For football fans not ready to start the long offseason, the opening weekend of the new XFL was a potent fix to fuel the football addiction.
The spring football league dominated social media, the stadiums were filled with passionate supporters developing their fandom, and the overnight television ratings reflected its success.
First XFL game draws 3.3 million viewers on ABC https://t.co/JuXzgvb57x
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) February 10, 2020
But, the Alliance of American Football enjoyed similar success on its opening weekend exactly 12 months earlier, and it lasted only eight weeks before the money ran out and bankruptcy ensued.
Football skeptics question whether the XFL can sustain its success in a way the AAF couldn’t, but the brainchild of Vince McMahon and Oliver Luck has what last year’s startup was missing: quarterbacks.
The name recognition won’t be there for the average NFL viewer, but the performances across the first four games of the XFL gave fans all the excitement they needed.
Former Ohio State fourth-round pick Cardale Jones continued his undefeated record as a starting quarterback with the weekend’s highest passer rating of 116.7 (16-of-26 for 235 yards and two touchdowns) for the D.C. Defenders.
Houston Roughnecks quarterback P.J. Walker earned some attention with 272 yards and four touchdowns, and one of the league’s headliners, former Pittsburgh Steeler Landry Jones, didn’t play for his Dallas Renegades because of injury.
General #XFL Pay Structure
Standard Non-QB Weekly Pay
– Base Salary: $1,040
– Game-Active Bonus: $1,685
– Victory Bonus: $2,222As you might imagine, QBs earn more – reportedly up to $495,000 in base pay.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) February 10, 2020
The different for the XFL isn’t just the talent at the position. It’s the rule changes and system in place to eliminate some of the barriers to effective passing.
The league put headsets in the helmets of every offensive skill position player, and they don’t turn off, so coaches can talk directly to their players on the field.
It was designed to increase the speed of the game and make an abbreviated play clock more manageable, but the byproduct was extra guidance in the ear of the quarterbacks and receivers.
They still have to make accurate throws, but the increased communication seems to mitigate some playbook and decision-making issues that often plague ineffective passers.
It wasn’t a universal solution to poor quarterbacking — Aaron Murray of the Tampa Bay Vipers completed less than 50 percent of his passes — but seven of the eight offenses executed scoring drives well enough to keep fans engaged.
The AAF saw four of its eight teams make quarterback changes in last year’s opening weekend, and 15 different players attempted more than 30 passes over the course of the spring. When the league folded, only two teams had a positive touchdown-to-interception ratio.
XFL quarterbacks are making plenty of mistakes too. If they were polished passers, they’d still have NFL contracts. But even the ones on the losing side of the scoreboard showed a baseline consistency that was lacking in the Alliance.
Pair this improved passing with stronger television deals and a more publicized build-up, and the XFL is in a great position to learn from the failures of the past and entrench itself as a spring football staple.
