This is the UFL! (XFL/USFL Merger)

[GDAWG]

 

 

[Skycast]

21 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

If you don't want this league to work, just don't comment on it. There are some of us who enjoy having a team to support that's 20 minutes away instead of 20 hours away. I'm looking forward to this year and intend to enjoy it while I can. 

 

I think that dude is better suited for the cesspool better known as Reddit.

[GDAWG]

 

[Red Comet]

On 1/15/2024 at 11:19 AM, Skycast said:

 

I think that dude is better suited for the cesspool better known as Reddit.

 

I think Xitter is more his speed. I don't think anyone who  follows leagues like this long-term actually expect this to last decades or really beyond a few years. But, a lot of us are burned out by the NFL and maybe we want to see something else succeed. I get that people like that are addicted to being right more than having any actually coherent viewpoint but why be a killjoy to others? Is that dopamine hit worth that much? 

Edited January 16 by Red Comet

[gosioux76]

2 hours ago, Red Comet said:

I get that people like that are addicted to being right more than having any actually coherent viewpoint but why be a killjoy to others? Is that dopamine hit worth that much? 

Well said. 

 

These threads are littered with the "I'll be surprised if this league makes it a year" posts, as if the only reason they're paying attention is to enjoy its pending demise and gloat about it. 

 

The struggle to build a league like this is part of what makes the whole thing intriguing. Predicting its demise is not only lazy, it completely misses the point of what makes watching the story unfold so appealing  in the first place. 

[Sec19Row53]

53 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

Well said. 

 

These threads are littered with the "I'll be surprised if this league makes it a year" posts, as if the only reason they're paying attention is to enjoy its pending demise and gloat about it. 

 

The struggle to build a league like this is part of what makes the whole thing intriguing. Predicting its demise is not only lazy, it completely misses the point of what makes watching the story unfold in the first place. 

These boards are also littered with Pollyanna discussions that teams should consider what their opponent is going to wear prior to determining what they wear. You don't get to pick and choose to only see the ideas that you don't disagree with, unless the mods say otherwise.

I agree that if you are one of the posters who only craps on the idea of spring football you ought to go somewhere else (much like those who feel the need to point out that wrestling is fake). A statement of the belief that spring football won't survive isn't really different than the speculation about which teams would survive the merger or might come out of mothballs next year.

[gosioux76]

10 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

These boards are also littered with Pollyanna discussions that teams should consider what their opponent is going to wear prior to determining what they wear. You don't get to pick and choose to only see the ideas that you don't disagree with, unless the mods say otherwise.

I agree that if you are one of the posters who only craps on the idea of spring football you ought to go somewhere else (much like those who feel the need to point out that wrestling is fake). A statement of the belief that spring football won't survive isn't really different than the speculation about which teams would survive the merger or might come out of mothballs next year.

 

You're right. People can say what they want. Nobody's arguing otherwise. Just like I enjoy pointing out that repetitively taking this one, particular position on this one, particular topic is lazy and counterproductive. 

[Ted Cunningham]

2 hours ago, Red Comet said:

 

I don't think anyone who  follows leagues like this long-term actually expect this to last decades or really beyond a few years. But, a lot of us are burned out by the NFL and maybe we want to see something else succeed.

It's interesting why people get into alternative leagues like the XFL/USFL/UFL. I am not burned out on the NFL in the slightest. And yet I also want the UFL to succeed. I find these spring leagues to be a lot of fun if they've got whatever combination factors make them appealing to me. For the XFL, specifically, that was the the interesting rule changes; the decent coverage from ESPN; the crowds in DC, Seattle, San Antonio, and especially St. Louis; and the fact that the league is so small I feel like I can get my hands around it completely from a statistics standpoint. Plus, I simply can watch every game if I want to. For my own entertainment and for keeping better track of the state of the league, last year, I kept up a ranking of the XFL teams based on winning percentage, margin of victory, strength of schedule, power rankings, etc. It's a lot easier to do something like that for a league with eight teams in it where I put eyes on at least a few minutes of every game throughout the season.

 

I just hope it makes it to next year.

[Ted Cunningham]

As for the discussion about the playoffs and their structure: in the ratings I mentioned above, the Renegades came out 5th out of eight teams, which is fairly obvious if one were to rank the teams simply based on winning percentage, let alone the other metrics. Not to mention the very strange way the conferences were drawn in the 2023 XFL (north vs. south ostensibly in order to not split up the Texas teams because having them play each other multiple times saved money due to proximity). So it was quite obvious that Arlington benefited from being in a bad conference rather than earning their way in through on-field performance. (Certainly they won the championship, so there's merit to the claim that they actually were one of the best teams in the moment, at the end of the season, etc. But if the argument is that anyone can win if they're given the chance, then why play the regular season? Just have it be a tournament with everyone involved.)

 

Frankly, I don't think any of the reasons mentioned in this thread are strong enough reasons to use division/conference champion as a reason for postseason bids. The playoffs should always be amongst the best teams. The only reason for conferences/divisions that I could see is for scheduling purposes where every team can't play every other team. (And even for leagues like the NFL where the talent pool is generally pretty even across all 32 teams, rigid division/conference schedules may not be necessary even if every team can't play ever team.) In the XFL, scheduling isn't even really an issue: it's small enough that every team will play every other team. So what's the point of having conferences when records can be objectively used to say "these are the best teams based on their on-field performance throughout the seaon"? "Establishing traditions" or similar suggestions just sound like precursors to "We've always done it this way". Traditions should build themselves organically. Have a league table that runs 1 to 8, and have the best four teams make the playoffs. If you want in, win your games from the start of the season to the end. Don't sneak in on a geographic technicality.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

4 hours ago, Red Comet said:

I don't think anyone who  follows leagues like this long-term actually expect this to last decades or really beyond a few years.

 

The idea of these leagues lasting indefinitely is not unrealistic, if things are done right.  This means, mainly, if the owners are willing to lose money in the short term.  If not for the original USFL's disastrous decision to move to the fall (which resulted in a lawsuit that the USFL techincally won, but that didn't help them on account of judicial incompetence), it probably would be preparing for its 32nd spring season right now.

 

Also, the first version of the XFL would have gone on after NBC pulled out if McMahon had been willing to lose money on it while it gained a foothold.  Even the AAF, which made a very positive impression in 2019, would have continued if Ebersol had actually had the capitalisation that he had claimed to have.

 

While it's easy to scoff at this by saying that if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle, the point is that there are key errors that might well have been avoided with better planning and/or better strategising.  Someone's eventually going to get it right.

 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

Not to mention the very strange way the conferences were drawn in the 2023 XFL (north vs. south ostensibly in order to not split up the Texas teams because having them play each other multiple times saved money due to proximity).

 

Having northern and southern divisions is no stranger than having eastern and western divisions.

 

 

58 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

So it was quite obvious that Arlington benefited from being in a bad conference rather than earning their way in through on-field performance.

 

This evens out over time.  In any league, one conference or division is stronger some years and weaker in other years.

 

 

58 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

But if the argument is that anyone can win if they're given the chance, then why play the regular season?

 

The good thing about the XFL's (and the USFL's) playoff system was not that anyone can win, but, rather, that each place is rewarded differently.  The ideal playoff system would allow only division winners (which is to say, the winners of the first round of the overall championship competition, the regular season).  This best possible playoff system was in place in Major League Baseball from 1969 through 1993.  If non-winners are allowed, then their path should be harder than that of divisional champs.  That was the system in place in the NFL when there were two wild cards per conference, as the divisional champs all had a bye week while the wild cards played each other. The NFL has lost that advantage with three wild cards, as one divisional champion is effectively demoted to the level of wild card. In the XFL, the disadvantage was that the second-place team had to play on the road. (If you want to argue that that's too small a disadvantage, I'll agree; the fix for that is to have a postseason consisting of only one game: the matchup between the two division winners.)

 

 

58 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

The playoffs should always be amongst the best teams.

 

58 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

Have a league table that runs 1 to 8, and have the best four teams make the playoffs.

 

If you're going to have a single table, then there's no doubt as to which team is best; that team should be the champion.  Here the European football leagues get it right.  Whereas, if you have the top four teams out of eight make the playoffs, then there is no meaningful difference between finishing first and finishing second, a terrible format which robs the regular season of meaning.  (Evidence for this is the NBA.)

 

Playoffs came into being  because of the impracticality of a single table, hence divisions/conferences.  When you have divisions or conferences, each one of those units is going to produce a champion. The final should always  be between those two champions; indeed, for this reason alone (the producing of two champions to meet in the final) divisions/conferences are desireable. But in the UFL's case, where the two conferences start with established identities, having the conferences determine the playoffs is just so obvious.

[McCall]

Darrius Shepherd, 2023 XFL Special Teams Player of the Year, re-signs with St. Louis.

 

https://x.com/d_shepherd11/status/1747388159233544317?s=20

 

[Ted Cunningham]

2 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

1. Having northern and southern divisions is no stranger than having eastern and western divisions.

 

2. The good thing about the XFL's (and the USFL's) playoff system was not that anyone can win, but, rather, that each place is rewarded differently.  The ideal playoff system would allow only division winners (which is to say, the winners of the first round of the overall championship competition, the regular season).  This best possible playoff system was in place in Major League Baseball from 1969 through 1993.  If non-winners are allowed, then their path should be harder than that of divisional champs.  That was the system in place in the NFL when there were two wild cards per conference, as the divisional champs all had a bye week while the wild cards played each other. The NFL has lost that advantage with three wild cards, as one divisional champion is effectively demoted to the level of wild card. In the XFL, the disadvantage was that the second-place team had to play on the road. (If you want to argue that that's too small a disadvantage, I'll agree; the fix for that is to have a postseason consisting of only one game: the matchup between the two division winners.)

 

3. If you're going to have a single table, then there's no doubt as to which team is best; that team should be the champion.  Here the European football leagues get it right.  Whereas, if you have the top four teams out of eight make the playoffs, then there is no meaningful difference between finishing first and finishing second, a terrible format which robs the regular season of meaning.  (Evidence for this is the NBA.)

 

Playoffs came into being  because of the impracticality of a single table, hence divisions/conferences.  When you have divisions or conferences, each one of those units is going to produce a champion. The final should always  be between those two champions; indeed, for this reason alone (the producing of two champions to meet in the final) divisions/conferences are desireable. But in the UFL's case, where the two conferences start with established identities, having the conferences determine the playoffs is just so obvious.

Fair points in some of these responses. A few replies (also, I'm not sure how to multiquote, so I numbered them instead; I hope that's alright):

1. My understanding was always that east/west was preferred because of time zones and how that impacted TV/radio and scheduling. Granted, scheduling impacts of a north/south split are mitigated by the fact that the XFL had only eight teams, so the broadcast implications weren't as pronounced because the games didn't overlap much. But that was always my general understanding of why divisions generally run east/west vs. north/south.
2. This is a fair assessment. Though I think divisions will always introduce an element of unfairness if the point of having a playoff is to crown the best team as champion (which I feel like is the point; who is the best team in a given season). While it's not the 69-93 MLB system, I think MLB offers a decent example of how using division champions can impact nonchamps who are also better: the 2015 Pirates would have won every other division in baseball, but they ended up in the wildcard that year because they were second in their own division. I fully grant that could be a chicken/egg argument because the playoff format was terrible during that era, so it's also to blame. But if the seeds in the playoff were just determined by winning percentage, then the bottom two teams to make the cut would have played in the wildcard (NYM and LAD), not the teams with the second- and third-best records in all of baseball (not just the NL): PIT and CHC. It shouldn't really matter that the Mets and Dodgers won their divisions because (as you somewhat allude to in point 1), divisions can be arbitrary.
3. Another good point: a single table shouldn't need a playoff in a perfect system. But a) most leagues don't play balanced schedules wherein all teams play all other teams either home and home, or at neutral sites, and b) circumstances change over the course of a season. Winning games is what should get you to the playoffs because that's still the best way to determine if a team is deserving of calling itself the best, not just winning division games. To use your example from above, the teams that win the most games are the ones who "win the first round of the championship competition, the regular season", but because it's likely they didn't all play each other, there's still room for interpretation for who is the best, hence the playoffs.
   1. Now granted: I am looking at this from a decidedly football perspective where flukes are more common and games are far fewer. I absolutely agree that the NBA model is flawed because they just simply let too many teams into the playoffs (and because they play a lot of games). And in baseball, if one were to trim the playoffs down to just league pennant winners, that would make sense too, since 1) the sheer number of games they play removes much of the statistical anomalies and flukes and 2) they do play everyone in the league at least one home and one away series (unless that permanently changed after the 2020 short season and I wasn't aware).
4. My quasi-innate understanding of why we have divisions is because in most leagues, there can't be a perfect schedule wherein everyone plays everyone home and away; there are just too many teams/games to schedule in a limited amount of time. That's how we end up with your explanation of winning divisions as winning that quasi-"first round". The logic is sound, but when divisions are too small (which I would argue is generally the case in the NFL as well as some other leagues), it leaves a lot of room for comparatively bad teams to make it into the playoffs and either being higher-seeded or outright disqualifying likely better teams. In larger applications, I don't think big divisions (i.e. conferences) are necessarily bad. For example, if the format of the NFL changed to where we just had the AFC and NFC and the top four teams (or six, if we want a "wildcard" weekend) from each conference went to the playoffs, that feels like like a fairer format than seeding an 9-8 team higher than an 11-6 because the 9-8 team beat other somewhat mediocre teams in their sort of arbitrarily determined division. (We all saw how that played out though; ha.)

After typing all of this and reading what you and others have said, Ferdinand, I think I've come to the realization that the solution (especially for football) lies in the middle: one table isn't practical for a full league (e.g. the NFL), but too many divisions or divisions that are too small can prevent the best teams from participating in the playoffs. (I wonder if there has been any research done to determine ideal division sizes.)

[McCall]

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

This evens out over time.  In any league, one conference or division is stronger some years and weaker in other years.

Time is not a luxury leagues like this have. They are not an established, 50-100+ year old league where a rarity like this has a low rate of occurrence in relation to the age of the league . This was the first full season and when a 4-6 team gets into the playoffs over a 7-3 team in an 8-team league, due to no other reason than a divisional split, it's more likely to turn fans away than to bring them in. You can use fancy, over-the-top language all you want to try and hide your obvious bias, but common sense and logic does not back up your argument. No one's taking away Arlington's championship. It was the rules/guidelines that were set before the season. But to defend those rules going forward and champion them as some noble concept is utterly preposterous.  In a small, young league such as this, the best teams need to be rewarded, or else you risk fans losing faith in the league before it even gets off the ground.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

2 hours ago, McCall said:

You can use fancy, over-the-top language all you want to try and hide your obvious bias...

 

Again with this "bias" thing. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. As I mentioned once before, the bias that I have (and that I openly proclaim) is for a playoff system that is sensible and interesting, and that produces a final between two champions. For that reason, I favour a system that sticks strictly to divisions/conferences in any league (but particularly in this league, whose conferences have identities before the league even starts).

[McCall]

4 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Again with this "bias" thing. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. As I mentioned once before, the bias that I have (and that I openly proclaim) is for a playoff system that is sensible and interesting, and that produces a final between two champions. For that reason, I favour a system that sticks strictly to divisions/conferences in any league (but particularly in this league, whose conferences have identities before the league even starts).

How is NOT having the best teams, in an 8-team league, the most "sensible and interesting product"? You, and other Arlington fans, are probably the only ones who would support it staying the same. You seem to think that adding colorful language to your posts somehow makes them more impactful and everyone will understand and agree with your point of view. Not happening. If it was "sensible and interesting", you wouldn't need to dress it up.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 minute ago, McCall said:

You, and other Arlington fans, are probably the only ones who would support it staying the same.

 

Ahh, so that's what you think my "bias" is! I definitely wanted Arlington to win because of Luis Perez, who is my favourite player. And when Perez was with Vegas, I wanted Vegas to win, just as I wanted Birmingham to win in the AAF.  (I got lucky for a couple of years when Perez was first with the New York Guardians and then with the Generals.) If Arlington sends Perez to another team, then that's the team I will be rooting for this season.

 

But please believe me that my expressions of support of playoffs by conferences is not some retroactive justification for Arlington's win (which, incidentally, was the most inspirational underdog run in recent memory, and which puts Perez in the class of Namath).  It's something I would always have favoured.  The CFL's "crossover" striles me as completely ridiculous; fortunately, no crossover team has made it to the Grey Cup.  Alas, MLS is not so lucky.  When the Red Bulls played Columbus for the MLS Cup, there was in reality no Western Conference champion that year.  (Officially it was the Red Bulls, who aren't part of the Western Conference. No one can justify that.)

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, if I were king, the playoffs in all leagues would consist only of divisional champions; so the XFL would have gone straight to a championship game between D.C. and Houston, without Arlington even qualifying. 

[McCall]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Ahh, so that's what you think my "bias" is! I definitely wanted Arlington to win because of Luis Perez, who is my favourite player. And when Perez was with Vegas, I wanted Vegas to win, just as I wanted Birmingham to win in the AAF.  (I got lucky for a couple of years when Perez was first with the New York Guardians and then with the Generals.) If Arlington sends Perez to another team, then that's the team I will be rooting for this season.

 

But please believe me that my expressions of support of playoffs by conferences is not some retroactive justification for Arlington's win (which, incidentally, was the most inspirational underdog run in recent memory, and which puts Perez in the class of Namath).  It's something I would always have favoured.  The CFL's "crossover" striles me as completely ridiculous; fortunately, no crossover team has made it to the Grey Cup.  Alas, MLS is not so lucky.  When the Red Bulls played Columbus for the MLS Cup, there was in reality no Western Conference champion that year.  (Officially it was the Red Bulls, who aren't part of the Western Conference. No one can justify that.)

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, if I were king, the playoffs in all leagues would consist only of divisional champions; so the XFL would have gone straight to a championship game between D.C. and Houston, without Arlington even qualifying. 

Again, using fancy words doesn't make your preferred playoff structure any better. The choice is either the best teams make the playoffs or the best teams in a division. It's an 8-team league in year 1/2/3, not a 30+ team league in year 103. Having under .500 teams in the playoffs OVER above .500 teams could be far more detrimental than the false sense of tradition you're trying to perpetuate.

 

And yes, your creepy mancrush on Luis Perez is an obvious bias, to whatever team he's on, which is currently Arlington.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Just now, McCall said:

And yes, your creepy mancrush on Luis Perez is an obvious bias, to whatever team he's on, which is currently Arlington.

 

That's hilarious. If having a favourite player is creepy, then I am perfectly content to be creepy!

 

Also, my infatuation with Perez is nothing compared to what I have written about Rick Cerone, the Magnificent Mustachioed Mediterranean Marvel.  (Ah, how nostalgic I now am for the good old days of playing What If Sports, when Cerone led a band of swarthy Italians known as I Paesani to consistent approaches to near-medocrity, while looking super-cool doing it.)

[McCall]

2 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

That's hilarious. If having a favourite player is creepy, then I am perfectly content to be creepy!

 

Also, my infatuation with Perez is nothing compared to what I have written about Rick Cerone, the Magnificent Mustachioed Mediterranean Marvel.  (Ah, how nostalgic I now am for the good old days of playing What If Sports, when Cerone led a band of swarthy Italians known as I Paesani to consistent approaches to near-medocrity, while looking super-cool doing it.)

Having a favorite player? No. Not creepy.

Speaking of your favorite player in an overly-pretentious manner, as if he's some mythological God sent down to Earth by Zeus himself? Yes. Very creepy. Especially in regards to a spring league football player.

[gosioux76]

2 hours ago, McCall said:

Again, using fancy words doesn't make your preferred playoff structure any better. The choice is either the best teams make the playoffs or the best teams in a division. It's an 8-team league in year 1/2/3, not a 30+ team league in year 103. Having under .500 teams in the playoffs OVER above .500 teams could be far more detrimental than the false sense of tradition you're trying to perpetuate.

 

And yes, your creepy mancrush on Luis Perez is an obvious bias, to whatever team he's on, which is currently Arlington.

Counterpoint: I didn't see any fancy words in his post.