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Alliance of American Football (AAF)

OptimisticTexan said:
Unfortunately the delusion lies with folks like yourself. See, you're the folks who think the 6th attempt to compete with the NFL in the Spring is going to somehow yield new results.....it's not going to happen and 5 times has proven that I'm 100% correct. I'll also be 100% correct when the new XFL folds as well.
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One more time since you want to ignore this and go with false analogies. A league linked to NFL teams has NEVER been tried. Such a league would NOT be competing with the NFL.

You're counting leagues that explicitly attempted NOT to compete with the NFL. That's why they chose spring/summer.

And you're leaving out the league which did directly take on the NFL and SUCCEEDED. May have heard of them, they're now known as the AFC.

No matter what you say a paid league will be viewed as pro football and will not be viewed as competition with CFB. Who your league would be competing with is the CFL & Arena League both of which are already available for your misfit toys.
 
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infantrycak said:
One more time since you want to ignore this and go with false analogies. A league linked to NFL teams has NEVER been tried. Such a league would NOT be competing with the NFL.

You're counting leagues that explicitly attempted NOT to compete with the NFL. That's why they chose spring/summer.

And you're leaving out the league which did directly take on the NFL and SUCCEEDED. May have heard of them, they're now known as the AFC.
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No shite Sherlock! Those Spring/Summer leagues signed NFL rejects and some athletes who didn't know how to call it a career. No one really wants to watch a league of players who couldn't make the cut. It hasn't worked out for any other league except the one that challenged the NFL when they could afford to do it.....the AFL will be the first and last to do it.

When HS players get a paying option and want to take a paycheck over hanging out at a college in order to play football then fans will tune in.....see these players are up and coming with NFL futures....especially if they can hire some good coaches. Fans would tune in for this.
 
https://operations.nfl.com/the-players/the-nfl-draft/the-rules-of-the-draft/

To be eligible for the draft, players must have been out of high school for at least three years and must have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season. Underclassmen and players who have graduated before using all their college eligibility may request the league’s approval to enter the draft early.

Players are draft-eligible only in the year after the end of their college eligibility.

Before the draft, NFL Player Personnel staff members confirm the eligibility of draft prospects; that means researching the college backgrounds of approximately 3,000 college players each year. They work with NCAA compliance departments at schools across the country to verify the information for all prospects. They also check the rosters of college all-star games to make sure that only draft-eligible players play in the games.

The Player Personnel staff also review all of the applications submitted by players who want to enter the draft early. Underclassmen have until seven days following the NCAA National Championship Game to declare their intentions to do so. For the 2017 NFL Draft, 106 undergraduates received NFL approval to enter the draft, as did 13 players who graduated without using up all their college eligibility.

Once players have become draft-eligible or have declared their intention to enter the draft early, the Player Personnel staff work with teams, agents and schools to clarify the players’ status. They also work with agents, schools, scouts and teams to enforce league rules for Pro Days (where NFL scouts come to colleges to observe prospects) and private workouts.
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Just in case there is any confusion that college football serves as the functional minor leagues to the NFL. Any challenge to college football is a challenge to the NFL.
 
As for young dudes just hanging around college...from bowl eligible teams...i.e. the biggest football factories

https://www.apnews.com/bec52346c3d9432cb58125b9072d40a7

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport shows in its report that the overall football Graduation Success Rate (GSR) is up to 79 percent, climbing from 77 percent in 2017.

The study found that white football players had a 90 percent graduation rate, while black players were at 73 percent. Both those numbers are up from 2017, when white players had an 87 percent rate and black players were at 71 percent, according to TIDES director Richard Lapchick, the primary author of the study.
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The numbers show that 4/5 dudes either play football as a degree-seeking student(both my nephews) or while that student is there becomes a degree-seeking student.
 
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Thorn said:
I think the AAF trying to be a supplemental/training and re-training/professional minor league had the right idea for spring football. They just didn't execute it very well.
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any agreement between AAF and the NFL needed to be in place before the league had its first pre-season game. that's an error in structure. As for re-training etc, AAF is essentially a place for players who serve as in-season substitutes or temp-workers who are given shots at getting a real job. for a handful, it is a much-needed opportunity, for most, it is the last chance to make some money playing football.
 
ArlingtonTexan said:
https://operations.nfl.com/the-players/the-nfl-draft/the-rules-of-the-draft/



Just in case there is any confusion that college football serves as the functional minor leagues to the NFL. Any challenge to college football is a challenge to the NFL.
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That entire statement is related to college athletes and their eligibility to enter the NFL Draft......there is nothing mentioned within that statement regarding the "what-if" of another source (league) supplying 20-21 year old athletes that have completed 3 years of professional football and are now of age to negotiate with any team that would desire their services.

These young athletes are no longer amateur's and therefore cannot legally fall under the NFL's draft requirements. They are professional athletes who have played professional football since leaving HS. I believe that would make them FA's and available to any NFL franchise that would like to extend them a contract to play for their organization.
 
I could see my idea of a new league who's primary signing s would be young HS athletes who would prefer to put their energies and focus on becoming better professional athletes while being paid "legally" to learn their craft. I could also see the benefit of already being a professional athlete when it comes time to negotiate their first NFL contract.

As for the benefits......my guess is OL could be much further ahead in their develop and understanding of the NFL b/c they'd be learning from former NFL coaches and players, not learning the college game then needing to be re-educated for the pro game after being drafted.

By the time these QB's reached their 20-21st birthday.....they'd have 3 years of taking snaps from under center and what a 3, 5 or 7 step drop entails. They'd also be more cognizant of NFL type of defensive schemes if this is what they've learned from day one.

I could go down the list as to how this league would better prepare each position for their transition to the NFL. Teams would come to covet these finer prepared athletes......especially if they were from the ESPN Top 100 group.

I would also entertain the idea of adding JC Football athletes and college athletes that may wish to go pro before finishing their CFB requirements.
 
OptimisticTexan said:
I could see my idea of a new league who's primary signing s would be young HS athletes who would prefer to put their energies and focus on becoming better professional athletes while being paid "legally" to learn their craft. I could also see the benefit of already being a professional athlete when it comes time to negotiate their first NFL contract.

As for the benefits......my guess is OL could be much further ahead in their develop and understanding of the NFL b/c they'd be learning from former NFL coaches and players, not learning the college game then needing to be re-educated for the pro game after being drafted.

By the time these QB's reached their 20-21st birthday.....they'd have 3 years of taking snaps from under center and what a 3, 5 or 7 step drop entails. They'd also be more cognizant of NFL type of defensive schemes if this is what they've learned from day one.

I could go down the list as to how this league would better prepare each position for their transition to the NFL. Teams would come to covet these finer prepared athletes......especially if they were from the ESPN Top 100 group.

I would also entertain the idea of adding JC Football athletes and college athletes that may wish to go pro before finishing their CFB requirements.
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You live in an Utopia I wish I could emulate... but reality bites hard
 
OptimisticTexan said:
These young athletes are no longer amateur's and therefore cannot legally fall under the NFL's draft requirements.
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Where do you pull this stuff out of? There's no 'legal requirements' issue. How you get into the NFL is up to the NFL. The 3 year rule is their creation.

OptimisticTexan said:
I could also see the benefit of already being a professional athlete when it comes time to negotiate their first NFL contract.
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Again with the pipe dream the NFL or NFLPA will let rookies come in and screw with rookie contracts. There's absolutely no basis for believing that will happen other than you want the argument.

As for the benefits......my guess is OL could be much further ahead in their develop and understanding of the NFL b/c they'd be learning from former NFL coaches and players, not learning the college game then needing to be re-educated for the pro game after being drafted.

By the time these QB's reached their 20-21st birthday.....they'd have 3 years of taking snaps from under center and what a 3, 5 or 7 step drop entails. They'd also be more cognizant of NFL type of defensive schemes if this is what they've learned from day one.

I could go down the list as to how this league would better prepare each position for their transition to the NFL. Teams would come to covet these finer prepared athletes......especially if they were from the ESPN Top 100 group.
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And the mascots will be unicorns, griffins, leprechauns & flying pigs.

College & NFL coaches flip back and forth all the time. E.g. Brian Ferentz who I'd like as OL coach spent 5 years with the Patriots before going to Iowa.

Is this league going to be restricted to "NFL schemes?" Colleges play "college schemes" because they are faster to learn, simpler, accommodate a broader range of athleticism, etc. Unless you restrict the coaches they're entirely likely to emulate college (that's who you claimed this league was competing against) not the NFL.

I would also entertain the idea of adding JC Football athletes and college athletes that may wish to go pro before finishing their CFB requirements.
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There's already a process for draft eligibility exceptions. Over 100 a year are granted, plus the supplemental draft.
 
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OptimisticTexan said:
That entire statement is related to college athletes and their eligibility to enter the NFL Draft......there is nothing mentioned within that statement regarding the "what-if" of another source (league) supplying 20-21 year old athletes that have completed 3 years of professional football and are now of age to negotiate with any team that would desire their services.

These young athletes are no longer amateur's and therefore cannot legally fall under the NFL's draft requirements. They are professional athletes who have played professional football since leaving HS. I believe that would make them FA's and available to any NFL franchise that would like to extend them a contract to play for their organization.
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You do know that the college draft as run currently is under normal laws and rules illegal.

Let me further help, our current president, sued that the NFL is an illegal monopoly, and won ($1). Basically, the NFL is operating as an illegally structured entity and the entire world acknowledges and accepts this as a fact. There is nothing that keeps an individual young man from waiting until he is three years or more out of high school, renouncing his college eligibility and applying to the NFL. problem is that the NFL has the legal blessing to reject that application or accept the application and ignore that the individual exists. The point in highlighting all of those times school, NCAA, or college is that the NFL has told the world that to play in our league you must go through our minor league system...college football.

Normal rules and laws don't apply to the NFL and have the blessing of everyone starting with and including the United States legal system.
 
Challenge to NFL Draft (Wikipedia used for ease).., there are better more detailed sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Clarett

In his attempt to enter the 2004 NFL Draft, Clarett challenged the NFL's rule that a player must wait three years after graduating from High School to declare for the draft. Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin initially ruled based on anti-trust grounds that the NFL could not bar Clarett from participating in the 2004 NFL Draft.[12] This decision was later overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuitin an opinion by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Clarett's petition for certiorari was refused by the Supreme Court.[13] Clarett and USC wide receiver Mike Williams, who were both hoping to enter the draft early, were then barred from the draft by the NFL. Later, because they both signed agents before being denied the opportunity to join the NFL Draft, the NCAA refused to reinstate the college eligibility of Clarett or Williams.
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Trump anti-trust ...academic paper

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/sugarman/Sports_Stories_USFL_v_NFL__-_Boris_Kogan.pdf

After five days of deliberations, the jury found that the NFL had maintained monopoly power in a market consisting of major-league professional football in the United States. However, the jury found that the USFL had only suffered nominal damages from the NFL's unlawful conduct and, therefore, was entitled to only $1.00 in damages, a spectacular amount that, even when trebled, did not offer much consolation for the USFL. Essentially, the award of nominal damages suggested that the USFL’s failure to secure further revenue from television contracts or otherwise came at the fault of its own league owners and officials, rather than from the alleged anti-competitive actions of the NFL. The jury found that the NFL did not commit any overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy to monopolize. While the jury would later go on to find that an NFL monopoly on the sport of football existed – establishing a violation of Section 2 and the subsequent three dollar award of damages - the monopoly was not the result of anti-competitive practices of the NFL. In addition, the jury found that even though "one or more defendants [had] participate[d] in a contract, combination or conspiracy to exclude competition within major league professional football", that combination was not an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of Section 1. The fatal blow was the complete rejection of the USFL's television claims. The jury found that the NFL had not willfully acquired or maintained a monopoly in a relevant television submarket. It further found that the NFL's contracts with all three television networks for the right to broadcast the league's regular season and championship games through the 1986-87 season were not an unreasonable restraint of trade violative
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When NFL teams wish to sign a player from the CFL.....does said player enter the NFL Draft to get a contract from prospective team?

If these young "professional" athletes from a new league wish to get picked up by a NFL team b/c they are now 20 to 21 years old and have completed 3 years of professional football in another league that has better prepared them for the NFL......then what's going to stop NFL owners and GM's from signing them?
 
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OptimisticTexan said:
When NFL teams wish to sign a player from the CFL.....does said player enter the NFL Draft to get a contract from prospective team?

If these young "professional" athletes from a new league wish to get picked up by a NFL team b/c they are now 20 to 21 years old and have completed 3 years of professional football in another league that has better prepared them for the NFL......then what's going to stop NFL owners and GM's from signing them?
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- There's no relevant precedent. The NFL can do what it wants with something like this. And of course they would insist on parity and not allowing a new labor free for all.

- Themselves.

You're continuously underestimating how much the league is happy with their college football feeder system.
 
OptimisticTexan said:
When NFL teams wish to sign a player from the CFL.....does said player enter the NFL Draft to get a contract from prospective team?
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Almost all the Americans went thru the draft, but no. Like your proposed league they come in on league mininum contracts or near and then desparately try to hold onto the last roster spot.

Classic example, Jeff Garcia spent 5 years in the CFL after going undrafted. Winning their Grey Cup & MVP barely got him a spot as Steve Young's backup.

The CFL even has a provision that lets players out of their contracts if they get an NFL shot.

3 years of professional football in another league that has better prepared them for the NFL
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How is this miracle going to occur? There's no way you're out bidding the NFL & CFB for coaches. Hell some CFB coaches make more than NFL coaches.

You didn't answer if teams would be required to run "NFL systems." As if that can even be defined with all the borrowing going on.

....then what's going to stop NFL owners and GM's from signing them?
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Didn't say they'd be stopped. Said the NFL would change their rules, if it was more than a trickle, to make them go thru the draft and/or subject to rookie contracts.
 
AAF refuses to release players for possible CFL employment
Posted by Mike Florio on April 12, 2019, 2:11 PM EDT


The messy implosion of the Alliance of American Football continues.

The AAF is now refusing to allow players under contract to the defunct league to sign with CFL teams, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. Apparently, the AAF views the contracts as league assets that, in theory, can be sold, as the AAF tries to raise money in order to pay its many debts via bankruptcy proceedings.

Sold to whom, you ask? To the CFL, apparently.

It’s unclear why the AAF didn’t take that position as to the NFL. The AAF affirmatively released all players to sign with NFL clubs on April 4.

Regardless of any legal niceties, this will become another P.R. disaster for a league that has essentially breached all player contracts by shutting down. Of course, P.R. is the least of the concerns for those who may find themselves personally on the hook for liabilities incurred by a league that lacked proper funding to conclude a full season.

For them, the goal becomes raising as much money as possible, even if that means taking unpopular and/or unwarranted positions that likely will be immediately challenged in court, adding to the burgeoning docket of lawsuits that will last far longer than the league’s only season did.
 
Good luck with that theory.

Doesn't say they're still paying the players which is a prerequisite to having an argument but either way, crispy burnt toast.
 
Daryl Johnston: People took jobs with the AAF because we were misled
Posted by Michael David Smith on April 14, 2019, 12:45 PM EDT

Daryl “Moose” Johnston, the former Cowboys fullback and current FOX commentator, also had a side gig as the General Manager of the San Antonio franchise in the Alliance of American Football. That did not end well.

Johnston told ESPN Radio in San Antonio that he and others who worked for the AAF were “misled” about the long-term viability of the league. Johnston said he and others in the league were assured that there was a solid business plan in place that would keep the AAF viable for at least two years. Instead, it lasted two months.

“There were several people who took jobs with the Alliance because they were told they had two years, and they’re in a very difficult spot now at this stage. This was something that caught me totally by surprise,” Johnston said.

Johnston said he feels terrible that he put his name behind a franchise that is now stiffing contractors.

“There are multiple businesses in the San Antonio area that are still awaiting payments and will probably have to go into the legal process to get that resolved,” Johnston said. “That is extremely disappointing to me.”

Johnston said AAF co-founder Bill Polian called him while the team was practicing and told him to immediately shut down the practice, because the AAF had collapsed so suddenly that if a player got hurt on the practice field, his medical expenses wouldn’t even be covered.

“You’ve got to shut practice down,” Johnston said Polian told him. “In case anybody gets hurt, we don’t know who’s going to be responsible.”

Polian, co-founder Charlie Ebersol and AAF chairman Tom Dundon still haven’t offered a satisfactory explanation of why the league fell apart so quickly. Asked who’s to blame for all that, Johnston answered, “I don’t know yet, and I don’t know if we ever really will.”
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Before it's all over, I firmly believe that we will find out the what's and why's.
 
It's a real shame this league collapsed, it's idea of how to coexist with the NFL was a good one.
 
Thorn said:
Or, at a bare minimum, had enough money in the bank to fund the 1st season.
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People really need to learn that "up to" promises aren't promises at all. They had one backer "commit" to up to $150 mil then another up to $250 mil. Well dipshits, 0 is within up to.

Had a commercial internet provider try an up to contract with me. Made them put a floor in.
 
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