The Rock on MNF

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Tank55
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Re: The Rock on MNF

Post by Tank55 »

GregParks wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:47 pm Part of me thinks that's why the XFL (and I hear the USFL is considering the same) included the win bonus, to make sure competing for team wins wasn't lost in the wash of trying to singularly impress scouts. For players, you usually don't reach this level of professional sports without having the drive to win games, no matter what other outside factors may play into things.

EDIT: I'm also kind of curious as to what situations you would find these two ideas to be "at odds." I can't remember where I read or heard it - it may have been an interview with Jonathan Hayes - but he noted that had the XFL completed its season, Kenny Robinson would have pulled out early to prepare for the NFL Draft. I think you'd likely see the same with others who are draft-eligible if they join the XFL. So...the XFL would've allowed Robinson to put his NFL interests ahead of winning games. Does that mean XFL 2.0 was developmental? Or is this just one, unique situation that doesn't reflect on the larger principles of the league? I think there's much more of a gray area here than a league being "developmental or not."
I agree, I think the win bonus is very useful in making sure incentives are properly aligned. I'd add in win/championship bonuses for the coaches and GMs as well.

For me, the two ends of the spectrum is minor league baseball and college football. In both, winning and player development happen and are important, but winning is the explicit goal of college football teams and development is the explicit goal of MiLB teams.

The most straightforward example of where these can be in conflict is playing time being given out for reasons other than winning the game. eg, let's play all three quarterbacks for the sake of all of them getting game film. Or, let's get the young guys in for some experience. etc. We see this a lot in pro sports when a team has been eliminated from playoff contention -- I think that's fine. But if XFL teams are doing that in Week 1, that's a different story.

A more extreme example would be putting players in position to grow rather than to succeed. In MiLB, pitchers are explicitly told to work on secondary pitches even if it's not necessarily going to give them the best results in that game. So imagine an XFL team picks up a QB who ran pure Air Raid in college. Rather than just have him do that in the XFL and chase wins, maybe they do something more pro style for the sake of making him a more complete prospect.

Another MiLB example would be that you have a prospect who struggles to hit lefties, so instead of platooning him like you would in the majors, you intentionally expose him to as many quality left handed pitchers as you can.

I'm all for players graduating to the NFL. I don't resent the XFL celebrating those that do. But if you're going to ask me as a fan to take your season and championship seriously, all I ask is that the league takes it seriously too.

I didn't know that Robinson wasn't going to complete the XFL season. That would have been very irritating. (Assuming that the BattleHawks were even going to be in contention with the Defenders dominating the East.) I guess so long as Hayes knew that and he felt like it was still to their advantage to sign and play him for 8 weeks or whatever, that wouldn't violate my standards. But if the XFL signed him and forced Hayes to roster and play him, that would.
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GregParks
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Re: The Rock on MNF

Post by GregParks »

I wanted to make sure I wasn't imagining this interview, so I went back and found that conversation with Hayes RE: Robinson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B7TmOp8F_E

It was actually linked on this board with this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2871&p=17565&hilit= ... yes#p17565

The relevant part starts at about 9:45. It sounds like Robinson wasn't for sure going to opt out during the season (or hadn't yet decided) but Hayes thought Robinson "could" leave at some point and in fact they were training someone behind him in the event that he left.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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That's a good piece of info. Thank you for digging that out.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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If a player, team , coach or league were not playing to win, I'd be outta here!
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Re: The Rock on MNF

Post by Sounder »

Who wants to see Rock just say "f-it" to all the small time developmental stuff and just throw down the gauntlet and take the nfl on and bring in super wealthy ownerships....drive salaries into cuckooville and make it so all the games are held on a soundstage with virtual crowds so no one can infect others since this disease thing is more or less permanent. Sorry, I'm in a mood today.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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Wasn't the MNF Jan 17 with a "2-3 - Roughly" before big news announcement.

It's going on week 8, and no I don't think a deal saying will be a test bed for NFL rules changes but no access to players - is a big deal. It's good for PR but it needs to be much more than that to be note worthy. Something may come out but it hasn't yet.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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4th&long wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:02 am Wasn't the MNF Jan 17 with a "2-3 - Roughly" before big news announcement.

It's going on week 8, and no I don't think a deal saying will be a test bed for NFL rules changes but no access to players - is a big deal. It's good for PR but it needs to be much more than that to be note worthy. Something may come out but it hasn't yet.
Yes, the 2-3 week estimation was a miss. Even if you count the NFL partnership news as a big announcement, that came at the 5 week mark. For some, and I’m sure the XFL leadership, the NFL partnership was big news. I think it was a bigger deal than some but it wasn’t the kind of news that most of us were waiting patiently for. Cities, team names, tv deals and maybe coaches are what were logically expected but aside from assuming, I don’t know if that was ever specifically promised in that 2-3 week window. If it was then I missed it.

This ownership group plays things pretty close to the vest and are in no hurry to jump to get news out. My guess is they either don’t want to have the cities released yet or they simply aren’t all nailed down. Again, I’m kind of expecting more than just a HOU to SA and a TB to ORL, but I might be wrong. If the summer showcase does go as planned in June, then I would expect these questions to be clearer by then. For me, there is no longer a question on if something is going to be announced. No way the NFL would have announced working with them if the XFL wasn’t way past that stage.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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It's not something that excites me personally, but the NFL partnership qualifies as big news, imo.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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Gopher123 wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:00 pm Yes, the 2-3 week estimation was a miss. Even if you count the NFL partnership news as a big announcement, that came at the 5 week mark. For some, and I’m sure the XFL leadership, the NFL partnership was big news. I think it was a bigger deal than some but it wasn’t the kind of news that most of us were waiting patiently for. Cities, team names, tv deals and maybe coaches are what were logically expected but aside from assuming, I don’t know if that was ever specifically promised in that 2-3 week window. If it was then I missed it.

This ownership group plays things pretty close to the vest and are in no hurry to jump to get news out. My guess is they either don’t want to have the cities released yet or they simply aren’t all nailed down. Again, I’m kind of expecting more than just a HOU to SA and a TB to ORL, but I might be wrong. If the summer showcase does go as planned in June, then I would expect these questions to be clearer by then. For me, there is no longer a question on if something is going to be announced. No way the NFL would have announced working with them if the XFL wasn’t way past that stage.
I'm not expecting too much of a radical change given how much of the executive team is carrying over, which may also factor in to the delays since there'd be less time needed to make adjustments.

TV deals need to be made by May, so that's the next hard deadline we're facing. The coaches from 2020 were announced over the course of March to May 2019, so there's still some time in that department. Perhaps they're watching the USFL to see how much of a success or flop it turns out to be; May would put them into the first few weeks of the USFL season, by which point we should see whether or not they're hitched to a lead balloon.
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Re: The Rock on MNF

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4th&long wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:02 am Wasn't the MNF Jan 17 with a "2-3 - Roughly" before big news announcement.

It's going on week 8, and no I don't think a deal saying will be a test bed for NFL rules changes but no access to players - is a big deal. It's good for PR but it needs to be much more than that to be note worthy. Something may come out but it hasn't yet.
Be honest with yourself, though: if the USFL had made the exact same announcement, you'd be hyping it up like the biggest news since sliced bread.
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