With the rise of Ice Cube’s 3-on-3 basketball league, “The Big 3”, and it being summer time with no other sports going on outside of baseball, we should embrace the new American Flag Football League. Much like Ice Cube’s idea, hopefully this will be the place where retired players are able to go out onto a field and relive some of their past glory days.
The idea of this sort of league is starting to take some form. There is an American Flag Football League that is forming in San Jose. Per Pro Football Talk: According to Sal Pizarro of the Bay Area News Group, former stars including Terrell Owens and Michael Vick will be among the players involved in tonight’s game of the American Flag Football League in San Jose.
The group plans to play a full schedule next year, but tonight’s game is their version of a preseason game, to work out the kinks of the game and the broadcasting.
“When I think about football in the future for guys who want to further their career, this could be an opportunity for them,” Vick said in a video posted on the AFFL’s Facebook page. “They could get enjoyment and fulfillment out of the flag league. I just wanted to be one of the first pioneers being involved.”
However, where the league has the right idea, it doesn’t give up a lot of information. Outside of a few clips on the league’s Facebook page; there isn’t much on if the setting will be a 7-on-7 format with the old way of counting “Mississippi’s” before rushing on a quarterback.
So far only Vick, Owens, and recently on Twitter, Chad “OchoCino” Johnson, have shown up on the field. The thoughts of who could join them next is certainly perplexing. Could we see heroes of our past show up like: Hines Ward, Peyton Manning, or Deion Sanders? Drew Brees is still in the NFL but is already latching onto the idea heavily.
Or, will this American Flag Football League be a place where the outcasts of the NFL go like, like Tim Tebow, or maybe Ray Rice.
Either way, the AFFL is something that needs to happen for those of us who need a football fix; and don’t want to stumble on to a Canadian Football League game (no disrespect to the CFL). If the “Big 3” can find a home on Fox Sports, surely something like the AFFL can find a place on our televisions, tablets, or smartphones, sometime either this or next summer.
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