Quicker games, no kickoffs and familiar faces in league
Pro football normally takes a seven-month break after the Super Bowl, but this year the hiatus will last all of one week with the advent of the Alliance of American Football, a new league founded by television producer/director Charlie Ebersol and longtime NFL executive Bill Polian that began Saturday. The AAF has positioned itself as something of an offseason developmental league for the NFL, emphasizing not how it will be different from the NFL — the XFL tried that once, as documented by Ebersol’s 30 for 30 documentary about the failed league that will give it another shot next year — but how it will resemble the long-established pro-football titan.
“Because if you’re a player who wants to play in the NFL, another league comes along, you look at that league as an opportunity to show your skills off and get back in the big show,” Ebersol told SB Nation. “The problem is, if they screw with the game, which all these people have done, you can’t get back in the NFL, because if you’re playing in the CFL or another league like that and [the] NFL’s looking at that the game, it’s so wildly different.”
The league is stocked with a few recognizable coaching names along with players looking for another chance to attract an NFL team’s attention, and while the on-field product will look similar to what you see on fall Sundays, there are a few changes aimed at speeding up the game and keeping viewers’ attention during a nontraditional time for football:
There will be no television timeouts and fewer full-screen commercial breaks. That, along with a 35-second play clock (the NFL’s is 40 seconds) and some of the changes listed below, could shave 30 minutes off an NFL game’s traditional three-hour running time.
No extra points. Every touchdown will be followed by a two-point conversion attempt. Field goals are still an option in regulation, however.
No kickoffs. Each team starts a possession after a score or at the start of a half at their 25-yard line.
Instead of onside kicks, which are not allowed, teams will attempt the equivalent of a fourth-and-12 play from their 28-yard line. A conversion means it keeps the ball. These will only be allowed when a team is trailing by at least 17 points or for either team in the last five minutes of a game, according to the Associated Press.
There will be a ninth member of the officiating crew called a “SkyJudge,” who will sit in the press box and “use real-time technology to correct clear errors involving player safety anytime during a game, and pass interference inside of five minutes left in the fourth quarter,” the AP reported.
Overtime is different: Each team will get the ball only once, first and goal from the 10, and they have to score a touchdown and go for two (field goals are not allowed in the extra period). Games can end in a tie.
Season schedule: Each of the eight teams will play 10 games, with the top two teams in each division advancing to the playoffs.
TV coverage: After opening night on Saturday, when CBS will broadcast two games on a regional basis, AAF games predominantly will air on NFL Network, CBS Sports Network and the B/R Live streaming service. TNT also will broadcast two games: Salt Lake at Birmingham on Feb. 16 (a leadin to NBA All-Star Saturday Night) and then one playoff contest. CBS also will air the championship game in April.