A Brief History of Pro Football
Hey there FCFL community,
While we are squarely focused on our upcoming token sale and getting the public access to FAN token, we can’t help but feel this excitement for the real action to come in 2018: FOOTBALL! We are pumped to deliver an interactive product never before seen within the ranks of professional sports (save the 2017 Salt Lake Screaming Eagles and their third-ranked IFL offensive powerhouse).
While the FCFL will be on the cutting-edge of the fan experience, blending technology and engagement in a way that was impossible before the rise of mobile access, we are hardly the first to launch a secondary football organization to the incomparable National Football League. Many future football stars got their starts in leagues outside of the NFL, and one league proved so worthy an opponent that it wound up merging. In anticipation of the launch of the FCFL, we present to you: the top six moments in professional football that took place outside of the NFL:
6) After brief stints in the USFL and NFL, Heisman trophy winner and Boston College legend Doug Flutie signed with the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in 1990. Flutie was the league’s highest-paid player, and after struggling in his rookie season, he would go on to become one of the greatest players in CFL history to this day, going 99–27 as a starter in his final seven seasons and winning three Grey Cups, one with the Calgary Stampeders (where his backup was future NFL pro-bowler and Terrell Owens’s personal QB Jeff Garcia) and two with the Toronto Argonauts. Flutie returned to the NFL in 1998, putting together a successful late career that included leading the Buffalo Bills to the 1999 postseason, brief stints as a backup with the San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots, and (who can forget?) the first successful dropkick the league had seen in decades (which earned him the coveted distinction as AFC Special Teams Player of the Week).
In 2006, Flutie was recognized as the greatest player in CFL history on a list of 50 players conducted by Canadian broadcaster TSN. During his career, he was named the league’s most outstanding player six times and was named MVP of the Grey Cup three times. He led the league in passing five times, including throwing for a preposterous 6,619 yards in a single season. He did this all while standing at a cool 5’9” and was somehow able to see above a professional offensive line.
In a league that has produced several future NFL stars, including Warren Moon, Cameron Wake, Joe Horn, Joe Theismann, and the aforementioned Garcia, Flutie stands to this day as the face of the CFL.
5) After several decades of complications around stadium leasing and broadcasting logistics, the USFL officially launched its operations in 1982 and played its first season in the spring of 1983. Best known for its strategy of out-bidding the NFL for the services of the best outgoing collegiate talent, the USFL put together an outstanding collection of players on the field, many of whom were setting records for the largest contracts in professional sports.
From Reggie White to Jim Kelly to Gary Zimmerman to Steve Young, the USFL featured a cast of young talent that would go on to reach the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In its three years of existence, the league signed all three previous years’ Heisman Trophy Winners, including pushup machine Herschel Walker (who could probably still rip off 4 yards per carry today), Mike Rozier from the University of Nebraska, and some guy named Flutie. The league was even able to lure in some veteran NFL players, including 1980 NFL MVP winner Brian Sipe. These days, it is most notable for the involvement of a future politician.
4) In 1998, the World League of American Football officially shifted to a new format: NFL Europe. A Paul Tagliabue project meant to be a spring developmental league for the NFL, NFL Europe featured teams like the Berlin Thunder, the London Monarchs, and the Barcelona Dragons, who had just come off a WLAF championship led by future NFL starting QB Jon Kitna.
NFL Europe served as a stepping stone for several other future NFL quarterbacks. At one point, the Amsterdam Admirals had future pro bowler and NFC champion Jake Delhomme… as their backup. The starter? Two-time NFL MVP Kurt Warner. That’s a quarterback duo that rivals the 2006 Green Bay Packers and 2001 New England Patriots.
3) THIS… IS… THE XFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a sitting governor — Jesse Ventura — calling football games for the XFL. A sitting governor. Calling football games. For the XFL. While the league is most remembered for its more WWF-facing attributes and the pomp and circumstance exhibited by its incomparable leader, Vince McMahon, the quality of play was actually quite high, even if players were literally injuring themselves during what amounted to the coin toss.
Unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances, most notably being the league’s joint ownership structure with NBC, the XFL was shut down after just one season of operation. But many of its innovations, including more intimate production and massive video screens, live on in the modern NFL.
2) Only one league was so powerful as to literally challenge the NFL. That challenge, of course, was the original Super Bowl, and that challenger was the American Football League.
The first Super Bowl, or Super Bowl I, was a matchup between the NFL champion Green Bay Packers and the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs. Unfortunately for the challenger, the heavily favored Packers laid a smack-down, 35–10. Not so easy to beat Vince Lombardi.
However, the peak moment of the AFL would come two years later, when a gregarious dreamboat who went by the name of Broadway Joe famously guaranteed that the underdog New York Jets would beat the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, who featured the greatest player of the generation, Johnny Unitas. The video of Namath running off the field after a 16–7 victory wagging his finger remains perhaps the most iconic image in football’s history.
Following that game, the AFL and NFL would announce a merger into what now represents the modern incarnation of the National Football League.
1) Duh.
The Screaming Eagles take the field in 2017 as the first ever fan-controlled professional football team, run wild on the field, see Verlon Reed engineer the third-ranked offense in the league en route to a Rookie of the Year award, and take the IFL by storm.
Just a taste of things to come.
Director of Communications
