God Loves The Gators: AAFL

The All American Football League (AAFL) held their inaugural draft and supplemental draft recently. The AAFL is an upstart league with six teams (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas) that is marketing itself as a spring pro football league with a college atmosphere. One of the interesting things about the AAFL is that all players are required to have a college degree in order to play.

Some of the notable players drafted into the AAFL include former Virginia Tech QB Bryan Randall by Tennessee, Nebraska QB Eric Crouch (Texas), QB Chris Leak (Florida), former first round pick Peter Warrick (Florida), former Dallas Cowboys and Arena Football QB Clint Stoerner (Arkansas), the QB of the National Championship Tennessee Vols team Tee Martin (Tennessee) and Rod "He Hate Me" Smart (Tennessee).

With last year's decision by the NFL to fold its European league, the AAFL could serve as a good training ground for young prospects. It's degree requirement instantly gives it more credibility than the XFL.

Two new professional football leagues are to debut in 2008: The Mark Cuban-backed UFL and the College/Pro hybrid AAFL (All American Football League).

If either of these two leagues want to stick around longer then the XFL, they would be wise to follow the Arena Football strategy: create your own unique brand of football. The AFL is not in competition with the NFL because with its 50 yard field and eight players per side rules, it is its own unique brand of football.

So the task for these two new leagues is to create a brand that separates it from the NFL. Make it an apples to oranges comparison and you may have a chance at being successful. The AAFL has found its niche. They are marketing themselves as a "professional" version of college football. Teams will be placed in popular college football towns, with players from the home teams making the roster.

As far as the basic rules of the game, their is a lot of flexibility. Here are a few of my ideas that could make for a unique football experience.

Make the game TV friendly

This one really hurt the XFL. The length of an average football game usually exceeds three hours, longer than most movies. With the XFL, the quality of the game was low, and the games were long. Most viewers were bored to tears and the ratings suffered. If the total elapsed time can be lowered to around 2-2.5 hours, it would mask some of the talent problems.

Ideas for decreasing game time

Running clock. The clock does not stop after incomplete passes or when a player runs out of bounds. Exceptions can be made for injuries, penalties, and the two minute warning.
No two minute warning in the first half. College football does fine without it, but it does add excitement to a close game. I just don't think it is necessary in the first half.
No instant replay. In theory replay is fine, but its current incarnation slows the game down too much.
Two timeouts per half instead of three.

With these changes, I estimate at least 45 minutes could be shaved off of elapsed game time.

De-emphasize the kicking game

They always say kickers are not football players. So why do they have such a big impact on a football game? Some unique ways to de-emphasize the kicking game include:

Make field goals attempted inside the 20 (the red zone) worth only 1 point. All other field goals worth 2 points. This would encourage teams to go for it more often, since the reward for a field goal is so little.
No point-after-touchdown kicks. Force all teams to go for a two point conversion. The XFL tried this, but they made the two point conversion only worth one point.
No punting allowed. On 4th down the offense must go for it or attempt a field goal, regardless of where the ball is on the field. This isn't original, as it is how it is done in the Arena league, but on a normal sized field, I think this would be a lot more exciting. Plus you free up a roster spot because all you need is a FG/Kickoff specialist.

Other ideas:

Football's first 9 point play: A touchdown (6pts) plus a 3pt conversion (one play from the 10 yard line). This would make the always exciting comeback a little bit easier.
Instead of stopping play after the 4th quarter of a tied game, overtime (which would be less likely with the 2pt conversion, 3pt conversion and 1 and 2 pt field goals) would consist of adding 5 minute increments to the time clock until a team scores. No coin flips and kickoffs, just let play continue.
Special Overtime rule: field goals cannot be attempted outside of the red zone (20 yard line). This means offenses have to mount a drive of more than 30 yards to win a game.
Pass interference is a 15 yard penalty and automatic first down (college rules). Holding is only a 5 yard penalty, cause frankly holding could be called on every play.