BY: Tony LiebertWhat is the AAF? AAF stands for the Alliance of American of Football. If you don't want to sound like you're talking about an assurance company, just call it "The Alliance." The AAF was designed to be an alternative path for getting back to the NFL. Instead of playing in Arena football of in the CFL in Canada players are now able to play in America during their path back to the NFL. The only rule differences are...
The Alliance has 8 teams, The San Antonio Commanders, San Diego Fleet, Orlando Apollos, Atlanta Legends, Birmingham Iron, Memphis Express, Arizona Hotshots, and the Salt Lake Stallions. They are going to have a 10 week regular season, capping off with a four team playoff, leading up to the AAF championship on April 27th. This weekend was the Alliance's opening week. Recapping Week 1 The league kicked off Saturday night with two games. San Antonio Commanders V.S. San Diego Fleet The Commanders are coached by former Nebraska head coach Mike Riley. San Antonio is led by QB Logan Woodside. His name may sound familiar he had a very successful career at Toledo, and was drafted in the 7th round of last years NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, and he obviously struggled to find a spot on the team. Woodside played terrific this week and showed that he can be one of the stars of the Alliance. The Fleet are headlined by quarterback Mike Bercovici, who had his own successful career at Arizona State. San Diego looked quite over matched in this game, struggling to move the ball. This biggest moment of this game was when Bercovici got completely mauled with his helmet popping off and no penalty being called. I am obviously all for no targeting penalties. This was arguably the most talked about moment of the weekend. Commanders: 16 Fleet: 5 Orlando Apollos V.S. Atlanta Legends I was not able to watch this game, there was only one game on CBS depending on your market area. My biggest complaint so far is, that there is no way for me to see the score of the game, or the stats, which is just ridiculous not to have in today "technology era." I do know that the Apollos are coached by former South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier. And they have former NFL quarterback Garrett Gilbert. The Atlanta Legends originally had Michael Vick as their offensive coordinator, but he left the team for unknown reasons. The Legends are led by former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray who actually lost the starting QB job to Matt Simms. They also have former Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson, who is now playing running back. And lastly they have the Instagram kicking legend Younghoe Koo. The highlight of this game was Steve Spurrier's "Orlando Special" call. That led to complete dominance. Apollos: 40 Legends: 6 Younghoe Koo hitting an insane trick shot. The weekend was caped of with one afternoon game and one night game on Sunday. Birmingham Iron V.S. Memphis Express The Birmingham Iron are led by "all time bust" Trent Richardson. Richardson had himself a classic Richardson performance with 23 carries for 60 yards and two touchdowns. The Memphis Express are led by fellow bust Christian Hackenberg, I don't have Hackenberg's stats but I watched the game and he still looked terrible. I don't think he even had over 100 yards passing. The Iron's defense dominated this game and look like they could be the best team in the league. I would say the highlight of this game was just the reassurance that Trent Richardson and Christian Hackenberg still aren't NFL level talent, but I am still rooting for them. The Iron are my favorite, to take home the championship. Iron: 26 Express: 0 Arizona Hotshots V.S. Salt Lake Stallions The Hotshots have a very well known coaching staff with formal NFL head coach Rick Neuheisel, and former Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze, who will bring some much needed controversy to the Alliance. I mean what a football league without a head coach that made 12 calls to an escort service, and calls himself an incredibly christian man. The Stallions are led by Minnesota Viking "all time great" Matt Asiata and they are coached by former NFL head coach Dennis Erickson. This game was relatively uneventful, but the Hotshots are clearly one of the better teams in the league led by quarterback John Wollford who had a solid performance. Hotshots: 38 Stallions: 22 Is their success obtainable? The Alliance's opening week was clearly a success. They had a higher overnight rating in their Saturday Night games than the NBA's "Saturday Night Primetime" matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets. They was also a lot of good publicity going out on Twitter all weekend. I think this league clearly has the possibility to be successful. I think right away the football consumers are enjoying this league so much, because it's right after the NFL season, so they just want football season to keep going. With the current design I don't think it will be successful in the long run. Their biggest strength is their NFL level coaching, which is the hardest part. All of the alternative football leagues have struggled to get big name coaches in the past. At the end of the day people watch for the players, they need to have more stars, when your biggest name is Trent Richardson, I don't think you're going to very popular in the long run. What is the league's future? If you have top level stars to promote, it obviously will draw more fans to your league. I think you can have "Star" level players in the AAF if underclass college football players being leaving college and joining the Alliance. Similar to Herschel Walker, did with leaving Georgia for USFL after his Sophomore season. I think this would be possible for a number of college prospects that are clearly superior to their talent in the NCAA. If the Alliance is able to form into a developmental league, or an alternative path to get to the NFL out of college. I think it could be very successful. I think this is the leagues long term goal. Bill Polian (the leagues president) has stated that they don't want to take over the NFL, they want their players to get back there. If this is true I see this league being very successful. At the end of the day people are always going to watch football if it's there, especially if it's good football. Obvious Changes
If they just make some obvious changes online, and on social media, they have the ability to be much more successful as a league. All of theses changes are quite obvious and very simple to change. It almost makes me think, do they realize that people like to use the internet in 2019? What I do like
Overall I really like the changes that the Alliance has made and I think they has a great base to grow their league off of. With just some obvious changes, I think they can be a successful alternative football league to the NFL.
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May 2020
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