It’s been seven years now since the NFL Europe league folded, but yet another developmental league could soon be on the way.
New director of football operations Troy Vincent recently said that he can see in the NFL’s future yet another league to develop talent within.
“We need to keep the pipeline of talent flowing, and that means for all areas of our game: players, coaches, scouts, game officials,” said Vincent, who recently replaced Ray Anderson. “I am responsible to look at whatever the competition committee looks at, and that includes a developmental league.
“For all this football talent around, we have to create another platform for developing it. Maybe it’s an academy — what would it look like? Maybe it’s a spring league; we’ll look to see if there is an appetite for it.”
While I like the idea of the NFL attempting to create yet another developmental league, there are certainly quite a few obstacles that will have to be overcome in order for it to be successful. I’d also like to see the new developmental league run concurrent with the NFL, but obviously the games would more than likely have to be played on Tuesday or Wednesday nights as to not compete with high school, college or NFL games.
NFL Europe certainly didn’t produce the profits that owners wanted, but it did manage to produce a few players that would go on to have success in the NFL as quarterbacks Kurt Warner and Jake Delhomme both spent time overseas.
Will it work this time around? More importantly, will it make NFL owners money? If it doesn’t, it surely won’t last long.
