First Impressions of the AAF

Darrin Sheffer

In today's blog post I will be discussing why I think that the Alliance of American Football (AAF) league is basically the NFL's JV Squad, and why that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

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While I thought it was a little bit weird that here in Virginia CBS was showing the San Diego Fleet vs San Antonio Commanders instead of the Atlanta Legends vs Orlando Apollos I will say that I was pleasantly entertained... at least for the 1st Quarter. A friend of mine criticized the league for being essentially the JV Squad of the NFL, but that doesn't really bother me all that much. So far the AAF has done a great job of marketing and avoiding competition with the NFL. So even though it isn't the same talent level as the NFL, because the AAF openly admits this I'm not disappointed with the product on the field.

After viewing one game, I would have to rank the quality of pro football leagues like this:

1. NFL

2. CFL (Canadian Football League)

3. AAF (So Far)

4. AFL (Arena Football League)

5. Everything else

I'm excluding the XFL here because they have yet to put out a product.

Why would I place the AAF 3rd on my rankings? If you are familiar with the CFL, or Canadian Football League, you would know that football in our northern neighbor country isn't any joke. If you haven't seen a Canadian Football game I highly recommend that you do. Just look at the quality of talent that those teams have at QB: Jeremiah Masoli and Vernon Adams (Oregon Ducks) Johnny Manziel (Cleveland Browns). Last night the starting QBs in the AAF game were Logan Woodside for San Antonio (Toledo) and Mike Bercovici (Arizona State). While there were flashes of talent on the field last night, I'm convinced that most of these players would find it difficult to make a roster spot on a CFL team.

So why am I not disappointed? First: I knew what I was getting from the get go and second: it's still football! The feeling I got last night was similar to the feelings I get during Weekday MACtion during the college football season. Sure, it isn't SEC, Big Ten or ACC caliber football, but it's football and what the heck else am I going to watch on a Tuesday night? While I wasn't disappointed, I do think that there are some things the AAF can improve upon which I will touch on in another post another day.

In the meantime

Stay Obsessed!

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