If you have a draft and nobody knows about it, did it really happen?

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present you with the latest in a long line of “minor league” football– The UFL!  The United Football League is planning to kick off their season this October with franchises in New York, Orlando, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Billing themselves as a developmental league is not a bad plan, but competing with the “sanctity” of High School football by playing on Thursday and Friday nights may not be the best idea.  They did apparently get a national TV deal with the Thursday night games appearing on Versus.

To give them some credit, they did start off with some big names to coach their teams.  Jim Fassel will take the helm in Vegas, Jim Haslett will coach in Orlando, longtime Defensive Coordinator Ted Cotrell will be in New York, and in San Francisco… What’s that…?  It’s a Denny Green sighting!

So last night, the UFL decided to get together behind closed doors and have themselves a little draft.  They didn’t tell anyone when they were going to have their little secret get-together to divvy up has-been/never was NFL players and college grads who weren’t going to get a sniff in the NFL to begin with.  Retread coaches and retread players, sounds like a recipe for some fantastic football action! Probably the best known name to come out of the draft is former Chicago Bear and St. Louis Ram Adam Archuletta.  There had been some chatter that J.P. Lossman and Michael Vick would be involved in the draft, but it was not to be.  Denny Green had some interesting choices.  He loved coaching Larry Fitzgerald so much with the Cardinals, he drafted Larry’s little brother Marcus to play for him in San Fran.  He also picked our favorite AFL superstar Brett Dietz to play QB.  I can picture the first press conference.  “Brett Dietz is what we thought he was!”  Good times!

Over the next couple months as more players and more details about the league come out, be sure to tune in here for all the latest and greatest on the UFL.  After all, with College Football and the NFL, there certainly isn’t enough football going on in the fall!

Guest Post: Exploring the CIFL: Minor Minor-League Football

Yes, the AFL is twisting in the wind, and despite rumors the league will return in some form for 2010, what is the wacky-indoor-football fan to do in the interim? One of our regular readers, known to you as Mr. jcompton, caught a CIFL game and filed the following report.

 

Football with seven men? This is madness!

 

What’s an AFL fan to do this year? Why, avail himself of the hometown, expansion, second-tier indoor football team playing down the road, of course! Up in Madison, Wisconsin, we’re fortunate enough to have a new indoor team, the Wisconsin Wolfpack of the CIFL. The CIFL is better known as “The league with the Chicago team currently fielding a bunch of ex-Rush guys slaughtering the other seven teams.” I was part of an intimate gathering watching the Wolfpack beat the Rock River Raptors, 50-23.

I don’t know precisely how or why the Wolfpack got started, but I do know that their playing field used to belong to the Pensacola Barracudas, a defunct AF2 team. The AF2 logo is still at midfield and the Barracudas logo is still in the end zone. They’re a bit smudged, like somebody spent a few minutes scrubbing at it with turpentine, then said “This is second-tier minor league indoor football—why am I breaking my back?” and gave up.

At a generous guess, I’d say there were maybe 1300 people in the stands, in a stadium with capacity for 10,000+. It’s hard to say whether this being Final Four night hurt ticket sales, as the stands looked pretty empty in the photos from the Wolfpack’s only other home game to date. The fans in the stands were certainly thinking basketball, though—when the PA announcer broke the news of Michigan State’s win, he got arguably the biggest roar of the night. (Big Ten solidarity?) In any case, I got fine seats just walking up to the box office window 20 minutes before kickoff.

Well, fuck.

Really, guys? Aw, hell.

Announcement to come later today, apparently. The good news is, maybe we can get our hands on some cheap gear?

P.S. This doesn’t affect the af2, so, if you’re really looking for some sloppy indoor football… well, you might want to seek professional help first.

UPDATE: Yes, indeed, Operation Shutdown is in effect. From the league office:

We remain grateful to the greatest fans in the world for their avidity and their patience. It is with them in mind that the AFL, its owners and its players remain committed to resuming play as soon as it is feasible.

I’m not even interested in figuring out who or what to blame. So, I blame us, It’s Still Football, for not mocking hard enough last season.

Oh, and the economy. I also blame the economy.

And for the Bon Jovi jokes, a Philadelphia blog (linky)

Should’ve thought of explaining the league’s (please not) death throes thusly. [The Sports Complex]

Are We Boned? Yeah, We’re Boned.

Aieeeee! It's just like Pitcairn Island!

Oh, dear Christ. We get bored and wander off for several months, and our “beloved” league is in jeopardy? We figured it was the idle chatter of a few of the we-blogs, and perhaps there was some financial difficulty … wait, where’d the VooDoo go? Well, that’s just Tom Benson, and he’s kind of a dick. The league is as sturdy as one of my favorite Chicago institutions, The Tribune Company. Oh, it’s not? Oh, crap. The Predators, sold? What are the guys we met in New Orleans going to do with their scary masks? Terrorize children [more often]?

You’ll tell me it’s all going to be okay, right, San Jose Mercury News? Gak. “WE WILL TAKE ON ALL COMERS, FOR WE ARE INDESCRIBABLY WEALTHY,” is the campaign for the 2009 SaberCats, by the way. But what of The Dietz?  Certainly the Storm…

Despite reports of AFL troubles, Storm plods along

A ringing endorsement from the St. Petersburg Times-adjacent tampabay.com.

What happened? Well, until I can get a detailed analysis from our in-house economist, let’s use broad strokes: David Baker’s AFL was growing, and had a deal with ESPN that was supposed to secure the league’s future. He left us. Heleftusheleftusheleftus. Lex-from-Jurassic-Park interlude over, the VooDoo crumble with little-to-no-notice. A deal with A Mysterious Equity Group falls apart. Talks, dispersal draft, and free agency are all postponed. No schedule?

Boned, boned, boned. Where are our cut-rate Woodward and Bernstein to follow the money? Where’d it go? Did the league expand too quickly under Baker, only to collapse like a dying star? A star that was interesting, but never really that bright in the first place? Colorado is one of the teams facing awkwardness, and they’ve been one of the sturdier teams, owned by John Elway. If Elway’s hurting, everybody’s hurting.

Dammit.

We don’t write for a while, and this is what it takes to put fingers to keys?

At least we didn’t come back for an epitaph.

Yet.

Briefly: Even TMZ Makes Fun

::Sigh:: TMZ, do you have to take a shot at the AFL? You kneecap the national discourse daily with your irregular journalism, and yet you’re still able to locate a high horse from which you can make statements like “the most pointless title in footballdom?” Isn’t there a model or starlet you can drive to drugs or an eating disorder? Pick on someone of your own douchevolume. [TMZ.com]

Arena Bowl XXII – The Live Blog

It’s Here! Today! We’re going CoverItLive-style, and you know what that means: no embedding! Following links! Extreme laziness!

Who will take home the Kraken of professional sports trophies? San Jose or Philadelphia? I know I predicted San Jose, but I really want to see Bon Jovi hoist this thing with his spindly arms.

Keep in the care of this guy? No. Hell no.

To follow the liveblogging extravaganza follow the mighty link: TO THE LIVE BLOG!

This Guy? Maybe.

This Guy? Could Be...

BREAKING: Commissioner Hagrid! What Will We Do Without You?

In a surprise move two days before the Arena Bowl, and one year after signing a contract extension, Commissioner David Baker resigned his post for reasons… mysterious.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I never thought I would do this for the rest of my life,” Baker told The Associated Press. “The league has never been stronger … it gives me the opportunity to look into doing other things.”

…

“There’s a lot of great opportunities for this league.” Baker said. “So this is a good time for me. If I didn’t go now, there would be no other career for David Baker.

“Like my good friend John Elway, I am going out on top.”

Bullshit. If it doesn’t turn out that he was called back to Saltfjellet by Hrungnir, King of All The Mountain Giants, I’m calling shenanigans on this whole thing. Because a world where Commissioner Hagrid resigns because he’s bored, and not because he must take part in a 10,000-year-old ancestral tradition of hewing forests, draining lakes, and piloting the mighty glaciers themselves is not a world in which I want to live.

Nevertheless, fans and employees of the Arena Football League owe David Baker a debt of gratitude for the last 12 years of work, which saw consistent growth in team value and visibility, a shocking increase in media coverage (thanks, Worldwide Leader!), and the ability to mock the leadership of every other sport. Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, David Stern, and especially that troll Gary Bettman should thank their lucky stars they no logner have to be shown up by the commissioner of a second-tier sport in professionalism, fan-friendliness, and the ability to crush coal into diamonds.

It’s Still Football wishes Mr. Baker the best, and would be remiss in neglecting to mention that meeting the guy last year was insanely great. We also might have been inebriated. But that shouldn’t detract from the fact that we were duly impressed by his magnificence

I hope he still takes care of all the Arena Bowl XXII pomp and circumstance, because it’d just feel weird to have Ed Policy hand over the 10-Ton Foster Trophy.

Godspeed, You Titan; You Showed Us How a 7'6" Bazillionaire Should Act

ARENA BOWL XXII: We’re Way Less Interesting Than Last Year

I stole ESPN's Banner. I am a winner.

So, guess what? Between general apathy and real-life nonsense, we totally blew off the playoffs (which apparently were hosted in Crazy Town, final results notwithstanding), and aren’t going to New Orleans again. For which my liver thanks the Flying Spaghetti Monster. BUT ANALYSIS WILL ENSUE!

ALL HAIL.

Multiple members of Bon Jovi! Jaws! More Cowbell! The Grieb Laser Industry! Darren Arbet! The Guy Who Owns Fry’s! D’Orazio! SOME OTHER PEOPLE OHMYGODIT’STHEARENABOWL!

Dear Point-Counterpoint, I never thought this could happen to me… (Jump?)

ESPN Is Doing An Arena Bowl Whatty-what?

Well! This looks familiar.

Jiggly camera work? Silly questions? Athletes amusing themselves? Seen it… before… but… more awkwardly?

AH HA! ESPN! Well, since we can’t go, Mary Buckheit can appropriate our hand-held stumbling meme. NEXT YEAR, MARY: DUELING CAMCORDERS!