UFL Says "Hello World!"

Thursday and Saturday of last week will be remembered for good football games.

No, I'm not talking about the Florida vs. LSU game. I'm not talking about the Nebraska vs. Mizzou game either.

I'm talking about the United Football League. The newest startup football league unveiled its product to the world on Thursday in the form of a nationally broadcast game. The Las Vegas Locomotives and the California Redwoods battled it out at Sam Boyd Stadium, the home of the UNLV football team. On Saturday the other two teams, the Florida Tuskers and the New York Sentinels hit the field at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. Both Florida and Las Vegas had to come from behind to win their games with Las Vegas winning 30-17 and Florida storming back to a 35-13 victory.

With any fledgling sports league there is always a certain amount of initial buzz. People are interested in the "new and shiny" things in sports and the UFL is no exception.

I am a football fan first and foremost so I decided to jump headlong into the UFL and see what it was all about.

The games are broadcast on either VS or HDNet and each game is available from the UFL's website to be watched live or streaming after the games completion. This is important to note because:

A) The UFL has picked up a national broadcast sponsor. Versus may not carry the same importance to as say ESPN or CBSSports but that doesn't matter. What matters is that the UFL is being placed in front of American football fans to be seen.

B) Having the games available live online and then streamed afterwards means I can be a fan on my own time. I have the luxury of working at a place where I can watch a lot of games on the T.V. If I have to leave before the game's over I'm stuck trying to keep up with it through my phone or a web site once I get home. With the accessibility I'm given with the games I haven't missed a down. I can watch part of the game at one time, pause it, come back later and finish it up.

Having a nice website and a broadcast is all well and good but the biggest question facing the UFL is if the product will be good. There seems to be this weird stigma that if the teams playing aren't the first-team of an NFL team or one of the BCS conference college teams that the football product is lacking. When there are NFL teams who can't score a single point that's lacking. When a quarterback is getting paid millions of dollars but can't complete anywhere close to 50 percent of his passes that's lacking.

Here's an idea, watch the game! Don't complain about the football. You're watching football, that is reason enough to enjoy it.

For people who think all the UFL is castoffs from the NFL and players that didn't get drafted just watch a game and look at the stats. The quality of players is not so much a big deal as the quality of competition. If the teams are more closely matched the game is going to be better.

Here's a quick stat comparison of the leading quarterbacks last week in the UFL and NFL.

QB A: 20-26, 225 yards, 4 tds & 1 int

QB B: 20-34, 351 yards, 2 tds

QB C: 2-17, 23 yards, 0 tds

QB D: 21-31, 226 yards, 2 tds

Each of these quarterbacks won their games. Can you guess which ones are the UFL players just by looking at the stats? Of course not. If you must know A and D are the two UFL winners over last weekend. A is Brooks Bollinger, formerly of the Dallas Cowboys, and D is J.P. Losman, formerly of the Buffalo Bills. Even though they hadn't blow us all away with their performances in the NFL they each made some great passes over the weekend that helped their teams win. B and C are the two NFL players. B is Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys and D is Derek Anderson of the Cleveland Browns. Their stats were the best (Romo) and worst (Anderson) of a game winning quarterback for the NFL this past week. Anderson won his game 6-3 over the Bills. That was not a good football product to watch.

This isn't meant to be a competition. Nowhere has a member of the UFL stated that they are going to take on the NFL in any capacity. The best possible scenario that I can foresee would be the UFL acting as the minor league to the NFL. For whatever reason the NFL is the only major professional team sport league in the country to not have a minor league. The NHL as the AHL. The MLB has the MiLB and the NBA has the NBA-DLeague.

Will this ever actually happen? Who knows. What I do know is that the UFL is real football and if they play their cards right they can build a long lasting, successful league.

Give the new kids a chance and you might actually be a little bit impressed.

--UFL Logo from www.ufl-football.com