#xfl

"Basically, my opponent is going to hate me. After I win, he’s gonna hate me. It is what it is. It’s a saying I was saying when I’d feel something wasn’t going my way. For example, (when) I was on the squad in Vegas and coach was putting other guys in, (if) I felt I’m better than them, you know, hey, ‘he hate me.’ See what I’m saying? Give me a chance. That’s all I ask. It came from the heart. Within. The way I felt. I feel as if everyone hates me, from my mom to my dad and even my brothers and sisters everyone ‘Hates Me’."

He Hate Me was not the only great XFL nickname. Los Angeles Xtreme players Jamal Duff, Errick Herrin and Rashan Shehee were “Deathblow”, “E-Rupt” and “The Truth.” Smart’s teammate Chrys Chukwuma was “Chuckwagon.” The San Francisco Demons had “Hit Squad” (Otis Floyd) and “Super C” (Craig Powell). The Memphis Maniax had “Big Cat” (Antonio Anderson). Memphis quarterback Jim Druckenmiller had “Druck” on the back of his jersey.

from XFL: Why I Still Love He Hate Me

Well, the XFL, on its Web site, refers to its championship game “the Big Game at the End,” an obvious poke at Super Bowl self-importance. In also has a set salary scale that pays the winning players more for each game than the losers, which tends to amp up the fourth quarter. Of course, savvy followers of big-time college football might wonder what’s so innovative about paying players to win, but XFL players actually get paid over the table.

from Me Like They

[F]ootball violence is an eternal violence. It only seems as if it’s a relic of a less civilized time, because it’s been with us for so long. This inability to see things clearly, I suspect, is more prevalent among the likes of Gladwell, me, and other members of the mainstream media. The participants themselves, the ones punished by the game, are not so dismissive. One theme of sportswriter Tyler Dunne’s The Blood and Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football, is that these men accept their fate, painful though it may be. On my podcast, Dunne told me, “I haven’t talked to one football player who has said, ‘I would not do it again,’ when they’re in pain.”

In Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone’s meditation about football’s hold on the American mind, the coach, played by Al Pacino, waxes poetic about what retired quarterbacks miss most about playing football. It wasn’t the girls or the glory.  “You know what he missed?” the coach tells us. “What he missed were those other guys looking back at him in the huddle. Those 11 guys, every one of them, seeing things the same way.” A commonly heard refrain from athletes. 

from Why America Needs Football. Even Its Brutality.

Lynch, who made it clear that he would “rock” with Wilson on the field at any moment, just as they did as teammates, then told a story about a phone call with Wilson. The running back said that, after a game where Lynch had a better game than Wilson, he wanted to reach out to let the quarterback know he had his back. However, Lynch didn’t have Wilson’s number so he tried to get it through a member of the front office, leading to a strange interaction. “I don’t know how, all I know is I got a call from a blocked number,” Lynch said, referring to Wilson calling him. “This is the first time I tried to have a conversation with Russ.”