http://www.examiner.com/x-5053-Sports-Media-Examiner~y2009m11d27-Versus-has-first-ever-UFL-Championship-game-today-at-3pm
Has anyone watched any of it? Any comments?
Just looking at the details, it looks a bit gimped, what with only four teams (and why, if you have four teams, have them in completely different parts of the country? wouldn’t it make more sense to try to establish a west or east coast league?). They seem to be aiming quite clearly at being a farm league for the NFL, and from what I’ve read earlier, seems to be quite humble when regarding their prospects. Still, though, from an outsider perspective, it would seem the college/NFL mix makes the market rather saturated.
Oh right, the last game was yesterday, the Las Vegas Locomotives won against Florida.
Woooo! (sarcasm)
Yes, in OT (the only game that had it the entire season) and the final was 20-17, which statistically is the most common NFL final score.
Also it was pretty awful. Turnovers galore. Plus, the UFL decided that the 4 “original” teams (there are currently only 4) should have the same colors, so when you watch a game, it looks like teams are playing each other.
Actually, I read the article and thought the game was today, but had it pointed out to me that it was yesterday, so I made an effort to find the score.
Go Locos!
Bill, where can we get Locos flags for our cars ?
Gotta feel good for JP Losman, he has a championship ring.
I kinda lost track of the UFL even though Vegas had a team. I think their plan was to put the marketing dollars into creating a better product.
I’d actually be really interested to hear whether a football player’s best shot would be to play in Arena/Canadian/UFL or to be signed to the practice squad, given roughly equal capabilities, to develop into an NFL player. I’d imagine the lack of organized farm team system makes that more difficult to ascertain, though.
Unfortunately the timing/scheduling of the UFL is just wrong; teams are too focused on themselves and I’m not sure if there are any actual real provisions for buying out UFL players to pro teams (for injury pick-ups or whatever) or even if players can get out of their UFL contracts during their season… though I guess since it’s over, I guess there could be some late pick-ups. But are teams even paying attention? It’s the same with the CFL–there’s not much inter-league movement going on during the season, and the CFL starts earlier as well (and lasts a little longer). Mostly just NFL cast-offs looking for someplace else to play and make a little money.
Generally speaking, these days you don’t see as much movement from the CFL back to the NFL–definitely not as much as 10-20 years ago. Position players seem to be happy in their CFL digs and teams don’t seem to be too eager to snatch them up. RBs and linemen seem to be the major cast-offs, as CFL emphasizes the passing game (and the kicking game to a lesser extent). But some very good NFL receivers have moved on to the CFL and I don’t see them coming back (several from the Cowboys in the Parcells era for instance). At the same time, the position players get more play, they get a lot more injured. Half of the CFL teams are like walking MASH units… with only 8 of them, they get plenty of competition for certain positions.
NFL Europe really was the minor league, because they played in the spring/summer and teams sent their draft picks to the teams to get some weathering. That was it’s entire purpose… the only problem was that it was in Europe.
For the UFL, it contains quite a few NFL cast-offs, the majority of which were on the Florida Tuskers, and it showed during the season–they pretty much dominated the league. Losing the final to Las Vegas makes me a little suspicious… (though by law I don’t think you can bet on Vegas teams in Las Vegas). But I really don’t see any of those guys really coming back to the NFL.
— Alan
I don’t know why they chose to run their season concurrent with the NFL, aside from the fact that they let the NFL run nearly any guy they used through their camps and got them conditioned.
Otherwise, it would be far better to run their season in the spring, when everyone is hungriest for football. That is what the XFL did, and several players went on to play in the NFL the following season.