Cue eye rolls. Believe me, I know every football fan has a football hangover from Sunday’s Super Bowl LIV. A good game that saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers 31-20. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the youngest quarterback to win both the Super Bowl and MVP at the ripe old age of 24. But don’t worry, the XFL is literally right around the corner.
Why XFL? Why Now?
Now, you’re wondering why we are throwing the XFL and the Tampa Bay Vipers at you so fast, well in case you haven’t heard, this Saturday is the start of the new Spring football league. The 10 week season will begin this Saturday with the final regular-season game being played on April 12th. The divisional playoffs will be a week later on April 19th. Then the XFL Championship between the East representative and West representative will take place on Saturday, April 26th. Sometime shortly after the NFL announces the 2020 NFL Draft’s Mr. Irrelevant.
ABC Action news put together a good video about the new professional football Spring league. Featured in the 11-minute video is league commissioner Oliver Luck (father to Andrew), and a good look inside Raymond James Stadium on a beautiful day. Also seen in the video is the original commercial introducing us to the Vipers.
When and Where
Tune in this Sunday to see the Vipers at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford to begin the season against the New York Guardians. Stick around to see how crazy an offense looks when the coaches are talking directly into the helmets of the offensive players. The league is so intent on speeding up the game of football that they have hired an extra official whose only job is to quickly spot the ball on each play.
The Coaches
Head Coach Marc Trestman will lead Tampa Bay up against the Guardians head coach Kevin Gilbride. You know I couldn’t pass up the chance to include the sideline dustup between the departed Buddy Ryan and Gilbride from 1993 (seen here).
So football fans will get their first look at Vince McMahon’s reimagination of the XFL this weekend. The Super Bowl football hangover will have subsided, then you just might hear voices saying, “are you ready for some Spring football?”.
