February 9th, 2019 at 9:51 PM ^
Hard to find the will to care about these teams, but the level of play is definitely there.
February 9th, 2019 at 9:44 PM ^
This thing just might work
February 9th, 2019 at 9:49 PM ^
NFL could learn from this replay process. Refs can stay on the field while someone watching upstairs makes the call, calls down to the ref and the game can starts again. The NFL drags it out way to long. Ref runs over to the coach, runs back out to the middle of the field to tell us there’s a replay, (like we didn’t know), runs over to the sideline, watches what we’ve already seen 10 times, runs back out the the middle of the field to tell everybody what we already knew.
February 9th, 2019 at 9:59 PM ^
Smith has a 2pt conversion and a TD, no extra points. Denard has one catch for about 5 yards and two rushes for no gain.
February 9th, 2019 at 10:35 PM ^
Two rushes for no gain? Is pep calling the plays?
February 9th, 2019 at 10:30 PM ^
This doesn't suck. It's cool to see how happy San Antonio is to have a football team.
February 10th, 2019 at 5:27 AM ^
Agreed. I watched the first half of the SD/SA game, and thought it wasn't bad at all. The biggest issue I saw was the rust on the QB's. More than a couple missed passes.
But the overall play was pretty good. Sure, it's minor-league football - but it's filled with guys who want to make the majors. I'll definitely watch again.
February 9th, 2019 at 10:33 PM ^
Mike Martz greatest show on turf looks a little worn out
February 9th, 2019 at 10:35 PM ^
At least we got a nice belly shot of him on his reaction from the dropped pass.
February 9th, 2019 at 10:51 PM ^
Overall ok from down here in FL watching the Atlanta/Orlando game. I’m just bummed about not seeing more of Denard. Really, the only reason we tuned in.
Nice to see Steve Spurrier involved again.
Good grief... even my wife is watching while I went to bed! ? I guess she misses M football as well!
Gosh, is it September yet? Can’t wait til M football again.
February 9th, 2019 at 10:51 PM ^
The quality of play and officiating actually looks pretty good to me. Pretty entertaining!
February 9th, 2019 at 11:21 PM ^
This actually could work out as a quasi-minor league system. Especially since these players are playing in the offseason. This is different from the G-League because you actually have to be a good team player to look successful here and it’s not the shitshow the G-League is which is basically the grown man version of watching AAU games
February 9th, 2019 at 11:28 PM ^
I enjoyed the first game. Nearly no commercials, big hits, lots of turnovers. Pretty cool how they are transparent with booth reviews. Game went by super quick (2.5 hours max). Something fun, plus you don’t give two shits who wins
February 9th, 2019 at 11:29 PM ^
Deveon Smith with first ever AAF rushing touchdown!
February 10th, 2019 at 12:25 AM ^
#FleetForLife
February 10th, 2019 at 8:24 AM ^
I kinda enjoyed the game on CBS , hard hitting and wide open offence , but hard to relate to teams/players as of now
February 10th, 2019 at 8:53 AM ^
Need a Michigan/Detroit team in this league to follow and cheer for.
February 10th, 2019 at 9:36 AM ^
I think that if you put a team in Grand Rapids and filled the roster with former B1G players from UM, MSU, Ind, Purdue, Ill, and Wisconsin, you’d have a business proposition.
February 10th, 2019 at 9:58 AM ^
Pretty damn good idea. Would put together mauling offensive lines, at a minimum. Plus there’s plenty of decent B1G QB’s that can’t make the NFL but could do fairly well in this league
February 10th, 2019 at 10:37 AM ^
Where would they play? Grand Valley? No large football stadium in GR that I’m aware of. Been away awhile, admittedly.
February 10th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
GVSU's Lubbers Stadium has a capacity of 10,444 with record crowd of more than 16,000. Nice venue, but is aways from GR. Awful weather this time of year to play outside, also.
February 10th, 2019 at 10:09 AM ^
I tried watching San Diego @ San Antonio. I think I would've preferred the other game, but it wasn't shown by my area.
I only got to halftime. Tough to watch.
February 10th, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^
is there a box score somewhere?
February 10th, 2019 at 10:20 AM ^
May be the Michigan Panthers can join the league. It would be great to have better football in Michigan again. I went to a few Panther games. Including the playoff game when we beat the Oakland Invaders in the conference championship at the Silverdome.
February 10th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
Those Panther games were alot of fun @ the Silverdome. Great team, cheap Tix and unlike the Lions, they had cheerleaders!!
February 10th, 2019 at 3:16 PM ^
Lions have caught up in cheerleaders, still trailing in championships though.
February 10th, 2019 at 3:12 PM ^
I was at that Oakland game too, and the Trump/Herschel Walker Generals game as well, in which Walker took a routine handoff up the middle for an 80 yard TD like he was shot out of fucking cannon that was shot out of another cannon!
That was my favorite pro football team of all time. So much fun to watch and root for. Hebert to Carter! Corker, Porchet, Bently, NovoBo, Holloway, Lacy, what a team!
February 10th, 2019 at 10:31 AM ^
In San Diego and this game wasn't on my radar at all 6 days ago. But listening to some local sports talk during week I became somewhat morbidly curious to watch, and did.
My initial take is that the product is pretty laughable. This essentially seems to be a NFL developmental league, in which there is no concern for who actually wins. I watched the 30min pregame to find out what the differences in rules were and there def is a few. One they highlighted was that there is a "sky cam" or some shit that will call down and reverse calls for "egregious" missed calls or bad calls or something or the other. Early on there was a 3rd down play where the runner (receiver) was CLEARLY down a half yard at least short of the 1st. Refs call 1st down. The team that got the illegit 1st down actually calls timeout before the next play (cant remember why). No review. Barely a mention by announcers - "looks like he was short" - on replay. After brief timeout play resumes. Game of inches or game of feet I guess. That was early in the game and at that point I realized - OK lets move this along quickly and figure out who has game and who doesn't. Who wins is irrelevant.
SD QB gets demolished on a dropback from defender who lowers head, crown hits QB helmet perfectly underneath from side, causing helmet to fly 8 feet in the air. Looks like dood got decapitated. Vincent Smithish but maybe even worse. "Wow what a hit" and several iterations of that for the next minute. No flag. No lie it looked awesome. This hit would probably have gotten a kid banned from ever playing in the NCAA again. NFL it would be penalty and $100,000 fine and subsequent suspension. Sky cam didn't have anything to say about it either I guess.
There were almost zero flags initially. The first one got picked up and the ref explained "After review there is no foul for illegal defensive formation". My initially response was - WTF is an illegal defensive formation, and secondly - what review? They picked up the flag immediately with almost no stoppage. Later in the game SD DID get called for "illegal defensive formation". Whuuuut? Been watching football long time - What does that mean? No explanation or mention of it by announcers. No replay. Far as I recall no mention pregame that there is a rule about illegal defensive formations.
So yeah its a joke league. I got roped into hangin around another week cause I wasn't ready to say goodbye to football but.... later - see ya in late August.
February 10th, 2019 at 12:18 PM ^
Atlanta Legends at Orlando Apollos Highlights.
February 10th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
San Diego Fleet vs. San Antonio Commanders Highlights.
February 10th, 2019 at 3:06 PM ^
Play I described above is at the 0:55 mark.
February 10th, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
AAF = Amateur AF?
I kid, I actually haven't watched it yet.
Truth be told, the more amateur it is, the more likely I am to watch. Not a fan of the packaged, consumerist pro sports leagues and hate that college sports are headed that way.