Pro Football is Year-Round Now, and I Am Here For It

The Super Bowl Champion has been crowned, and with that, another NFL season came to a close, thus beginning the longest offseason in sports. The NBA and NHL take the summer and the month of September off. MLB is off during the winter months, but when the Lombardi Trophy is awarded, the day after kicks off a seven-month offseason, with the NFL Draft being the only relevant blip between the final whistle on Super Bowl Sunday, and the opening kickoff of the following season. For the most part, that had been the case.

Until now.

I got off into the Canadian Football League a decade ago because, as I said in my story detailing my interest in the CFL, it helps make the wait for the NFL easier. But recent years have improved things. The USFL returned last year, and we will see a second season, while this year will see the return of the XFL as well. Pro football is now all year-round, and if there's any sport that should be year round, it's football. Those who know me and have read a lot of my sports stories would think that I would want hockey to be year-round, but here's the thing. I get a full year's worth of hockey with the chaotic regular season alone, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs are even more wild, so we do need a few months to breathe after the Cup's awarded. The thought of seeing four different pro football leagues in a calendar year is absolutely salivating, and I am all in!

It all starts with the returning XFL. Well...the twice-returning XFL. My memories about the original league are vague, but names like Tommy Maddox and Rod "He Hate Me" Smart still stay in my subconscious 22 years later. It was a fun league devised by Vince McMahon, and I also recall watching the games on NBC and what was then known as The National Network during that 2001 run. The league didn't get a second season, but Vince resurrected the XFL in 2020, coming one year after the Alliance of American Football had to fold. I was very excited for the XFL's return, and watched the games, but unfortunately. the incoming COVID-19 pandemic caused that league to be shut down.

We have Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and his ex-wife/business partner, Dany Garcia, to thank for the XFL's "re-return," and it definitely looks like this time, the XFL has a high level of staying power. I'll be honest, the 2020 XFL looked like it would succeed, even as recently as what would be the final week before the shutdown. Now with Rock's company behind the wheel, I definitely see the XFL sticking around--coming just six days after the Super Bowl! Yes, the XFL starts in the latter half of February and crowns a champion in May, meaning that the league crosses paths with March Madness, the tail end of the NBA and NHL's regular seasons, and the beginning of their playoffs, and the beginning of the MLB season.

It was a year ago that the USFL, the league that attempted to serve as a secondary football league during the 1980s, made its return. It was supposed to be a spring/summer league, and there were plans for the league to compete with the NFL, but they ended up folding. The league returned to its spring/summer roots in 2022, with the season kicking off in mid-April with a champion crowned in July. The USFL crosses paths with the entire Stanley Cup and NBA Playoffs (Finals included), and the first half of the MLB season.

In their return season, all of the USFL's games were played in Birmingham, Alabama in front of a limited crowd, which I found odd because this wasn't a COVID-type situation. The playoff games were played in Canton, Ohio, which also hosted the championship game, which saw the Birmingham Stallions victorious over the Philadelphia Stars. Yikes, poor Philly. For their sophomore season back in action, all eight teams will play in their home cities, meaning that eight markets containing a generation that isn't familiar with the USFL, will have one hell of an experience.

And then there's the CFL. I do love the Canadian league, because it's definitely a different animal from the NFL. I've watched CFL games since 2013, and I absolutely enjoy every season due to their rules and how close a lot of the games are. The CFL season usually starts right after the NHL's Stanley Cup is awarded, the regular season ends either in the end of October or the beginning of November, and the Grey Cup is awarded on American Thanksgiving weekend.

As a result of this schedule, the CFL clashes with the second half of the MLB season and the entire MLB postseason (including the World Series). In addition to clashing with the beginning of the NBA and NHL seasons, it also operates during a good part of the NFL season, which is immensely interesting.

So yes, football fans, the gridiron game now takes over the entire calendar year, as at least one of the four pro football leagues will be in season during some parts of all 52 weeks of the calendar. It's going to be an absolutely amazing experience, especially since each of the four leagues have their different set of rules.

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