stopped showing the STL watch party around then

[See Red]

I guess having the structure they have gave us that little bit of drama tonight but that really is the worst way to do it for an 8-team league.

 

It's a bummer Arlington made it.  As someone who just happens to catch some games when they're on without making any real effort to watch any particular teams/games, I had the misfortune of catching quite a few Brahmas, Renegades, and Guardians game and the Renegades are a bad football team.  Them and the Brahmas are just barely a step above the Guardians and Vipers, who are terrible.  Bummed for St. Louis.

[Cujo]

1 hour ago, See Red said:

It's a bummer Arlington made it

 

A team that went thru 4 or 5 starting QBs this season has no business getting into a playoff. And especially one that finished 4-6.

[Sykotyk]

I suggested on another site that they just go with an 8-team league structure instead of divisions. Still go with '3 teams played twice, 4 teams played once' but just seed them #1 through #8. Take the top 2, 4, 6, or 8. Whatever they want. But there's no reason to do a straight split.

 

 

Another option I concocted was this:

 

 

Instead of a 10 week season, play an 8 week season. Play with divisions or without. Doesn't matter.

 

With divisions, take the top 3 teams from each division. Without, just take the top 6 teams. For regular season schedule, (with divisions) play division teams twice (6 games) and play two of the 4 remaining teams once each, missing two of them. (without divisions) play two teams twice, and play four of the remaining 5 teams once. Only missing one team.

 

Take those 6 teams, put them in two groups. From Divisions, you can do N1/S2/N3 and S1/N2/S3 for example. For league-wide, go 1/3/6 and 2/4/5.

 

After 8 weeks, 2 teams are done. The remaining six are now playing a three week/two game tournament for the playoffs. Random draw which team is which slot. A hosts B. C hosts A. B hosts C. Each gets one home game. Each has one road game.

 

There's two outcomes. A group finishes 2-0, 1-1, and 0-2 or a group finishes 1-1, 1-1, and 1-1.

 

If A beats B and A beats C, A #1 and B-C play for the #2 spot.

If A beats B and C beats A, C is playing for #1, but B can win to make a three-way tie.

If B beats A and A beats C, B is playing for #1, but C can win to make a three-way tie.

If B beats A and C beats A, B-C plays for #1 and loser gets #2.

 

Each of the three games means something. No game is a 'it doesn't matter' game at the end of the season.

 

And to make it really fun, the three-way tie-breaker would be PF/PA among the 3 teams in the 3 game tournament. So, in that third game, HOW MUCH you win or lose by could make the difference between #1, #2, or being out.  For instance:

 

A 23-10 B

C 44-20 A

 

A -11

B -13

C +22

 

C wins, gets #1. B wins, it's a three-way tie. If they win by 3, they're #2, and C is #1. If they beat C by 18, they're #1 and C is #2. If B wins by 2, C is #1 and B/A are tied at #2. A wins on head-to-head.

 

In the improbable 'every team has the same PF/PA differential, go PF, and then go net touchdowns. And to avoid any coin toss rules, just go net yards in those games.

 

Take the top two, put them in the playoffs. #1 from one group hosts #2 from the other group. Semifinals. And then Finals.

 

In all, you play 2 less games for the entire season and have one extra week. You eliminate the two worst teams after 8 weeks. The last 9 games all mean something very important. And in a lot of cases, even if you're not playing you're almost required to watch to see what happens and what you need to do when your team does play.

[Red Comet]

I think it would just be less complicated to just have the division winners face the two teams with the best records that didn’t win their division. 

[MJWalker45]

12 hours ago, McCall said:

The XFL should’ve adopted the Crossover Rule from the CFL. For a league this small, it makes the most sense.

This happens in the NFL too, just win the games you're supposed to and it's not an issue. 

 

5 hours ago, Red Comet said:

I think it would just be less complicated to just have the division winners face the two teams with the best records that didn’t win their division. 

It's less complicated, but leagues want attention all the way to the end of the season. I wonder if that helped get extra eyes on the Defenders/Brahmas game Saturday. Afterwards, it probably took eyes off of the Roughnecks/Renegades game. 

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

The XFL playoff structure is good as it is.  And the USFL is using the same structure.

 

Fostering divisional rivalries is important, as part of establishing the league's identity.  Indeed, the only mistake that the XFL made was to not have the final week consist of only divisional games.  The USFL's schedule features only divisional matchups for the final two weeks.

[CS85]

• Sea Dragons vs. Vipers:  Seattle is arguably the funnest team in the league to watch.  DiNucci is all over the place and hopefully he balls out against the Defenders in the playoffs.  Glad they got in.  Will ideally make for a wild, hopefully ratings-heavy playoff game.
• Defenders vs. Brahmas:  Gutsy finale for the Brahmas with a fairly hot crowd cheering them on.  Romo's miss at the end shouldn't tarnish what an excellent year he had and hopefully next season San Antonio builds on a solid showing.
• Guardians vs. Battlehawks:  Orlando's finally found some cohesion late in the year and it makes for a rowdy first half, but McCarron was on another planet.  It's a shame St. Louis isn't in the playoffs, but the cookie crumbled thus.  Their fans reign supreme and despite a stupid-good offensive showing, they didn't meet the tiebreaker criteria.  
• Roughnecks vs. Renegades:  Houston is a dull, if not unspectacular squad with some ass-tier QB play but a stellar defense.  The Renegades are, IMO, the most boring team in the XFL.  They're basically the league's home team but they're so bland across the board.  Roughnecks move along as they do, but it's so lame that we'll see a complete rerun of this game next week with likely the same result.

Sea Dragons vs. Defenders is basically the XFL 2023 Championship Game, and I'm hoping the Sea Dragons pull it off.  Defenders are a damned fine team, but no team was more exciting to watch than the SSDs.  

 

That said, what'll probably happen is it'll be DC vs. Houston for the title, it'll be Defenders by a landslide, and the ratings will be weak.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

16 minutes ago, CS85 said:

The Renegades are, IMO, the most boring team in the XFL.

 

Hey, now!  Do not disregard this magical gentleman.

 

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, CS85 said:

we'll see a complete rerun of this game next week with likely the same result.

 

A game with absolutely nothing on the line is no basis for assumptions about the likely result of a playoff game.

[CS85]

16 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

A game with absolutely nothing on the line is no basis for assumptions about the likely result of a playoff game.

 

Let's take a look at the Renegades season:

• barely beat the lousy Vipers at home (1-0)
• trounced by Houston (1-1)
• survived the mighty ass-tier Guardians at home by one point (2-1)
• blown out by St. Louis (2-2)
• survived a struggling San Antonio by a meager two points in a game fraught with bad play (3-2)
• got field goaled to death in an unimpressive rematch with SA the following week (3-3)
• smoked by Seattle (3-4)
• hung on to beat the then 1-6 Guardians by two (4-4)
• DC blew out Arlington for 3 quarters before pissing away the game, unfortunate luck in overtime, easily Arlington's best game, but a loss (4-5)
• Arlington limps to the finish with another loss against one of the worst QB'd teams in the league (4-6)

Arlington is mediocre garbage, and should absolutely not be in the playoffs.  St. Louis is one of the banner teams of the league and outplayed Arlington's sorry asses the entire season, yet the Renegades are going to waste everyone's time next weekend with their gruel-esque football.  If they win the XFL title, I will buy Arlington championship merch and wear it to work out of shame.

[MJWalker45]

5 minutes ago, CS85 said:

Arlington is mediocre garbage, and should absolutely not be in the playoffs.  St. Louis is one of the banner teams of the league and outplayed Arlington's sorry asses the entire season, yet the Renegades are going to waste everyone's time next weekend with their gruel-esque football.  If they win the XFL title, I will buy Arlington championship merch and wear it to work out of shame.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

58 minutes ago, CS85 said:

Let's take a look at the Renegades season:

 

The Renegades' season effectively began in week 8, when the mighty Luis Perez took over.  They beat Orlando, who were coming off their upset of D.C.; and then, in the game of the year, they staged a thrilling comeback against D.C. that fell just short in overtime.  The week 10 game you can throw out, for both the Renegades and their opponents the Roughnecks, as the only aim of either team was preventing players from getting hurt.

 

Despite the Renegades' struggles early in the season, they came in second in the division, and so do in fact belong in the playoffs.  You would do well to put aside some cash for that Renegades gear, because the magical powers of Perez are poised to be unleashed.

[McCall]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

The Renegades' season effectively began in week 8, when the mighty Luis Perez took over.  They beat Orlando, who were coming off their upset of D.C.; and then, in the game of the year, they staged a thrilling comeback against D.C. that fell just short in overtime.  The week 10 game you can throw out, for both the Renegades and their opponents the Roughnecks, as the only aim of either team was preventing players from getting hurt.

 

Despite the Renegades' struggles early in the season, they came in second in the division, and so do in fact belong in the playoffs.  You would do well to put aside some cash for that Renegades gear, because the magical powers of Perez are poised to be unleashed.

You emphasized that their season was really only 3 weeks, in which they won 1 game out of those 3.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

8 minutes ago, McCall said:

You emphasized that their season was really only 3 weeks, in which they won 1 game out of those 3.

 

Actually, I emphasised that their season was really only two weeks, as the week 10 game meant nothing.  And they came a hair's breadth from winning both of those significant games, after surging back against the league's best team to force overtime.  There was a blatant missed pass interference call in overtime that Arlington could not challenge because their coach had already used his one challenge.

 

I am hoping for a rematch with D.C. in the championship game, in order to right that wrong.

[McCall]

24 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Actually, I emphasised that their season was really only two weeks, as the week 10 game meant nothing.  And they came a hair's breadth from winning both of those significant games, after surging back against the league's best team to force overtime.  There was a blatant missed pass interference call in overtime that Arlington could not challenge because their coach had already used his one challenge.

 

I am hoping for a rematch with D.C. in the championship game, in order to right that wrong.

So we should only judge them based on 20% of their season, in which they went 1-1... and that one win was against the worst team in the league?

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, McCall said:

So we should only judge them based on 20% of their season, in which they went 1-1... and that one win was against the worst team in the league?

 

By virtue of the Renegades' entire season, they came in second and qualified for the playoffs. 

 

However, in the games immediately after Perez's arrival, they beat Orlando (who, despite finishing with the worst record, had just beaten D.C., and were in the midst of Dormady's run as the league's hottest player) and then were robbed against D.C.

 

While we didn't get to see what the Renegades would have done to Houston in the last game of the season if they had needed to win that game, we may rest assured that it would not have resembled their performance in what was essentially a scrimmage.

 

But we're sure going to see that on this coming weekend.  I don't purport to be conversant with the Texan idiom, but I suspect that a cry of "yee-haw" or "boy howdy" or some such will be appropriate for the beating that Houston is about to endure.