One month from now, a week after the Super Bowl, the fledgling XFL will kick off its inaugural season — and it will do so with an intriguing rulebook.
The rules, revealed Tuesday, are designed to make the eight-team league a fast-paced and highly entertaining product.
Two of the most intriguing rules that are being implemented will keep opposing defences on their toes.
The XFL will not have any extra point kicks. Instead, teams can go for one point from the two-yard line, two points from the five-yard line or three points from the 10-yard line — and a defensive return of a turnover will be worth the same amount of points as the offense was going for.
XFL teams will also be able to execute a double-forward pass, allowing an offence to make two forward passes on a single play, as long as the initial pass doesn’t cross the line of scrimmage.
Overtime rules are also different from the NFL’s, where a team can accept the kickoff and then win the game with a touchdown, even though the other team hasn’t had a chance to score on offence.
In the XFL, which begins play on Feb. 8, tied games will advance to a shootout-style format in which each team will have five chances for score from the five-yard line.
Receivers only need to have one foot in bounds when making a catch, just like in U.S. college football. The game clock will continue to run (just like soccer) outside of the game’s final two minutes, there is a 25-second play clock, two timeouts per team per half, and all reviews will come from the replay official — meaning no coaches’ challenges.
The XFL has adopted some intriguing rules for its first year, and now we will see if the league can top its previous incarnation in 2001 by operating for more than one season.
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