bamamick said:

17,000 is not a great start compared to the days of the Stallions, but it was a bit of a gray, chilly day. It was raining in Orlando last night, and the crowd looked about the same.

It is minor league football. I have no idea how they plan on making money, but I hope they do. So many of those guys are OUR guys, and if it gives them another shot I am all for it.

Rtr

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Read from a lot of people at the game that it looked more like 30K there.

mikeua69 said:

Read from a lot of people at the game that it looked more like 30K there.

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They just said on radio that the scan system for tickets on cell phones was not working very well and as the kick-off approached they started letting people in without scanning tickets. Definitley more than 17,000.

Trent is the marquee Bama player but we had a lot of guys playing.

Three of the five starting OL were Bama players. LT Brandon Greene, C JC Hassenauer and RT Dominick Jackson.

Xavier Dickson was a starting DE and had an interception.

I was very impressed with the Iron's defense and DB's as well as our QB Lopez.

I will be watching with interest.

I would be interested in seeing a AAF game. Not sure I'd go to a game in Legion Field unless I had a really bad car or had some friends with body armor and semi-automatic weapons to lay down a base of fire so I could maneuver to the stadium.
Okay, not really, but the neighborhood of Legion Field is not a big draw for the Birmingham Iron.

Have they started on the UAB stadium? I read where they expect it to completed by the 2021 season? Does that mean the AAF season or the C-USA season? After watching the other games it looked pretty obvious that the Iron play in the worst stadium hosting games this weekend.

rtr

Didn't realize the discussion here was on B'ham's Iron team.

I liked what I saw. I'll watch!!! I'd rather watch this over MLB or NBA.

Line blocking was suspect on run plays -- or else TR is 2 steps slower than he was. Looked like a JV league...a top 10 D1 team would run over them...they and the XFL are dividing what is an already diminished player pool...

They started out completely from scratch a month ago. It'd be about like the squads from the Senior Bowl playing, with both sides really trying to win. Give them a little time.

As far as Trent goes, the offensive line was abysmal until the last ten minutes of the game. Once again, all of that takes time.

Rtr

Padreruf said:

Line blocking was suspect on run plays -- or else TR is 2 steps slower than he was. Looked like a JV league...a top 10 D1 team would run over them...they and the XFL are dividing what is an already diminished player pool...

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I'm not sure how this all works (how restrictive the contract), but it seems sooner or later that 3 year 250K contract for all players is going to catch up to them. It's fine in respect to not overpaying players and going into debt fast, but it's not fine in terms of competing for talent. So if I'm an Arena, CFL, or XFL team I'm going to pay more than that for some talent I know will sell tickets. That's probably going to be one of the first problem areas.

For instance, Doug Flutie made way more than that in the CFL back when he was playing. CFL quarterbacks in general make way more than that, so they're going to have problems having talent at some positions if that's how it works.

Let's just see how this plays out before we call DOA. I watched the game yesterday and enjoyed it much better than any of the basketball games on TV at the same time. I too will watch this over baseball. For the first game it was well run and well officiated and I liked the shortened game time. If they officiate within the rules like for illegal man downfield, I think alot of the purists will like this brand of football.

I dont know anything about the XFL but there are real football people behind the AAF so I would put my money on it to survive. The bham team is stout on defense and has a game manager at QB and veteran NFL kicker. Fundamentally they played well. I think AAF has the potential to cannibalize talent from CFL just because players would rather play in country and in front of home crowds which deepen the talent pool and skill of play on the field. These players are not scabs but mid to late round NFL prospects or former players looking to catch back in the league. These are good football players.

As for tweaks, the league needs to move the games to primetime imo especially on Sunday where there is virtually no competition for viewership and quality content. The bham team should move its games to the Hoover Met or Samford stadium until crowd builds and stadium is built. Nobody wants to go to LF at any time of day. The over the mountain fans will be what sustains attendance and the franchise viable long term.



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bamamick said:

Have they started on the UAB stadium? I read where they expect it to completed by the 2021 season? Does that mean the AAF season or the C-USA season? After watching the other games it looked pretty obvious that the Iron play in the worst stadium hosting games this weekend.

rtr

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Drive by there pretty frequently. They've been doing the clearing and utility rerouting. Just had a groundbreaking and construction is expected to begin in earnest in the next few weeks. Goal is to have it done by the 2021 World Games, and those take place in mid-July.

Padreruf said:

Line blocking was suspect on run plays -- or else TR is 2 steps slower than he was. Looked like a JV league...a top 10 D1 team would run over them...they and the XFL are dividing what is an already diminished player pool...

Click to expand...

Trent had nowhere to run on most of his runs. Reminded me of poor Darby when he'd get the ball and have 2 guys in his grill before he took one step.

Now, it remains to be seen if Trent has improved and can find the available hole with good vision, but there weren't too many holes to hit for him until late in the game.

TiderJack said:

They just said on radio that the scan system for tickets on cell phones was not working very well and as the kick-off approached they started letting people in without scanning tickets. Definitley more than 17,000.

Trent is the marquee Bama player but we had a lot of guys playing.

Three of the five starting OL were Bama players. LT Brandon Greene, C JC Hassenauer and RT Dominick Jackson.

Xavier Dickson was a starting DE and had an interception.

I was very impressed with the Iron's defense and DB's as well as our QB Lopez.

I will be watching with interest.

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I saw Korren Kirven out there too on the Oline.

Padreruf said:

Line blocking was suspect on run plays -- or else TR is 2 steps slower than he was. Looked like a JV league...a top 10 D1 team would run over them...they and the XFL are dividing what is an already diminished player pool...

Click to expand...

Everyone needs to remember these guys have only been together for one month and will get better. I think your assessment of it being a JV league is way off. It is obviously not the NFL but this is their developmental league. There are 1600 NFL players on rosters and there are over 11,000 D1 players on rosters every year so while the player pool is not elite it is far from diminished. It will get better as the guys get more reps and experience.

I just heard on sports radio that 8 NFL teams have already contacted Birmingham about QB Lopez. He has obviously made an early impression and I was impressed with his arm talent and leadership.

TiderJack said:

I just heard on sports radio that 8 NFL teams have already contacted Birmingham about QB Lopez. He has obviously made an early impression and I was impressed with his arm talent and leadership.

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It’s odd that he was cut by the Rams to begin with. He basically ran a version of their system on Sunday.

TiderJack said:

I just heard on sports radio that 8 NFL teams have already contacted Birmingham about QB Lopez. He has obviously made an early impression and I was impressed with his arm talent and leadership.

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That is impressive after just one game. I definitely think there will be opportunities for some guys to use this league as a stepping stone or second chance to get back to the NFL.

KrAzY3 said:

I'm not sure how this all works (how restrictive the contract), but it seems sooner or later that 3 year 250K contract for all players is going to catch up to them. It's fine in respect to not overpaying players and going into debt fast, but it's not fine in terms of competing for talent. So if I'm an Arena, CFL, or XFL team I'm going to pay more than that for some talent I know will sell tickets. That's probably going to be one of the first problem areas.

For instance, Doug Flutie made way more than that in the CFL back when he was playing. CFL quarterbacks in general make way more than that, so they're going to have problems having talent at some positions if that's how it works.

Click to expand...

The competition for quarterbacks may be pretty fierce, but the average CFL player makes about the same thing these guys do for a much longer season. This thing is set up so that these players can go from the AAF to an NFL training camp, instead of having to leave an active CFL roster to do the same. It will be easier to move to the NFL from the AAF.

rtr

bamamick said:

The competition for quarterbacks may be pretty fierce, but the average CFL player makes about the same thing these guys do for a much longer season. This thing is set up so that these players can go from the AAF to an NFL training camp, instead of having to leave an active CFL roster to do the same. It will be easier to move to the NFL from the AAF.

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Can you name a single G-League team? I can't. Their attendance is all over the place, but it's not great. For their finals I saw attendance as low as 400, but tended to fall in the 2-3,000 range.

They are however now a true minor league for the NBA and as such the NBA has become perfectly content to fund them. That's the real question here, but the issue is the model for the NBA and the NFL is so very different from the MLB. In baseball, pretty much every star passes through the minor leagues, so you will always have some young exciting players. In the NBA and NFL, pretty much every star skips that process (if anything that's what college does). So, their minor leagues are only for fringe players, which are coincidentally far less interesting.

This means the Alliance with a mouthful for a name is set up to put out what will eventually be a rather boring offering. They won't have the top talent because they literally can't pay them, and to reiterate they're not just competing with the CFL, but also the XFL and Arena League (which of course could fold, but so could the AAFL). But, I was thinking about it and I do see what could be going on here, which is that the Alliance is just being used to keep the XFL from getting off the ground (coincidentally, they announced the Alliance a couple months after the XFL was announced and beat them to market).

There haven't been many interesting disruptors in the pro sports scene in a long time. Going back to the last true success in football, you had the AFL, then you had the ABA in basketball with their memorable 3 point line and red white and blue basketball. After that though, you get nothing but failures in terms of a disruption. USFL tried to go big, and they were interesting and drew crowds at first but of course failed miserably. The XFL's more enduring legacy is probably He Hate Me, but they were interesting at first as well, same story.

The NFL hates competition. They were wary of even their own NFL Europe for that reason. So, yeah after some consideration I can see the AAFL being used to try to undercut the XFL and keep them from succeeding. But, if they are in fact just a true NFL minor league, they'll also be very boring in the long run and lose the one true thing they have now that makes them interesting (colorful college characters with regional connections to the team). So the choice is basically be interesting and not a minor league team, and probably fail spectacularly, or be another G-League that is incredibly uninteresting but a useful tool of the NFL...