Drew Kerekes

Last weekend one of my best friends, Jay, and I pondered a question to ourselves: Imagine an alternate universe where the XFL not only continued to exist after its first year, but overtook the NFL as our country’s professional football league of choice.

For those unfamiliar with the Xtreme Football League — or those who chose to forget — it was a professional football league run by World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE) owner Vince McMahon and NBC, presented as an alternative to the NFL for fans wanting more lenient celebration rules, perhaps too-clever gimmicks and an overall “rougher” brand of football. It lasted just a single season, but there are plans to revive the league by 2020, though without the gimmicks.

Not too long ago, me and Elton Hayes went down the YouTube rabbit hole and came across a video of the XFL’s first coin toss. Except, it wasn’t a coin toss, but a “scramble.” Each team had a player line up on each side of a referee, with a ball planted some distance away. Instead of calling heads or tails to determine first possession, the referee would blow his whistle, and the two players would race to see who could possess the ball first, which decided the “coin toss.”

The whole thing was utterly clownish, yet entirely believable when considering it was run by the same man that ran the then-WWF. My friend and I exchanged tweets about how a modern-day XFL would look if it had continued on its 2001 trajectory, while the NFL faded away. Here are just a few scenarios we came up with, plus some more with more time to think:

•Vince McMahon tells San Francisco Demons quarterback Colin Kaepernick he needs to stand during the National Anthem, this despite the fact that teams don’t take the field until after the anthem is played, and his “kneeling” amounts to him sitting in front of his locker prior to walking out into the tunnel. The real story is that Kaepernick called out McMahon in an interview for not letting him write “Stop Police Brutality” on the back of his jersey, as XFL players are usually allowed to print whatever they want in the location where the name usually is.

McMahon suspends him, but the Demons need a quarterback because backup Kirk Cousins — with “You Like That!” prominently displayed on the back of his jersey every week — is out with strained vocal chords due to shouting his favorite catch phrase one too many times. In an interesting twist, the Demons announced they have purchased the contract of Ohlin Capernaum from QuarterbackFactory.com, a player who looks eerily similar to Kaepernick, except with bleached blonde hair and the words “Totally Not Colin Kaepernick” on the back of his jersey. He even possesses the same skill set as Kaepernick but is totally not Kaepernick, y’all.

•Despite the league’s effort to promote a rougher, tougher brand of football, the realities of CTE force it to go in the opposite direction. Targeting penalties are similar to college football in that they result in an ejection, except it’s also like a power play in hockey, where the team is not allowed to substitute a player for the ejected player.

Two players collide with the ball carrier, both going helmet-to-helmet. The resulting ejections mean that it’s now a handicapped match, with the home team only fielding nine players. (Props to Jay for that one.)

•With only 14 points in the first half, Miami Vice head coach Will Smith is fed up that South Beach’s offense isn’t “bringing the heat” like the lyrics to his hit song “Miami” says. He fires his offensive coordinator at halftime and hires Brett Favre to call plays the rest of the game.

•A press conference is called by McMahon to announce a new general manager of the XFL, as McMahon is stretched thin between it and the WWE. 

It’s LaVar Ball. (Props to Jay.) Needless to say, their working relationship isn’t exactly smooth, as Ball wants to develop an XFL minor league to allow football players to bypass college, while McMahon prefers to keep the college football fans that also follow his league happy by maintaining the current system.

Things reach a fever pitch when Ball announces a strike, led by him, during Week 9. Ball backs down, however, when McMahon bribes LeBron James to demand the Lakers trade Ball’s son Lonzo unless the elder Ball gets in line.

•Las Vegas Outlaws defensive end J.J. Watt has four sacks in the first quarter against the Chicago Enforcers. Chicago’s general manager then hires a team of actual enforces from the mob to kidnap the Las Vegas general manager and force him to accept a trade, mid-game, of Watt to the Enforcers in exchange for the Outlaws’ backup left guard.

•The XFL encourages its players to date cheerleaders. Former Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron’s wife, Katherine Webb-McCarron, is a cheerleader for the Birmingham Bolts, McCarron’s team.

“McCarron hits Antonio Brown on an 8-yard pitch and toss,” TV play-by-play announcer Brent Musberger says on the air. “And let’s take a look at the beautiful Mrs. McCarron. Boy, isn’t she immaculate?”

The color commentator responds, “Brent, you do know we’re calling the Rage-Maniax game here in Orlando, right?”

•Marshawn Lynch doesn’t even have to explain his presence at post-game press conferences, as he simply keeps his team uniform on, walks into the conference room and turns his back to the media with the words “I’m Just Here So I Won’t Get Fined” prominently displayed on the back of his jersey.

Also, Pete Carroll’s decision not to hand the ball off to him on second down during the XFL Championship was entirely scripted for the sake of post-game discussion. Stinks for the fans of the Seattle Krakens, though.

•The Cleveland Browns are the only team the XFL inherited after the NFL’s closure due to a deal between the team’s ownership and McMahon that was never made public. With a combined 4-44 the previous three seasons, the Browns decide to play an exhibition game against the Alabama Crimson Tide, which coincides with Alabama’s spring game.

It isn’t exactly clear why Nick Saban agrees to do this, but for some reason, he does. Cleveland wins 44-6. (In this timeline, Alabama can actually make field goals, and it makes two against the Browns.) Everyone finally stops declaring that the best college football team could beat the worst pro football team.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.