The
XFL was a professional
American football league that played for
one season in 2001. The league was founded by
Vince McMahon, better known as the owner of
the
World Wrestling
Entertainment. The XFL was intended to be a
major professional sports
league complement to the offseason of the
NFL, but failed to find an audience
and folded after its first season.
Founding
Created as a joint venture between
NBC and the
World Wrestling Federation under the company name "XFL, LLC", the
XFL was created as a "
single-entity league",
meaning that the teams were not individually owned and operated
franchises (as in the NFL), but
that the league was operated as a single business unit. Vince
McMahon's original plan was to purchase the
CFL (after the CFL initially
approached him about purchasing the
Toronto Argonauts) , while NBC was moving
ahead at the time with
Time Warner to
create a football league of their own.
The concept of the league was first announced on February 3, 2000.
The XFL was originally conceived to build on the success of the NFL
and
professional wrestling.
It was hyped as "real" football without penalties for roughness and
with fewer rules in general. The loud games featured players and
coaches with microphones and cameras in the huddle and in the
locker rooms. Stadiums featured
trash-talking public address announcers and
scantily-clad
cheerleader. Instead of a
pre-game coin toss, XFL officials put the ball on the ground and
let a player from each team scramble for it to determine who
received the kickoff option, which led to the first XFL injury.
This type of "coin toss" has since been referred to as the "injury
zone."
The XFL had impressive television coverage for an upstart league,
with three games televised each week on
NBC,
UPN, and
TNN.
Contrary to popular belief, the "X" in XFL did not stand for
"extreme," as in "Extreme Football League." When the league was
first organized in 1999, it was originally supposed to stand for
"Xtreme Football League;" however, there was already a league in
formation at the same time with that name, and so promoters wanted
to make sure that everyone knew that the "X" did not actually stand
for anything (though McMahon would comment that "if the NFL stood
for the 'No Fun League', the XFL will stand for the
'e
xtra
fun
league'"). The other
Xtreme Football League, which was
also organized in 1999, merged with
Arena Football before ever fielding
its first game.
Draft
The first and only main draft for the league took place over a
three day time period from October 28, 2000 to October 30, 2000. A
total of 475 players were selected initially, with 65 additional
players selected in a supplemental draft on December 29,
2000.
2001 season
The XFL's opening game took place on February 3, 2001, one year
after the concept of the league was announced, and immediately
following the NFL's
Super Bowl.
The first
game was between the New
York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Las
Vegas Outlaws at Sam Boyd Stadium
in Las
Vegas. The game ended with a 19-0 victory for the
Outlaws, and was watched on NBC by an estimated 14 million viewers.
During the telecast,
NBC switched over to the
game between the
Orlando Rage and the
Chicago Enforcers, which was a
closer contest than the blowout taking place in Las Vegas. The show
had a 9.5
Nielsen rating.
Although the XFL began with better-than-expected TV ratings (the
opening-week games actually delivered ratings double those of what
NBC had promised advertisers and the Saturday broadcast had more
viewers than the
NFL Pro Bowl) and fair
publicity, the audience declined sharply after the first week of
the season, going from a 9.5 rating to a 4.6 in just one week, and
the media attacked the league for what was perceived as a poor
quality of play. This was paired with a perception that the XFL was
formed from the dregs left over after the
NFL,
AFL and
CFL had their
drafts. A further problem was that the XFL
itself was the brainchild of Vince McMahon, a man who was ridiculed
by mainstream sports journalists due to the stigma attached to
professional wrestling as
being "
fake"; many
journalists even jokingly speculated whether any of the league's
games were
rigged, although nothing of
this sort was ever proven.
Teams
Eastern Division
Western Division
2001 standings
Awards
Statistical leaders
Statistics
| 2001 Passing Leaders (over
100 pass attempts) |
| Name, Team |
Att |
Comp |
% |
Yards |
YDs/Att |
TD |
TD % |
INT |
INT % |
Long |
Sacks/Yds Lost |
Rating |
| Ryan McHoul, ORL |
119 |
69 |
58.0 |
993 |
8.34 |
9 |
7.6 |
3 |
2.5 |
51t |
11/78 |
99.9 |
| Kevin McDougal,
CHIC |
134 |
81 |
60.4 |
1168 |
8.72 |
5 |
3.7 |
3 |
2.2 |
56 |
8/69 |
91.9 |
| Casey Weldon, Birm |
164 |
102 |
62.2 |
1228 |
7.49 |
7 |
4.3 |
5 |
3 |
80t |
7/44 |
86.6 |
| Jim
Druckenmiller, Mem |
199 |
109 |
54.8 |
1499 |
7.53 |
13 |
6.5 |
7 |
3.5 |
49 |
15/89 |
86.2 |
| Ryan Clement, LV |
138 |
78 |
56.5 |
805 |
5.83 |
9 |
6.5 |
4 |
2.9 |
46 |
10/59 |
83.2 |
| Tommy Maddox, LA |
342 |
196 |
57.3 |
2186 |
6.39 |
18 |
5.3 |
9 |
2.6 |
63 |
14/91 |
83.1 |
| Mike Pawlawski,
SF |
297 |
186 |
62.6 |
1659 |
5.59 |
12 |
4 |
6 |
2 |
35 |
16/141 |
82.6 |
| Wally Richardson,
NY/NJ |
142 |
83 |
58.5 |
812 |
5.72 |
6 |
4.2 |
6 |
4.2 |
33t |
17/107 |
71.1 |
| Brian Kuklick,
ORL |
122 |
68 |
55.7 |
994 |
8.15 |
6 |
4.9 |
10 |
8.2 |
81t |
7/42 |
64.7 |
|
|align="left"|Corte McGuffey, NY/NJ||48||25||52.1||329||6.85||0||0||2||4.2||54||5/38||56.7
|align="left"|Mark Grieb, LV ||78||37||47.4||408||5.23||3||3.8||4||5.1||41t||5/44||54.9
|align="left"|Jay Barker, Birm||65||37||56.9||425||6.54||1||1.5||5||7.7||92t||10/64||49.8
|align="left"|Paul Failla, CHIC||5||1||20.0||5||1||0||0||0||0||5||2/12||39.6
| 2001 Rushing
Leaders |
| Name, Team |
Att |
Yds |
Ave. |
Long |
TDs |
| John
Avery, Chi |
150 |
800 |
5.3 |
73t |
5 |
| Rod Smart, LV |
146 |
555 |
3.8 |
31 |
3 |
| James Bostic, Birm |
153 |
536 |
3.5 |
56 |
2 |
| Rashaan Salaam,
Mem |
114 |
528 |
4.6 |
39t |
5 |
| Derrick Clark,
Orl |
94 |
395 |
4.2 |
19 |
7 |
| Saladin
McCullough, LA |
88 |
384 |
4.4 |
22 |
5 |
| Joe Aska, NY/NJ |
82 |
329 |
4.0 |
42 |
3 |
| Micheal Black,
Orl |
83 |
320 |
3.9 |
20 |
0 |
| LeShon Johnson,
Chi |
72 |
287 |
4.0 |
41 |
6 |
| Rashaan Shehee,
LA |
61 |
242 |
4.0 |
28 |
0 |
| Kelvin Anderson,
SF |
53 |
231 |
4.4 |
39 |
1 |
| Jim
Druckenmiller, Mem |
31 |
208 |
6.7 |
36 |
0 |
| Juan Johnson, SF |
33 |
172 |
5.2 |
19 |
0 |
| Wally Richardson,
NY/NJ |
26 |
148 |
5.7 |
24 |
0 |
| 2001 Receiving Yardage
Leaders (over 175 yards) |
| Name, Team |
Rec |
Yds |
Ave. |
Long |
TDs |
| Stepfret
Williams, Birm |
51 |
828 |
16.2 |
92t |
2 |
| Charles Jordan,
Mem |
45 |
823 |
18.3 |
49 |
4 |
| Jeremaine
Copeland, LA |
67 |
755 |
11.3 |
34 |
5 |
| Dialleo Burks,
ORL |
34 |
659 |
19.4 |
81t |
7 |
| Aaron Bailey, CHIC |
32 |
546 |
17.1 |
50 |
3 |
| Quincy Jackson,
Birm |
45 |
531 |
11.8 |
36t |
6 |
| Darnell McDonald,
LA |
34 |
456 |
13.4 |
39 |
8 |
| Darryl Hobbs, Mem |
30 |
419 |
14 |
49t |
5 |
| Jimmy Cunningham,
SF |
50 |
408 |
8.2 |
26 |
3 |
| Kirby Dar Dar,
NY/NJ |
22 |
405 |
18.4 |
77t |
2 |
| Kevin Swayne, ORL |
27 |
400 |
14.8 |
51t |
2 |
| Brian Roberson,
SF |
36 |
395 |
11 |
35 |
2 |
| Kevin Prentiss,
Mem |
25 |
383 |
15.3 |
53 |
0 |
| Mario Bailey, ORL |
27 |
379 |
14 |
49t |
3 |
| Zola Davis, NY/NJ |
29 |
378 |
13 |
26 |
4 |
| James Hundon, SF |
28 |
357 |
12.8 |
34 |
0 |
| Zechariah Lord,
CHIC |
20 |
301 |
15.1 |
46 |
0 |
| John
Avery, CHIC |
17 |
297 |
17.5 |
68t |
2 |
| Yo Murphy, LV |
27 |
273 |
10.1 |
35 |
3 |
| Anthony Dicosmo,
NY/NJ |
26 |
268 |
10.3 |
30 |
0 |
| Latario Rachal,
LA |
24 |
254 |
10.6 |
24 |
0 |
| Rod Smart, LV |
27 |
245 |
9.1 |
46 |
0 |
| Mike Furrey, LV |
18 |
242 |
13.4 |
41t |
1 |
| Ed Smith, Birm |
25 |
195 |
7.8 |
16 |
1 |
|
XFL rule changes
Despite boasts by
WWF
promoters of a "rules-light" game and universally negative reviews
from the mainstream sports media early on, the XFL played a brand
of 11-man outdoor football that was recognizable, aside from the
opening game sprint to determine possession and some other changes,
some modified during the season. In fact, most of the rule changes
were inherited from the 1970s
World Football League.
Grass stadiums
All XFL teams had to play in outdoor stadiums with grass surfaces.
No domed stadiums, artificial turf stadiums, or
retractable roof stadiums were allowed.
(This
happened to occur during Giants Stadium
's brief experiment with natural grass; the
stadium's turf did not hold up well in the winter and early spring
weather and the stadium reverted to its traditional artificial turf
in 2003.)
Opening scramble
Replacing the
coin toss at the beginning
of each game was an event in which one player from each team sought
to recover a football 20 yards away in order to determine
possession. Both players lined up side-by-side on one of the
30-yard lines, with the ball being placed at the 50-yard line. At
the whistle, the two players would run toward the ball and attempt
to gain possession; whichever player gained possession first was
allowed to choose possession (as if he had won a coin toss in other
leagues). The scramble infamously led to the first XFL injury:
Orlando Rage free safety
Hassan Shamsid-Deen separated his
shoulder in the scramble during the XFL's opening weekend. This
injury would keep Shamsid-Deen out for the rest of the
season.
No PAT (point after touchdown) kicks
After
touchdowns there were no extra point
kicks, due to the XFL's perception that an extra point kick was a
"guaranteed point." To earn a point after a touchdown, teams ran a
single offensive down from the two-yard line (functionally
identical to the NFL/NCAA/CFL
two-point conversion), but for just a
single point. By the playoffs, two-point and three-point
conversions had been added to the rules. Teams could opt for the
bonus points by playing the conversion farther back from the goal
line.
This rule, as originally implemented, was similar to the
WFL's "Action Point," and was
identical to a 1968 experiment by the
NFL and
American Football League,
used only in preseason interleague games that year.
Overtime
Ties were resolved in similar fashion to the NCAA and present-day
CFL game, with at least one possession by each team, starting from
the opponent's 20 yard line. There were differences: there were no
first downs – teams had to score within four downs, and the team
that had possession first in overtime could not attempt a field
goal until fourth down. If that team managed to score a touchdown
in fewer than four downs, the second team would only have that same
number of downs to match or beat the result. If the score was still
tied after one overtime period, the team that played second on
offense in the first OT would start on offense in the second
OT.
Bump and Run
The XFL allowed full
bump and run
coverage early in the season. Defensive backs were allowed to
hit wide receivers any time before the quarterback released the
ball, as long as the hit came from the front or the side (similar
to the NCAA). In an effort to increase offensive production, bump
and run was restricted to the first five yards from the line of
scrimmage (similar to NFL) following the fourth week of the
season.
Forward Motion
Unlike the
NFL, but like the
World Football League and Arena
football before it, the XFL allowed one offensive player to move
toward the line of scrimmage once he was outside the tackles.
Halo rule / Live punts
The heavily-hyped "no
fair catch" rule
(announcers tended to mention it on almost every punt/kickoff) was
paired with a five-yard zone excluding players of the kicking team
around potential returners before the ball touched them or the
ground, similar to rules in
Canadian
football,
rugby football, and
contemporary NCAA rules (where the term "halo" was applied, though
the XFL called it instead the "danger zone"). But instead of making
punt returns more exciting, it often had the opposite effect, since
the XFL players' inexperience with the rule caused a high number of
game-delaying penalties.
The
fair catch had previously been
abolished from Canadian rules, NCAA rules (but only for the 1950
season), and
Rugby League.
Another difference was that after touching ground 25 yards or more
beyond the line of scrimmage, punts could be recovered and advanced
by all players of the kicking team. This led to more
quick kicks being taken on third-down-and-long
situations in the one season of the small league than had been seen
in the NFL over several preceding decades of longer seasons. This
XFL rule was similar to a rule that had been in effect in American
football in the 1910s and part of the 1920s.
XFL penalized 10 yards from the succeeding spot for punts going out
of bounds, even if they first touched the ground (but not a player
of the receiving team).
For the initial weeks of the season, the XFL forbade all players on
the kicking team from going downfield before a kick was made from
scrimmage on that down, similarly to a rule the NFL considered in
1974. For the rest of the season the XFL modified it to allow one
player closest to each sideline downfield ahead of the kick, the
same modification the NFL adopted to their change just before their
1974 exhibition games started.
The purpose of these provisions was to keep play going after the
ball was punted, encouraging the kicking team to make the ball
playable and the receiving team to run it back.
Roster and salaries
The XFL limited each team to an unusually low 38 players (roughly
analogous to the 42 for CFL rosters, as opposed to 53 on NFL teams
and 80 or more on unlimited college rosters). This resulted, most
commonly, in each team only carrying two quarterbacks and one
kicker who doubled as the punter.
The XFL paid standardized player salaries.
Quarterbacks earned
U.S. $5,000 per week, kickers earned $3,500,
and all other uniformed players earned $4,500 per week, though a
few players got around these restrictions (Los Angeles Xtreme
players
Noel Prefontaine, the
league's lone punting specialist, and
Matt
Malloy, a wide receiver) by having themselves listed as backup
quarterbacks. Players on a winning team received a bonus of $2,500
for the week, $7,500 for winning a playoff game. The team that won
the championship game split $1,000,000 (roughly $25,000 per
player). Furthermore, players did not receive any fringe benefits,
meaning players had to pay for their own health insurance.
Broadcast overview
Sky cam
Although the XFL was not the first football league to feature the
"
sky cam," which enables TV viewers to see
behind the offensive unit, it helped to popularize its unique
capabilities. The sky cam is currently used in
NFL broadcasts on all major networks. This perspective
was originally available only in
standard definition, but is now
broadcast in
high
definition during most major NFL games each week.
Broadcast schedule
At the beginning of the season, NBC showed a feature game at 8 p.m.
Eastern Time on
Saturday nights, also taping a second game. The second game, in
some weeks, would air in the visiting team's home market and be put
on the air nationally if the feature game was a blowout (as was the
case in week one) or encountered technical difficulties (as was the
case in week two). Two games were shown each Sunday: one at 4 p.m.
Eastern on
TNN
(now
Spike TV) and another at 7 p.m.
Eastern on
UPN (which has since merged with
The WB to form
The CW).
In the third week of the season, the games were sped up through
changes in the playing rules, and broadcasts were subjected to
increased time constraints. The reason was the reaction of
Lorne Michaels, creator and executive
producer of
Saturday Night
Live, to the double-overtime win by the
Los Angeles Xtreme against the
Chicago Enforcers. The game ended at 11:45
p.m. Eastern, with the start of
SNL pushed back to 12:20
a.m. Sunday morning. This angered Michaels, who expected high
ratings with
Jennifer Lopez as the night's host. Lopez had
just become the first actress-singer in history to record the
top-selling album in the United States (
J. Lo) and to star
in the most popular movie (
The
Wedding Planner) at the same time. In a rare
SNL
move, the Lopez show actually started on time for its live audience
and was broadcast via
tape
delay. For the rest of the season, the XFL cut off coverage at
11:00 Eastern Time, regardless of whether or not the game was over.
(Since the XFL folded, NBC has not carried any football on Saturday
nights, likely for the same reason.)
Broadcast teams
- NBC (first team): Matt Vasgersian, Jesse Ventura, Fred
Roggin and Mike Adamle were the
opening week announcers. From week two to week five, Jim Ross replaced Vasgersian. Roggin left the
broadcast team late in the season.
- NBC (second team): Jim
Ross, Jerry Lawler and Jonathan Coachman was the opening-week
team. From week two to week five, Vasgersian replaced Ross. Lawler
left the XFL (and WWF) after week five in the aftermath of the
firing of his then-wife, Stacy Carter,
who went by the ring name of "The Kat". Lawler walked away in
protest. Dick Butkus filled in for the
rest of the season.
- TNN: Craig
Minervini, Bob Golic, and Kip
Lewis.
- UPN: Chris
Marlowe, Brian Bosworth, Chris Wragge and Michael Barkann.
Media response
The XFL aimed to attract two distinct audiences to games: wrestling
fans and football fans. The XFL also tried to attract fans from
other areas of entertainment (e.g.,
movies).
Many football fans distrusted the league because of its
relationship to pro wrestling. They had a hard time accepting that
a close, come-from-behind win or a controversial ending had not
been scripted in advance, although there was no evidence to support
this. The league was panned by critics as boring football with a
tawdry broadcast style, although the broadcasts on TNN and to a
lesser extent UPN and the
Matt
Vasgersian-helmed NBC coverage were comparatively professional
and workmanlike. Longtime WWE play-by-play man
Jim Ross, who has otherwise received praise for his
calling of wrestling matches over the years, got the bulk of the
criticism for his play-by-play calls of XFL games despite his 30+
years of experience in calling wrestling matches as well as calling
play-by-play for the NFL's
Atlanta
Falcons in the early 1990s.
Scoring was so scarce that
bookmakers
could not set the
over-under total low
enough. Wise
gamblers who took the under,
often in the mid 30s, would win consistently — they could even
parlay the under for all four games in a weekend and win on a
regular basis. Towards the end of the season, bookies needed to
make the totals in the upper 20s, highly unusual in pro football
gambling circles. The league was forced to change rules during the
season to afford receivers more protection, but the mid-season rule
changes did little to bolster league credibility.
In 2000, before the XFL's launch, the league aired a series of
cheerleader commercials on NBC, featuring adult
models such as
Pennelope Jimenez,
Karen McDougal, and Rachel Sterling.
The most famous one featured them as some of the cheerleaders
taking a shower in the
locker room.
Using clever camera angles and strategically placed objects, the
commercial gave viewers the titillating illusion that the
cheerleaders were nude in the shower with little left to the
imagination. The edgy XFL commercials backfired and caused a
controversy. Deemed too risqué by the media, the commercials were
quickly withdrawn before the debut of the league.
End of season and failure
On April 21, 2001, the season concluded as the
Los Angeles Xtreme defeated the
San Francisco Demons 38-6 in the XFL
Championship Game (which was originally given the
Zen-like moniker
"The Big Game at the End of the
Season", but was later dubbed the
Million Dollar Game, after the
amount of money awarded to the winning team).
Though paid attendance at games remained respectable, if
unimpressive (overall attendance were only 10% below what the
league's goal had been at the start of the season), the XFL ceased
operations after just one season due to astonishingly low TV
ratings.
Facing stiff competition from March Madness, the NBC telecast of the
Chicago/NY-NJ game on March 31 received a 1.5 rating, at that time
the lowest ever for any major network primetime television broadcast in the United States
. (On July 19, 2006,
ABC's premiere of
reality game The One: Making a Music
Star broke that record with only a 1.3 – that show would
be cancelled before airing another episode.)
Despite initially agreeing to broadcast XFL games for two years and
owning half of the league, NBC announced it would not broadcast a
second XFL season, thus admitting failure in its attempt at airing
replacement pro football. WWF Chairman Vince McMahon initially
announced that the XFL would continue, as it still had UPN and TNN
as broadcast outlets.
In fact, expansion teams were being explored
for cities such as Washington, D.C.
and Detroit,
Michigan
. However, in order to continue broadcasting
XFL games, UPN demanded that
WWF
SmackDown broadcasts be cut from two hours to one and a
half hours. McMahon found these terms unacceptable and he announced
the XFL's closure on May 10, 2001.
One reason for the failure of the league to catch on, despite its
financial solvency and massive visibility (perhaps infamy), was the
lack of respect for the league in the sports media. XFL games were
rarely treated as sports contests, but rather more like WWF-like
sensationalized events. With few NFL-quality players, save
Tommy Maddox, the league's MVP, and with little
thoughtful analysis or even consideration by sports columnists, the
XFL never gained the necessary recognition to be regarded as a
viable league. The fact that the league was co-owned by NBC made
ESPN (which was part of the
same
corporation as ABC) and Fox Sports Net (owned by Fox TV)
disinclined to report on the XFL. Many local TV newscasts and
newspapers (even in XFL cities) did not report league scores or
show highlights. This led to many football fans treating the XFL as
a joke, rather than competition to the
NFL.
Former
ECW announcer
Joey Styles mentioned on the
McMahon DVD
(which has a short section on the XFL) that if the league had not
been as publicly associated with wrestling and the negative stigma
that comes with it, the league might have been successful. On the
same DVD,
Vince McMahon defends the
XFL, saying it didn't cost a lot of money for him to try and still
thinks it was a good idea, although WWE television nowadays
occasionally pokes fun at the failures of the XFL.
WWE announcer
Jerry Lawler, who made
amends with WWE months after the league folded and remains employed
with the company today, believes that the league could have been a
success if given more time. He stated in his biography that Vince's
novel approach of adding entertainment to the sport would have made
it a more appealing alternative to the NFL. However, because the
league was immediately compared to the NFL as a direct competitor,
he feels that the pressures placed by NBC ruined McMahon's model
entirely. He states "I knew after the very first week that it
wasn't going to fly. They said don't mention the cheerleaders,
don't shoot the cheerleaders. I realized then they were going to
try to take on the NFL and that was never going to work. The
football wasn't good enough."
The XFL ranked #3 on
TV Guide's
list of the TV Guide's worst TV shows of all time in July 2002, as
well as #2 on
ESPN's list of biggest flops in
sports, behind
Ryan Leaf.
Legacy
Despite its unimpressive showing among the TV audience, the XFL
gave its small group of fans 12 weeks of football.
It restored an outdoor
professional franchise to Birmingham
, Las Vegas
and Memphis
—each of whom had lacked an outdoor pro team since
their CFL franchises were shuttered in 1995, but for a single
season for the Tennessee Oilers in
Memphis before moving to their permanent home in Nashville
and becoming the Titans—and to Orlando, which had
had no professional outdoor football since the WLAF (later NFL Europa) folded North American operations in
1992. The XFL brought a football franchise to
Los
Angeles
—a market which has lacked an NFL
team for years—and demonstrated that a baseball-specific
stadium such as San Francisco's Pac Bell Park
made a suitable venue for football as well.
However, none of these novelties translated into overall commercial
success.
The defunct league also popularized "in-game" interviews. The XFL
would interview head coaches between plays. Today,
NHL players are interviewed between commercial breaks
and Major League Baseball has managers and coaches being
interviewed. During
Fox's
Saturday Game of the Week, players often wear
microphones for a "sounds of the game" segment.
NBC continued airing professional league football beyond the demise
of the XFL.
While no football aired during the 2002
season due to the Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City
, NBC struck a deal with the Arena Football League and aired games from that league from 2003 to
2006.
In
2006, NBC returned to coverage of
NFL games with
NBC Sunday
Night Football. The occasional use of the "sky-cam" and
sideline interviews are the only features common to both the NFL
and XFL coverage.
XFL team names and logos also appear in movies and television where
professional football needs to be dramatized, as licensing for NFL
logos may be cost prohibitive.
In
an episode of
The Simpsons, Homer is wearing
an XFL cap and waving a flag with the XFL logo at the beginning,
looking forward to the new season, only to have the news broken to
him, by Marge, that the XFL has folded. Marge then tells him that
the league MVP told her, and that he was now sweeping up nails at
the hair salon. In reality, the league's only MVP,
Tommy Maddox, would resurrect his
once-undistinguished
NFL career with the
Pittsburgh Steelers and win the
NFL Comeback Player of
the Year award in
2002 before
giving way to
Ben Roethlisberger
two years later.
The three-point conversion rule, which was introduced (and only
used once) by the XFL, also will see new life. The proposed
New United States
Football League, set to begin play in 2010, plans on adopting a
three-point conversion rule similar to that used in the XFL
playoffs. In that league, while extra point kicks will still count
for one point and a scrimmage play will count for two points, a
10-yard scrimmage play will count for three points.
Notable players
Notable players included league
MVP and Los Angeles quarterback
Tommy Maddox, who signed with the
Pittsburgh Steelers after the
XFL folded (Maddox later became the starting quarterback for the
Steelers in
2002 and led them to that year's
playoffs, as well as continuing to start for them into
2004).
Los
Angeles
used the first pick in the XFL draft to select a former NFL quarterback, Scott Milanovich. Milanovich
lost the starting quarterback job to Maddox, who was placed on the
Xtreme as one of a handful of players put on each team due to
geographic distance between the player's college and the team's
hometown. Another of the better-known players was Las Vegas
running back Rod
Smart, who first gained popularity because the name on the back
of his jersey read "
He Hate Me."
Smart, who was only picked 357th in the draft, later went on to
play for the
Philadelphia
Eagles,
Carolina Panthers, and
the
Oakland Raiders. His Panther
teammate
Jake Delhomme named his
new-born horse "She Hate Me" as a reference to him. Smart played in
Super Bowl XXXVIII becoming one
of seven XFL players to play in a Super Bowl. Receiver
Yo Murphy did as a member of the
St. Louis Rams in
Super Bowl XXXVI).
Tommy Maddox played
for a Super Bowl team (with the Pittsburgh Steelers) in Super Bowl XL in Detroit
, (although Maddox, by then a third-string
quarterback, did not play in the game, which turned out to be his
last appearance in uniform before retiring). Lastly, Las
Vegas Outlaws DB
Kelly Herndon played
in
Super Bowl XL with the
Seattle Seahawks in 2005, where he is
remembered for intercepting a pass and returning it a then-record
76 yards. Although he did not play for an NFL team after the XFL's
lone season, former Las Vegas Outlaw offensive guard
Isaac Davis also had a notable NFL career,
playing in 58 games over a six year career. Davis started for the
San Diego Chargers in
Super Bowl XXIX.
Played in the NFL
Played in the Super Bowl
Won a Super Bowl
Won both an XFL Championship and Super Bowl
Played in the CFL
Played in the AFL
Wrestled for WWE
Ownership of broadcast rights
XFL games are now part of the
WWE
Video Library, along with classic highlights of WWE (and
predecessors Capitol Wrestling/WWWF/WWF),
World Championship Wrestling,
Jim Crockett Promotions, the
World Bodybuilding
Federation, and other past and present subsidiaries of
WWE.
No XFL game has been rebroadcast in their entirety in any form, on
any channel, since the league folded.
See also
References
- Forrest, Brett. Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest
Fiasco. Crown Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0609609920.
External links