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The XFL may be taking a completely different approach then the NFL in many ways, but this may be one of the biggest differences between the league.

Via SI.com, XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck would “prefer not to test for marijuana.”

This would make marijuana use a non-issue for the XFL, except where a player isn’t able to play football because he’s incarcerated for marijuana use — something that rarely happens in 2019.

Luck said that he hasn’t considered whether that would make players like receiver Josh Gordon eligible for the XFL. If the XFL won’t be policing the private lives of players when it comes to non-PEDs that the players may use when on their own time, why would they bar a player who has been banned by the NFL for behavior that the XFL doesn’t prohibit?

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The XFL took a week off from announcing coaches, but the time has finally come to see who will be leading the Los Angeles franchise.

Jeffrey Pollack came out and thanked the crowed and spoke about how great it was to be back in his home market. Pollack mentioned it’s been exactly 90 days since he joined the organization, and said it was a great time to go over some business updates.

• Four Presidents named so far, with a fifth being named next week
• Close to head of content and media
• Yesterdays TV announcement
• The XFL’s partnership with Elevate for ticketing

President of XFL LA, Heather Brooks-Karatz came out to the stage and update everyone on how the LA franchise is shaping up.

She welcomed everyone to their new team and the new XFL. She has been overwhelmed by the excitement from the LA fan base. The LA fan outreach is reflective of a city that’s eager to embrace a brand new football team, she said. She thanked Vince McMahon, Pollack and Luck for the opportunity to help build the league. Brooks-Karatz then Welcomed CEO and Commissioner, Oliver Luck to the stage.

Luck gave the usual business updates speaking about McMahon’s financial backing, which allows them time to build the league the right way and long term success. He also touched on the XFL’s newly announced TV deals, mentioning that it is a multi-year deal. The XFL TV schedule allows for easy access to view all the games. All games will play back-to-back on ESPN, ABC, Fox or FS1.

Luck spoke of the six coached that have already been hired, then turned his attention to the man of the hour.

• Four year Letterman at the University of Miami
• Won 1983 championship with the Miami Hurricanes
• Solid NFL Linebacker for 11 seasons
• Played in 155 games
• Recording 768 tackles and 20 1/2 sacks for Seahawks, Raiders and Buccaneers
• Started his over two decade coaching career in 1997 when he retired
• Spent 13 years with The Packers
• Coached the Packers in their Super Bowl 45 victory over the Steelers

Oliver Luck then announced Winston Moss as the Head Coach/GM of the Los Angeles franchise and welcomed him to the stage.

Moss joined the stage and thanks God for the glory of this moment, and spoke about how excited he is to be back in LA. He thanked the whole XFL organization for their support and especially Oliver Luck for his kind words. He thanked everyone…. except Coach Hayes…. He spoke about hos Hayes used to be one of his greatest nemesis when he played for the Raiders and Hayes for the Chiefs.

Moss is honored to take the next step with the re-born XFL. He went on to say that LA stands for excellence. He again thanks everyone for coming out.

This leaves us with one Head Coach/GM to be announced, and as they say, save the best for last. It looks like we’re going to head the Head Coach for Houston next week, no date has been set, but we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

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Another slow news week, but not slow enough to prevent some news from creeping through.

Today we discuss the XFL’s snazzy new office space, the partnership with Elevate, AAF’s investor charged for bank fraud and we look at the rumors that the XFL is planning on expansion for year 1.

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After last week’s two big head coach announcements, we’ve had a bit of a dip in news. The good part, there still is news.

This week we’ll go over the new information we’ve learning about when the XFL draft will take place, when we should expect to hear about the broadcast partners, the preseason, Manziel and discuss XFL’s “Team 9”.

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Brian Stull caught up with Oliver Luck during the press conference last week in St. Louis.

In regards to the XFL upcoming TV deal, Luck said all 43 games will be broadcast across fully distributed cable or over the air free television. He also stated that the over the air partners will be an alphabet network, meaning ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. Luck confirmed that the deal that the XFL has signed with their broadcast partners is a multi-year deal.

The XFL will begin the process of signing players over the summer, but will ramp up after the NFL makes their initial cuts in September. Stating that there’s almost 850 available players after the cuts take place. Luck also stated that the XFL draft will indeed take place in October. We had head the same statement from St. Louis Head Coach, Jonathon Hayes last week. Luck expects to have about 650 players available for the draft.

The most interesting thing to come out of this interview was when Luck brought up that the XFL has what they call “Team 9”. The team will be based out of Dallas and will have roughly 40 players, with a full set of coaches. They would practice on a daily basis, and would be used to supplement the eight active teams throughout the season if any injuries occur. Luck said they had something similar in NFL Europe and this team would act as the leagues “G-League”, or development team.

Ending the interview, Luck said we’re still about a four to six weeks out from learning the team names and logos. A lot of great information in this clip, you can listen to the full interview below. (Starts at the 30min mark)

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After a long drought, the XFL is back on the road. Today’s stop is New York, specifically the AC Hotel in Time Square to announce the Head Coach/GM and President of the local franchise.

Today’s press conference started off with CEO and Commissioner Luck talking going over the usual XFL highlights.

Mentioning with 10 months out, that they have the luxury of time due to Vince McMahon’s capitol backing. He also briefly spoke about the broadcast partners, which will be announced soon. Luck brought up the testing they were conducting during The Spring League, and mentioned that the broadcast partners were on hand for the games to assist in the vision.

Luck than introduced Kevin Gilbride as the next Head Coach. Before welcoming him to the stage he brought up that Gilbride has over 40 years of coaching experience (college and pro), specifically with 10 seasons with NY Giants, which led to two Super Bowl Championships with Eli Manning.

Kevin Gilbride took the stage and thanks Luck and the press. He’s excited to have a chance to help grow the league, and he’s been really impressed with the people he’s met within the XFL so far.

Gilbride said he is happy to be back into coaching, and is intrigued that he is able to be at the ground level. He can’t wait to re-imagine football, but said that it isn’t going to go too far and it still will be traditional football.

He spoke about how important it’s going to be to find the right people to surround himself with, that will help him scout talent and help build the players, the team and the league.

Gilbride then thanked his family, and spoke about how he originally resigned due to the amount of time he was able to spend with his wife and family. He joked that he has told his stories so many times that his grandchildren and finish them for him, so he decided it was time to get back into coaching.

Luck came back to the stage and welcomed President and COO Jeffrey Pollack to the stage to announce the President of the New York franchise. Pollack spoke about the recent Present hires they’ve made in Los Angeles, DC and Tampa.

Pollack named Jannet Duch as the President of the franchise, siting that she spent 18 years at MSG  as Senior VP of Marketing, and most recently was Senior VP for OnLocation Experiences.

Duch came out and mentioned that she is a hometown girl, and sports have been a huge part of that growing up. She mentioned working with the Knicks and Rangers, and talked about how the local fans want the teams to reflect their daily life. She wants the XFL fans to be part of her journey every step of the way, she wants to listen to the fans to find out what’s important to them. She then thanks everyone for attending and viewing online.

Also, don’t forget. We have another press conference this week on Thursday to announce the Head Coach/GM of the St. Louis franchise.

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The XFL is in Austin, TX for the next couple weeks testing some rule changes and innovations with The Spring League. Yesterday they held an event to discuss a variety of different changes and innovations that they plan on trying out during these test games.

One focus area they spoke about was how there is not much RND (Research and Development) that happens in football today. The XFL has the unique opportunity to test these items out in real-time prior to the start of their league. As they are testing new innovations they are being cognizant that they do not want to add anything to the game that could be labeled “gimmicky”.

The XFL is looking to be fast-paced, but what does that mean? To boil it down, they are looking to minimize idle time on the field, increase meaningful action, create a more rhythmic feel to the overall game, as well as focus on creating a safe game that feel like traditional football. If everything goes as planned, we would be looking at a game, that even with overtime would clock in under 3 hours.

One thing they stated during this event is that nothing is set in stone, everything they are testing is just that, testing. We can look forward to seeing the final rule book sometime this summer.

Kickoffs

Unlike the AAF, the XFL will have kickoffs. From the looks of it, it seems to be similar to the CFL. There would be a 5 yard halo-rule, with no fair catch. Twitter user @ConfirmedShoot posted an image from the test game showing what the formation would look like.

XFL kickoff formation. Intrigued. pic.twitter.com/epFzf2O7lZ

— Matt (@ConfirmedShoot) April 7, 2019

Punt Returns

Similar to the kickoff, there will still be a 5 yard halo rule with no fair catch. One thing to remember, is the 5 yard halo is dependent on the ball and not the player. Meaning, if the ball hits the ground and bounces towards the kicking team, the players will need to retreat until the receiving team picks up the ball.

Extra Points

Unlike the NFL, the XFL will not utilize kickers after a touchdown. Instead the scoring team will have three options:

• 1 point starting at the 2 yard line
• 2 points starting at the 5 yard line
• 3 points starting at the 10 yard line

This will give the opposing team more chances to get back into the game, which should create a more exciting game for the fans. An interesting aspect of this is also how they would handle interceptions that result in a score. If this is to happen, the defense would receive the amount of points that the offense was attempting. For instance, if XFL Houston is going for a 3 point attempt and XFL Seattle intercepts and runs it back, Seattle would receive three points.

Forward Pass

As of now, it seems that the XFL is testing the ability to have multiple forward passes. All passes would need to be performed behind the line of scrimmage. If the QB passes to another player and becomes the receiver they will be treated as any other player and would no longer be protected by QB safety rules. This would potentially open up more plays for the backup QB, or at least that is a thought at the moment. If any of the passes are incomplete, the whole play is incomplete.

Officiating

As part of keeping the game up tempo, the XFL is aware that officiating is going to play a key part of that. There will be a dedicated ball spotter to ensure that time isn’t wasted setting the placement after each play. They will also have a officiant in the booth, much like the AAf and it’s Sky Judge. There will be replay reviews, but they are looking at ways to expedite the process.

Overtime

Probably the most intriguing innovation they are testing out is new overtime rules. Again, a huge focus that they are working to achieve is keeping all of the games under 3 hours, including overtime. To achieve this, and give each team an opportunity to score they are testing rules similar to hockey and soccer. Both teams offense and defense would be on the field at the same time starting at the 5 yard line. Each team would take turns attempting to score, with each touchdown accounting for one point. If there is a tie after 5 rounds, then it becomes sudden death. Whoever scores first, wins the game.

There will be 4 refs on each side, with a ref in the booth similar to the AAF’s Sky Judge to officiate the plays. If the defense commits a penalty the ball would move to the 1 yard line, if they commit a second penalty, the offense receive a point. Alternatively, if the defense intercepts the ball or recovers a fumble then they would receive a point. With these rules in place there will always be a winner, no ties in the XFL. Another interesting note that came out of this was that Luck mentioned that they have spoken to their broadcast partners about this strategy and they are on board. There was no word on who those broadcast partners are, but we have heard rumors that it may be ABC/ESPN and FOX/FS1.

What are your thoughts on the different rules and changes that the XFL is testing out? Join our community on discord and let’s keep the conversation going.

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