Anyone watching the new AAF (Alliance of American Football)? For those who don't know, it's a new 8 team league, aimed to be a development league for the NFL. There are some rule changes such as no kick-offs, you must go for 2 points after a touchdown and a few others. Also reviewers are mic-ed up like in rugby so you can hear their comments when reviewing a play. The games are streamed on YouTube and are on at 9pm our time Saturday and Sunday evenings, and 1am Sunday morning and Monday morning. I don't know who to support, but probably the Birmingham Iron because I lived in Birmingham UK for a few years. Though Salt Lake Stallions have the Vikings as one of their affiliated teams. Each team has 4 NFL affiliates, which I think in practice just means some of their roster is made up from ex players from those teams. For example, our old running back Matt Asiasta plays for the Stallions.
There was a really good game this evening between the Orlando Apollo and San Antonio Commanders... It was quite a high scoring, dramatic affair. Orlando were down by 23-17, but scored two quick touchdowns (the second being a pick six with a converted 2 point attempt) to take charge of the game and then held on to win.
No coverage of the league outside the franchise cities I guess. The only mention of AAF in NY was how bad Christian Hackenberg (former Jets player) did on his debut.
There's been no coverage here tbf. I only know about the league because I follow the NFL UK page on Facebook and people have been talking about it. Still, all the games are on youtube... At 9pm and 1am here... So 4pm and 8pm for you.
Hackenberg has been benched, the NY media has reported. I sure hope he has a marketable trade outside football because he is about to go hungry.
I watched a recent game on NFL Network Viewers will be able to watch games throughout the regular season on CBS (stream on CBS All Access) CBS Sports Network (stream those games here), NFL Network (stream on fuboTV, try for free) or through B/R Live
You can find the streams easily enough on youtube. Not sure how legit they are, but my understanding was that at least some of the games are legitimately shown on youtube.... Just type in aaf stream or something.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it is gone... https://bleacherreport.com/articles...pend-operations-league-heading-toward-folding Eight weeks into its inaugural season, the Alliance of American Football has likely played its final game. The AAF sent an email to employees on Tuesday outlining the decision, which states the league's operations will be suspended immediately, via NFL Network's Aditi Kinkhabwala: "Over the last year, we have been able to realize some amazing accomplishments. We launched a football league, a ground breaking sports technology and APP, and established production and broadcast arrangements to air our content on major networks. Together we created some incredible moments for football and our fans. We are very proud of what we accomplished and appreciate the contributions each of you made during that process. "Unfortunately, after careful consideration, the board has decided to suspend operations of the Alliance of American Football, effective immediately. As part of this process, we expect to keep a small staff on hand to seek new investment capital and restructure our business. Should those efforts prove successful, we look forward to working with many of you on season two. As a follow up to this communication, we will reach out to the personnel who will be involved in that continuation effort. "For those employees whom we do not contact individually to discuss an ongoing role or alternative arrangements, your employment termination date is effective Wednesday, April 3, 2019, and you will be paid through this date. We are extraordinarily appreciative for all of your efforts. ... Thank you again for your service."
I'm so gutted... I really enjoyed watching it and it was nice to see have football to watch going into the NFL off season. I know the XFL starts next year, but the name XFL seems a bit tacky (what does the X even stand for? Xtreme or something?), it's by the dude in charge of WWE which doesn't fill me with much confidence, the XFL has already died once before and all of the teams in the XFL are pretty boring, at least the AAF had interesting places that don't already have NFL teams like San Antonio, Salt Lake City and Birmingham.
AAF got doomed when the NFL Players Association wouldn't permit the Practice Squad players to participate. The whole story is that the league was going to build and then approach the NFL for development league status. The head honchos at AAF got impatient because of the AAF finances and blew the whole thing up. The XFL was a blast to watch. It combined the flash and bang of the WWE and NFL style football. I expect the next iteration to be better run and a success.
The flash and bang of WWE? Does that mean everything was fake and scripted? I'm very sceptical, but I hope some of the teams have interesting names and/or uniforms at least, though it was nice seeing places like San Antonio, Birmingham, Salt Lake City with a professional team... LA again? Yawn. Seattle? Yawn. New York? Yawn. I guess if you're a football fan and you don't live in one of the big cities, well it sucks to be you. And do LA and New York really need 3 professional teams?
Plus some players don't develop at the same rate so it's ideal for late bloomers... Though a few AAF players have made it into NFL squads over the last couple of weeks. Even us mighty Vikings have one.
