Alliance of American Football

Last weekend a new professional football league debuted, the Alliance of American Football (AAF). This is an 8 team league with a 10 game schedule. The 6 of the 8 teams are located in cities without an NFL team (San Diego, Birmingham, San Antonio, Salt Lake, Memphis and Orlando). The two exceptions are Atlanta and Arizona (Phoenix). A majority of the players have been in the NFL at one point. Some notable names include RBsTrent Richardson and Matt Asiata, QBs Christian Hackenberg, Zach Mettenberger and Aaron Murray and K Nick Folk.  The AAF is billing itself as wanting to be a supplemental league to the NFL, feeding them talent and helping players make it back.  

There are some notable rule differences between the AAF and the NFL. Many of these have to do with kickers. Poor kickers. In the AAF there are no kickoffs. Teams instead start the drive on the 25 yard line. With no kickoffs, there are no onside kicks. In place of that, teams have the choice to convert a “4th and 12” from their 28. Also, there are no extra points, only 2 point conversions. Other differences include a 35 second play clock, instead of 40, a “sky judge” who can correct egregious incorrect calls, a mic’d replay official and an overtime consisting of both teams getting a first and goal from the 10. Games can end in a tie after 1 OT. 

Personally I am very excited about the AAF. For me, the most boring time of the sports year is after the Super Bowl to the beginning of baseball season. This can help to fill that void. The first week of games was quite entertaining. One thing which became apparent is the AAF seems to allow for bigger hits on players. The most popular was a sack of San Diego’s Mike Bercovici, which you can see here. As is normal with the NFL, it may take a few weeks for the offenses to get up to speed and start to gel.  Perhaps the most popular part of the games was the replays. The ref in charge of reviewing calls is on air and it allows everyone to see and hear what they are thinking when looking to perhaps change a call. I found that transparency quite refreshing. I would love to see that adopted by the NFL. 

Overall I was very impressed with the new AAF.  As there is not a team from St. Louis (waiting on the XFL next year) I’ve decided to root for San Diego as their coach is former St. Louis Ram head coach Mike Martz. It’s good to see Mad Mike back at the helm. Go Fleet!  (Update: forgot former St. Louis Rams RB Zac Stacy was on Memphis. So I’ll be rooting for him as well.)