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Rick Zamperin: The XFL fills the football void this weekend

XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Happy Friday. But is it really?

It’s less than a week after the Super Bowl and football fans will have to quickly come to grips with the fact that the National Football League season is over for another, well, few months at least, and we’ve come to the sobering realization that there is no football this weekend.

No prop bets, no over/under action, no senseless power rankings. Nothing.

But wait a second, there is football this weekend.

No, it’s not the Canadian Football League; the season of three-down pigskin doesn’t begin until June.

This weekend, the XFL takes centre stage when all eight teams see the field with two games Saturday and two more on Sunday.

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The Seattle Dragons and D.C. Defenders will kick off the first ever XFL game, at least the 2020 version and not the XFL from 2001 that last only one season, at 2 p.m. Saturday.

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The other games have the Los Angeles Wildcats playing the Houston Roughnecks, the New York Guardians battling the Tampa Bay Vipers, and the St. Louis Battlehawks — say that five times really fast — meeting the Dallas Renegades.

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Yes, it’s football, but will it be any good? Who knows?

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Some of the league’s rules are interesting — like going for one, two or three points after a touchdown or the double forward pass.

Only time will tell if the new XFL will be able to survive longer than its inaugural season, but I’m glad that at least we have some kind of football this weekend.

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