WI the NFL creates a minor league system, a la MLB?

Lets say as part of the merger with the AFL in 1970 some form of minor league system is created in the NFL. Obviously there would need to be more draft rounds and other secondary effects.

How does this affect the history of the NFL since then? Which players may never have made the majors?

I'm thinking that a guy like Jim Sorgi wouldn't have been the Colts backup for so long in a TL with minor leagues. He's the kind of guy who it seems would spend his time being traded between team's AAA clubs and used very occasionally as an emergency QB.
 
With extremely popular college football developing stars who go directly into the NFL, I'm not sure where a professional minor league fits in. Baseball doesn't have that.
 
The only way it would make sense for the NFL to develop a minor league system is if teams were to take control over development. That would mean changing the rules and having teams draft players out of high school for the minor leagues. This would kill college football as we know it and probably would change the power of the NCAA tremendously. Which would be the biggest effect in my mind. However, the NFL has a sweet deal right now with the NCAA developing their players for them at no cost to them, and colleges make a ton of money off football. So this is probably a bit out there. The possibility of development leagues, like for basketball, lasting longer than OTL is a possibility, but that wouldn't dramatically alter the history of the NFL.
 
The only way it would make sense for the NFL to develop a minor league system is if teams were to take control over development. That would mean changing the rules and having teams draft players out of high school for the minor leagues. This would kill college football as we know it and probably would change the power of the NCAA tremendously. Which would be the biggest effect in my mind. However, the NFL has a sweet deal right now with the NCAA developing their players for them at no cost to them, and colleges make a ton of money off football. So this is probably a bit out there. The possibility of development leagues, like for basketball, lasting longer than OTL is a possibility, but that wouldn't dramatically alter the history of the NFL.

I think you've got that right, except since college football is popular and well-established, it may be the minor leagues that fail to take off, rather than college football being killed. I'm no economist, but I could even see the NFL proper suffering because the minor leagues lose money for the franchises.
 
I think you've got that right, except since college football is popular and well-established, it may be the minor leagues that fail to take off, rather than college football being killed. I'm no economist, but I could even see the NFL proper suffering because the minor leagues lose money for the franchises.

That's certainly a good point. It would obviously depend on how the minor leagues were run. I think the fact that minor leagues would still be using NFL rules (and, because I'm trying to make this work, flat out not play on Saturdays, and not allow high school drafting, just make the college draft 20 rounds) might stop the colleges from complaining too much. The idea being that people wouldn't necessarily see the minors as competition to college football for revenue / audience.
 
That's certainly a good point. It would obviously depend on how the minor leagues were run. I think the fact that minor leagues would still be using NFL rules (and, because I'm trying to make this work, flat out not play on Saturdays, and not allow high school drafting, just make the college draft 20 rounds) might stop the colleges from complaining too much. The idea being that people wouldn't necessarily see the minors as competition to college football for revenue / audience.

That seems reasonable. There are a lot of college players, while most of them simply don't have the skill to succeed as pros, there are many who do. Teams have an enormous roster at the beginning of training camp, if a plan like this were implemented, they could be sent down to the minors rather than cut. What would be harmed by such a system is not the NCAA but rather the CFL and the various Arena-style leagues.
 
The NFL tried in the 80's, The WLAF then turned into NFL Europe. Problem is the owners got tired of having it around. They only half heartedly supported it and almost every year they voted to keep it another year. If the league was serious they would of supported it better and would of lasted.
 
The NFL tried in the 80's, The WLAF then turned into NFL Europe. Problem is the owners got tired of having it around. They only half heartedly supported it and almost every year they voted to keep it another year. If the league was serious they would of supported it better and would of lasted.

I think the problems there were that 1) it was half-hearted, 2) it was international and 3) it was league wide rather than based on each organization.
 
You're forgetting that football is a high contact sport. Most good players last only a few years before they are burger.

I don't know if a minor league would be advantageous for development of players for the NFL, beyond a quarterback or tight end pool. Football is just too demanding physically.

At most I could see the minors being advertisement for the big show.
 
Comparing football to baseball, there are some major league players who needed only 2 or 3 years in the minors, and others who needed 6 to 8 years in the minors before they were ready. The NFL loses a great many players who, had they only had a few more years of minor league training, would have been outstanding players.

In particular there are the players who were tagged as being suited to one role when they were freshmen in college who grew into men who should have been playing in a different position. There were also players who played their college ball in a system that didn't properly train them for the NFL, even though they had raw talent in abundance.

Perhaps the NFL should reduce their team rosters to fewer players, with minor league teams in smaller markets available for player development. Teams could call up players from their AAA teams in the event of injuries. The result would be more playing experience and pro-level coaching for bench sitters.

Or, make a deal with the colleges and NCAA to accept pro players for post-graduate study. Let the pros draft players, and then pay the tuition for those players to continue to play and be trained by the colleges. Combine that with the NCAA getting rid of their hypocrisy, and declare "pro sports" as a major field of study, with players' practice time on the field counting as lab work towards getting a BA in pro sports.

Picture a situation where NFL teams could draft high school kids and pay their tuition to an NCAA college where they would be trained to play NFL football. Right now, companies can hire high school kids and give them scholarships to attend college. Why shouldn't the NFL be able to do the same thing?
 
Picture a situation where NFL teams could draft high school kids and pay their tuition to an NCAA college where they would be trained to play NFL football. Right now, companies can hire high school kids and give them scholarships to attend college. Why shouldn't the NFL be able to do the same thing?

You seriously can't see the enormous logical error in this idea?

Companies pay for employees to get a degree because that education is directly applicable to their job.

Your proposal is the equivalent of a financial company paying for an employee to spend four years getting a fine art degree as long as the employee joins an accounting club on the weekends.

Not gonna happen.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Re: whether or no the minor league system would work...

...I remember that league back in the 80s that folks were talking about, but oddly enough it seems like there's already a minor league system out there. If Arena Football isn't minor league football, then what is it?

Heck, if you were to put in the arbitrary "Well, they've got to be playing outside," then we could always throw another failure into the mix: the XFL, which sadly was mostly Arena Football League players on grass instead of turf.

Then we can't forget the Canadian Football League, which is consistently putting out a fair number of kickers and offensive linemen for teams all over the NFL.

If you ask me, the NFL has a farm system but it's a lot more decentralized and wonky than the MLB's is.
 
Isnt the Canadian Football League something like a minor league NFL?

CFL players dont make as much as NFL players do and CFL players are always hoping they can make an NFL team.
 
I suppose the main difference is that the Arena League and CFL technically compete with the NFL, a true minor league obviously wouldn't.

The main issue with the XFL was that it was run by Vince MacMahon.
 
Perhaps a better time for the POD would be in the 1930s or 1950s, during the two periods where there were movements to abolish college football, on the grounds that it was unrelated to the academic mission. (Ever wonder why large private schools like NYU, Chicago, Georgetown, etc. don't have BCS football teams? That's why!)
 
The idea was first proposed by Arch Ward, a Chicago sportswriter, back in the '30s (he also had the concept for the All Star game, by the way). Obviously it never quite caught on. There have been some attempts over time but all fizzled after a handful of years of operation (there was a Continental Football League in the '60s, for example).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Football_League
 
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Perhaps a better time for the POD would be in the 1930s or 1950s, during the two periods where there were movements to abolish college football, on the grounds that it was unrelated to the academic mission. (Ever wonder why large private schools like NYU, Chicago, Georgetown, etc. don't have BCS football teams? That's why!)

Thanks for the info. I had wondered about Georgetown, never thought about the others though.
 
Perhaps a better time for the POD would be in the 1930s or 1950s, during the two periods where there were movements to abolish college football, on the grounds that it was unrelated to the academic mission. (Ever wonder why large private schools like NYU, Chicago, Georgetown, etc. don't have BCS football teams? That's why!)


For a while, NYU and Chicago did have teams that were national powerhouses, but as you note, they fell by the wayside in the '30s. For unrelated reasons--money, and a chronically losing program--Vermont dropped football after the '71 season, I think. The Catamounts were perennial tail-enders in what was then the six school Yankee Conference.
 
I suppose the main difference is that the Arena League and CFL technically compete with the NFL, a true minor league obviously wouldn't.

The main issue with the XFL was that it was run by Vince MacMahon.

The XFL wasn't that big a failure - many of the areas where it wasn't doing so well weren't neccessarily it's fault, and it's actual demise (which was arguably premature), was probably the logical decision for McMahon due to what the broadcasters did at the end of the first (and only) year.

The gates weren't that bad - supposedly the California franchise averaged around 35,000 for home games, compare to 6,000 for the UFL team. Don't know about the other teams, but I imagine they were good for a new team. ABC news broadcasts, ESPN, the FOX empire et al were strongly disinclined to broadcast it due to their NFL interests, and there were the other issues as well.

However, it was the networks that hammered the nails in the coffin. NBC, who already aired Mr McMahon's WWE programming, promised to air the first two seasons. However, after year one NBC told Vince that they would drop the XFL. Even after that they were considering expanding to Detroit and DC (I wouldn't have chose those two myself, but that's another issue). UPN then said they would drop it if Smackdown wasn't shortened from 2 hours to one and a half. Vince wouldn't take it, ergo, no TV, ergo no XFL.
 
You seriously can't see the enormous logical error in this idea?

Companies pay for employees to get a degree because that education is directly applicable to their job.

Your proposal is the equivalent of a financial company paying for an employee to spend four years getting a fine art degree as long as the employee joins an accounting club on the weekends.

Not gonna happen.

You're taking that out of context. I'm suggesting that policy within the context of colleges training students for a career in professional sports. The men currently called "coaches" in the NCAA would be re-classified "professors". Academic credit would be given to students studying for careers in professional spectator sports for their time spent on the practice field and playing in games.

Studying for a Bachelor of Science in Professional Spectator Sports would be little different from students in the Carnegie Mellon drama department studying to become actors, or the Point Park University school of dance studying to become ballet dancers. NCAA school teams would no longer be "clubs", they'd be parts of a course of studies.

So, in that case, how would getting a Bachelor of Science in Pro Spectator Sports, with a major in football and a minor in linebacking not be applicable to a career as an NFL linebacker?
 
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