LOS ANGELES – Tommy Maddox, running an insurance business
two years ago, said this was the way it was supposed to be – guys
getting a second chance and producing.
Away from the field, the XFL came up way short.
Maddox, who washed out of backup quarterback jobs in the NFL,
led the Los Angeles Xtreme to a 38-6 victory over the San Francisco
Demons for the inaugural title of the league co-owned by WWF mogul
Vince McMahon and NBC Sports.
"Give Vince McMahon a lot of credit for giving us a chance to
play," Maddox said.
Maddox, an NFL backup for six years, threw for 210 yards and two
touchdowns in the Xtreme's "Million Dollar Game" victory Saturday
night.
McMahon presented the XFL's first championship trophy, giving
fans handslaps as he worked his way down the stands and onto the
field.
"I really appreciate Vince McMahon. He is a man's man," Xtreme
coach Al Luginbill said. "I've never been around a man who is so
upfront, so can-do as this man. The XFL is a league of
opportunity."
The season started with great hype and hope in early February.
Crowds the first weeks were big and ratings of 10 and more on NBC
were remarkable for sports in Saturday prime time.
But ratings plummeted, to 1.7 in the closing weeks of the
regular season. Overnight ratings in major markets for the telecast Saturday
night, which might have been the last on NBC, were 2.5.
The XFL averaged a 3.3 national rating on NBC during the 10-week
regular season, a number boosted tremendously by the opening-night
curiosity tune-in.
Attendance shrank, too. The crowd of 24,153 for the championship
in the 90,000-seat Coliseum was some 10,000 fewer than the Xtreme's
inaugural game at home, although it was almost double the 13,081
for Los Angeles' semifinal victory over Chicago a week earlier.
"The product will be good and the fans will love the stadium
experience," Luginbill said. "The turnout tonight was a great
foundation for the future."
McMahon said the league will be back for a second season,
telling the fans at the Coliseum, "See you next year."
The fans might not see some of the same players.
Several of the Xtreme's best players probably will wind up in
NFL camps, including Maddox, kicker Jose Cortez, running back
Saladin McCullough, and wide receiver Jeremaine Copeland.
Cortez, who was working as a roofer in Oregon before signing
with the XFL, was 4-for-4 in field goals in the title game,
including a 50-yarder. McCullough rushed for 109 yards on 20
carries. Copeland, who had 17 receptions in one game this year, had
four catches for 67 yards and a touchdown.
"The NFL is not going to get any freebies coming out of this
league. And if there is a mass exodus, my job will be to find more
players," Luginbill said. "Remember, a year ago right now, we
didn't have any players."
Maddox, a first-round draft choice by the Denver Broncos out of
UCLA in 1992, didn't want to talk about a possible NFL return for a
while.
"I'm going to enjoy this for a long time," he said. "To be
the first XFL team to win a championship, it's just so exciting I
don't even know what to say."
San Francisco coach Jim Skipper said that anything that could go
wrong did go wrong for the Demons.
"We couldn't catch the ball. We fumbled it. They intercepted
it, they squibbed the ball, we can't field it. We tried a quick
kick, they fumbled it and we're all running to it and 'Zoom,'
they're out the back door," Skipper said.
That "out the back door" was Reggie Durden's 71-yard punt
return for a touchdown as Los Angeles built a 21-0 halftime lead.
The Xtreme, who finished 9-3, split the $1 million bonus 45 ways
because the 38 players on the regular roster voted to include the
seven players on their practice squad. That works out to $22,222
per man, about half what each earned for the entire 10-game regular
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