Written by Harry Lyle Jr. At SB Nation.com
There will be another brand of football coming this spring centered around veteran free agent players.
As first reported by SirusXM NFL Radio, a spring league will be started in April 2017 that will have four teams of veteran free agent players. It will also conduct practices and six games from April 5 through April 26.
Players that are currently on NFL rosters won’t be eligible to play in the spring league.
According to ProFootballTalk, the league is not an NFL production, which the league also later confirmed to PFT. It “is being operated by the same individual that ran the FXFL.” A memo sent to NFL teams also says that a failure to comply with normal procedures when signing a player in another league “will be deemed conduct detrimental and will subject the offending club, and the responsible club employee(s), to discipline.”
The league will be headquartered at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
The possibility of such a league was first reported in late November, when NFL executive Troy Vincent told Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports there had been research done for possible developmental league options.
Vincent hadn’t given many specifics outside of saying that there would be a possibility of “a spring league that would consist of players likely with three years’ or less experience” and “an in-season academy that would train a valuable talent base — players not under contract who get workouts and jobs through the season — that would run from final cuts until November.”
It now sounds like there’s another window of opportunity for guys like Tim Tebow — unless he’s still trying to connect on dingers in the Arizona Fall League.
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