College football needs the XFL to work

The XFL is back and by now you have figured that out. But this isn’t Vince Mcmahon’s XFL, and times have certainly changed. Quite a few spring football leagues have popped up over the past decade, and none of them have seemingly stuck, but Dwayne the Rock Johnson might be onto something with the new and improved XFL, that has no real connection to either of the old ones. I can’t blame you for being skeptical, after all we’ve literally seen this before. But if the XFL 3.0 is really going to make it beyond being a 1 to 2 year experiment, we have to be honest about what it actually is, and more importantly what it is not.

What is the XFL?

So what is it? The XFL is currently an 8 team league that plays a 10 game regular season. Three of those teams are in Texas, and 4 of them overlap with NFL markets. They play a 4 team playoff reminiscent of what college football has, and on top of all of this, they get national tv coverage via the ESPN family of networks, and on FX. So the XFL is a professional football league, with everything you would need to sell it as such, and on top of that it has good football players. And we know this because many of their players have the NFL stamp of approval. 

Two current XFL quarterbacks have started NFL games in the past, and they are AJ McCarron and Ben Dinucci. In fact there are 2 former first round picks from the NFL Draft on XFL rosters, in Vic Beasley, and Matt Elam. And some players like offensive lineman Julie’n Davenport have as much as 32 games worth of NFL playing experience. These are not backyard football players. The XFL is filled with guys who were notable players at the high D1 level, or in some way got close to making it in the NFL. But if you haven’t figured it out already, the XFL is not a place where college players dream about playing. That would be the NFL and we don’t need another one of those. The XFL is more like a AAA minor league, perhaps the G League of professional football, making it possible for players who don’t hit it big on NFL success the first go around, to prove themselves.

What the XFL is not

The XFL is not a competitor of the NFL. And I’m pretty sure that Dwayne Johnson knew that when he bought it. He bought the XFL for 15 million dollars. Not one team, the entire league! Even the cheapest NFL team, the Cincinatti Bengals is worth nearly 3 billion dollars. There should be no delusion that the XFL is going to compete with the National Football League directly in any way.. In fact, it would be better to consider them to be a business partner with aligned interests more than anything else. Americans like football, and now we get more of it, from some players that we recognize. That is a victory if you ask me. But in the past other football leagues like the USFL years ago, and later Vince McMahon’s XFL have tried to tell people that they were competing with them. XFL players make on average about 60 to 80 thousand for the season, which can be less than an NFL practice squad player. But The XFL is clearly a triple A league, because of its ESPN television coverage, and high quality presentation. Most people don’t even give an afterthought to the many indoor football leagues that exist. Mostly because we don’t even get to see them. But don’t confuse a high definition camera as proof of an NFL caliber product.

The stars in the XFL can become players in the NFL. But that’s about as far as the overlap will go. And if you are on an XFL roster you should know this as well. For some college football players, the XFL is a place to live out their dream of playing professional football, even if they never suit up for Monday night football in the future. But for others it will be a proving ground. Abram Smith set the single season record for rushing yards at Baylor in 2021. That’s a team where that record matters. But he now stars in the XFL. That is the type of talent that is on the field, and if you live near an XFL team, and actually like football, that is worth watching.

 The Bottom Line 

With the USFL starting up as well, the real question is whether there is room enough in the spring for both leagues to exist. Nobody knows if that is true, because until now Americans have barely had room enough for one. In person attendance will fluctuate, perhaps rarely passing 20,000 fans for the remainder of this season. But that’s fine, because the success of any football league always runs through our television screens. The XFL is here, with a legitimate product, that serves a function, that is much needed for the players. A quality proving ground between the NFL and college. Hopefully football fans agree enough to turn on their tvs and actually watch. Otherwise the XFL 3.0 will be the last XFL we ever see.

KNOW THE GAME. WIN THE GAME.

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