When Vince McMahon first launched the XFL approaching two decades ago, it was branded as an alternative to the NFL that would give you the opportunity to see elements of football that you wanted to see but couldn’t—or that you didn’t even know you wanted until you see it. Remember, ‘the X stands for Extreme’.
While the league is still a little under 11 months away from officially relaunching, they have been brainstorming a variety of ideas about how to ‘enhance’ the game, in order to help separate it from what is already out there (you know, the NFL).
Apparently, according to XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck, while the league is also going to do away with the point-after kick, as the AAF did, they are not going to do away with the one-point conversion. In fact…they’re going to add a three-point conversion as well.
At least assuming that it all goes through to the final product, when you score a touchdown in the XFL, a team is going to be faced with the option of attempting a one-, two, or three-point play, so that you could score either six, seven, eight, or nine points in total after each touchdown.
A one-point conversion will be attempted from the two-yard line as a standard scrimmage play. likewise, a two-point conversion attempt will begin from the line of scrimmage being the five-yard line, and a three-point attempt will start from the 10-yard line.
McMahon originally announced the XFL’s resurrection over a year ago—even before the AAF announced its own origins—but in contrast to the failed league, the XFL has had the time to prepare for a longer duration because of their solid financial backing through its founder’s own funds.
During this preparation time, they are giving a lot of consideration to how they present their product, both to the public and on the field, and that includes the possibility of a number of tweaks to the rules of the game.
The XFL has something of a partnership with The Spring League, and evidently one thing that The Spring League is going to experiment with is using its offensive linemen in two-point stances. I believe the rationale behind this is primarily oriented toward player safety, but it’s easy to imagine this being a spectacular failure and not making it to the XFL.
With the AAF seemingly folding with little hope of a resurrection, the XFL at the moment appears to be the last best hope for a legitimate off-time football league. McMahon claims to be in it for at least a few years, willing to entertain some lean seasons in the beginning, but we’ll see what happens after he loses millions of dollars.
