This is kind of random, but worth a note. Former head coach Jim Fassel was on the radio earlier today, and it sounds like he is under the impression there will be a spring league involving the NFL.
We had Jim Fassel on today, he sort of let the cat out of the bag about a spring league for the NFL. There will be one in 2016. Mark it down
— Eddie Borsilli (@Borsilli) July 14, 2015
There have been leagues that have tried to get something going, but failed in one way or another. The UFL ran out of money, NFL Europe went out of business, and Arena Football and the CFL have settled into their own niche. The last notable spring league was probably the XFL, and the most successful was the USFL.
The tweets indicate this would be something launched by the NFL. My guess is such a league would have to involve free agents. Current players work under the auspices of the collective bargaining agreement, and it would require an overhaul to allow active players to take part.
Rather, this seems like something that could be used to build off the veteran combine the league hosted this past year. The NFL has the annual draft combine, but this year they added a veteran combine to give veteran free agents a chance to show their stuff. Some of the players were not in the best of shape, so maybe the idea is to get them into a short league where they can actually off football skills, as opposed to just running 40s and doing fairly basic drills.
I don't know how much success such a spring league would have, but it's a chance for the NFL to further control the calendar, and cash in even more.
The real question though is this: how is Jim Fassel the one breaking this news?!