NFL Minor League Part 1 - TDenverFan's Blog

TDenverFan's Blog

NFL Minor League Part 1

Posted on October 14, 2012 at 04:41 PM.

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Undeniably, football is everywhere in the States. The NFL dominates many cities, and those lacking NFL teams often have a large college football team in the area (USC-LA, Bama-Tuscaloosa, FSU-Tallahasse, Utah-Salt Lake, Boise State-Boise).I suppose an argument could be made that these college teams are the NFL's minor league, but I'd like to see a true developmental league with paid players. And the Arena Football League, with players earning $400 dollars a game does not count. Canada has their own league, and Mexico does not seem like a good location for starting up a league. Thus, Europe seems to be the best option. NFL Europa all ready failed, I know, but European countries have seemed to be more interested in the sport as of late, with about 70k coming out to Wembley for a yearly game. I know I already came up with European teams in a previous blog, but those will be disregarded; I just wanted to make some teams for TB. this new league will be:

NFL International (There may be a Cairo or Russian team, so I don't want to go with only Europe)

Rules:
Same rules as the NFL, minus the following. These rule changes were made to suit European interest, since many complain the game is too slow with too many stops, especially when compared to soccer.
Thus, the play clock drops from 40 to 35 seconds. 20 seconds after a change of possession, with the obvious exclusion of TV/Injuries Timeouts. Timeouts last 60 seconds.
Only 1 foot is needed to be in bounds on a catch.
The tuck rule is removed. It is a fumble, not an incomplete pass.
Hash marks are the wide ones used in college, not the narrow NFL ones.
The clock is stopped after all plays that go for negative yards (Removing the QB kneel) unless a team has a lead of over 2 possessions (17+ Points). That way, in a blowout a team can still kneel, but in tight games they must try to gain yards.

Now, for the confusing part.

Claiming System
Each AFC team shares a NFL International team (Henceforth abreviatied to iNFL) with an NFC team from the same division. That way, there is little competition between the teams. A team may send a player over to their iNFL team. That player now has a claim equivalent to the Round they were selected in the NFL Draft. If the team who sent the player over wants to claim this player, they may do so whenever. If the team sharing the iNFL team wants to pick up a player, they must repay the claim within 5 years. If any other team wants to pick up the player, they must pay the claim within 3 years. The claim they must pay the other team is a draft pick equal to or greater than the claim on a player. The player then switches teams after 48 hours. If another team wants to acquire the same player, if their claim is placed within the time period, the team with the worse record last year gets him. Undrafted players have no claim, however the team the player is taken from gets to claim another claimless player from the other team w/out risk of another team grabbing him. A claimed player may switch iNFL teams or head back to the states to the NFL. Hypothetically, if the claiming team co-owns the iNFL team, the player would stay on the same team.

Raising/Lowering Claim
A team may lower the claim on a player at any time, with no penalty. A team would do this if their player is under performing in the iNFL and they want a draft pick.

If a team raises the claim on the player, they lose a draft pick equivalent to the new claim should they bring him to the NFL. If they never bring him to the NFL, there is no downside to raising a claim (For Now. I'm debating adding some form of penalty, maybe higher claim=higher salary?).

For now, this is all I have. Salary, teams, stadiums, and such will be detailed later.

Thoughts/ideas? Comments greatly appreciated.