Sports: XFL promises football, with no leaps from the top rope

XFL promises football, with no leaps from the top rope

By JOHN C. COTEY

If you're looking for body slams, leg drops and People's Elbows, you might want to look elsewhere. Perhaps cable television.

Want to see The Rock sack Stone Cold Austin and do a dance over his carcass? Cable television.

Want to see Kurt Angle run a reverse around Triple H? Cable television.

Want to see football, as in F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L, with passes and long runs and touchdowns and all the good stuff that makes you tune in on Sundays?

Well, now you're smelling what Vince McMahon is cooking: the X-treme Football League.

Despite all the jokes, all the late-night monologue cracks, all the water cooler humor, XFL officials think you might be surprised at what they have to offer when the fledgling football league kicks off its 10-week season Feb. 3 in front of a national television audience on NBC.

"Real football," said Orlando Rage general manager Tom Veit. "It's real because people are too smart to try to give them anything else. The football fan is very intelligent, and you can't fool them.

"We will not be offering them a bastardized version of the sport."

What he says it will offer is this: Football With Attitude, the league's slogan.

So who will play this football with attitude? Legitimate football players, the XFL promises. Veit is in Chicago today for the first 10 rounds of the XFL draft as the league begins stocking rosters for eight teams: Los Angeles, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York/New Jersey and Chicago.

Instead of pro wrestlers, it's pro football players, and some the average football fan should recognize: 1994 Heisman Trophy winner Rashan Salaam and former first-round NFL picks such as Jim Druckenmiller, Tommy Maddox, John Avery, Marcus Nash and Mike Croel, to name a few, have signed with the league.

Others won't be so recognizeable. But league officials are convinced there are enough college players who didn't get a shot, Arena Football players looking to return to the outdoor game, and -- perhaps most importantly -- former NFL players squeezed out of that league's salary cap to make for good football.

And to run these new teams, familiar names like Ron Meyer (Chicago), Gerry DiNardo (Birmingham), Rusty Tillman (New York/New Jersey) and Al Luginbill (Los Angeles) have been hired.

"What Vince McMahon is doing is using the WWF for the marketing, NBC for the broadcasting and he's hired football people to handle the football side," Veit said. "It's not like he'll be out there calling plays."

Teams will make 10 selections today from a pool of about 1,500 players already under contract to the league. They also will announce their 11 territorial picks. Each team was assigned three schools to choose those players from. The Rage's schools are Central Florida, Florida and Miami.

The draft will finish Monday after each team has selected 70 players.

McMahon, who owns the popular World Wrestling Federation, Inc., is convinced his football plan will work and has committed $100-million to the project over the next three years. Whereas the United States Football League failed because of its gargantuan contracts and its challenge to compete with the NFL, the XFL, with its fixed salaries and spring schedule, seems to have learned a valuable lesson: There will be no competition to the league in February and March, unless you count figure skating.

A $100,000 bonus paid to the winning team will ensure competitiveness, and players will make approximately $50,000 per season with bonuses. And McMahon's track record is impressive, having revived wrestling and setting new standards with his Monday and Thursday television ratings.

The success of his wrestling venture was enough to convince NBC to take a 50 percent interest in the league. The network will show a Sunday game all 10 weeks of the season plus playoffs, while UPN (which airs WWF Smackdown!) and TNN (which airs WWF Raw is War) will show the other games, meaning that every XFL game will be televised.

Already, the league has made a believer out of Rage coach Galen Hall, who left his NFL Europe job for the new league.

"This isn't a gimmick league," Hall said. "I wouldn't have taken this job otherwise. And I think it's gonna be a very good level of football, right behind the NFL, the reason being that we will bring in some of these players that have been caught in salary caps. Guys like Druckenmiller and Pat Barnes and Jeff Brohm. I think you're going to get some of those older veterans, and some new guys too."

The XFL will follow most of the NFL's standard rules, but there are differences it thinks will make its version a more exciting brand. For example, players need only one foot inbounds on receptions, quarterbacks can't slide, there are no fair catches on punts and the ball is live after 25 yards, halftime is 10 minutes, and teams have 35 seconds to get off plays instead of the NFL's 45 seconds.

And sack dances? Not just allowed, but encouraged.

"This thing is real," Veit said. "The business plan is strong, and McMahon knows it doesn't work unless the football is real."

- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.

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WHAT: The XFL's Player Allocation Selection System (P.A.S.S) draft.

WHEN: Today through Sunday.

WHERE: Chicago Marriott O'Hare for first 10 rounds and territorial selections; remaining rounds via telephone conference call.

DRAFT ORDER: Los Angeles Xtreme, Birmingham Bolts, Memphis Maniax, Orlando Rage, Las Vegas Outlaws, San Francisco Demons, New York/New Jersey Hitmen and Chicago Enforcers.

OUTLOOK: Vince McMahon's XFL finally gets to put some faces to its name as 560 players will find homes over the course of the three-day draft. Players will come from a pool of former NFL, NFL-Europe, Arena and Canadian Football League players that have applied to XFL and have been offered and signed a standard XFL player's contract. No players currently under contract to other professional football teams or leagues are eligible for the draft, which will eliminate current CFL players until Dec. 1, when the league holds a supplemental draft. The draft will be in serpentine order, with the team selecting last in first round receiving the first pick in second round, and will be carried live on the Internet at www.XFL.com. The league begins play Feb. 3.

- Compiled by John C. Cotey.