Letter of Intent - 2012

[coachingubigr]

[quote=""daytonadan""]In the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear to Woody in Toy Story: "You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity"[/quote]

My 4 year old son is obsessed with that film. All 3 to be exact.

[VinnyTheViper]

[quote=""jerry101jlh""]I see Florida, especially the Stingrays as one more grasping at straws thing. Texas blocked by Dittman setting up shop says SIFL now has to look in other directions, but Florida has a history of being less than successful and this Stingray team doesn't look like they have any real; resources to get into the game. But Hager is from Florida and maybe since selling off the Bucs looking to relocate back to Florida where Tufford and Ryan both live. The glue to the SIFL right now consists only of Albany, Columbus, and Alabama. Pretty strong glue with those three. I don't count Richmond as I believe they are on to another league. In my opinion if Albany, Columbus and Alabama don't take control of the SIFL they are just stupid to stay on board.[/quote]

I agree with much of what you suggest about the glue and what Florida means to the equation., The Florida press release was a WTF moment for me, it went 180 degrees in the wrong direction of everything that I had believed to be the truth. If fixing league stability is the most important issue to the "alliance", then why would we see an announcement of a brand new team that is at 500 miles from the nearest existing franchise? Does it not make a lot more sense for those parties, if they are truly interested in league stability, to review what they already have in house and weed out the existing problems to attempt to make "the whole" as strong as some of the pieces, certainly, before running off to recruit new members? Now if this this is an attempt by some, to make an end around run, in order to circumvent what others are doing, then maybe it makes sense. The question has been asked as to whether Florida would be in Alabama's division for 2012, the answer was an emphatic "NO".

I have to go back to what Hager and Tufford's motivation was at the beginning of the 2011 season. It was apparently to position the SIFL as the heir apparent development league for the AFL, otherwise why was there such an importance to switch to arena rules? Now that the 2011 season is behind us, where does all of this stand? I would argue that the league is largely devalued, using replacement teams left and right will have a habit of doing that. If one buys into the idea that the ultimate goal was to sell the SIFL eventually to the AFL so that several individuals could realize a large profit, then these individuals are undoubtedly scrambling now trying to restore value to the league. Only one huge problem, some member teams, now appear as if they do not want to play ball with these boobs anymore.

Also, do not eliminate any possibilities, regions, or teams, what may have may no sense because "X" said so a month ago, may make sense now, things change and people rethink situations all the time.

[jerry101jlh]

[quote=""VinnyTheViper""]I agree with much of what you suggest about the glue and what Florida means to the equation., The Florida press release was a WTF moment for me, it went 180 degrees in the wrong direction of everything that I had believed to be the truth. If fixing league stability is the most important issue to the "alliance", then why would we see an announcement of a brand new team that is at 500 miles from the nearest existing franchise? Does it not make a lot more sense for those parties, if they are truly interested in league stability, to review what they already have in house and weed out the existing problems to attempt to make "the whole" as strong as some of the pieces, certainly, before running off to recruit new members? Now if this this is an attempt by some, to make an end around run, in order to circumvent what others are doing, then maybe it makes sense. The question has been asked as to whether Florida would be in Alabama's division for 2012, the answer was an emphatic "NO".

I have to go back to what Hager and Tufford's motivation was at the beginning of the 2011 season. It was apparently to position the SIFL as the heir apparent development league for the AFL, otherwise why was there such an importance to switch to arena rules? Now that the 2011 season is behind us, where does all of this stand? I would argue that the league is largely devalued, using replacement teams left and right will have a habit of doing that. If one buys into the idea that the ultimate goal was to sell the SIFL eventually to the AFL so that several individuals could realize a large profit, then these individuals are undoubtedly scrambling now trying to restore value to the league. Only one huge problem, some member teams, now appear as if they do not want to play ball with these boobs anymore.

Also, do not eliminate any possibilities, regions, or teams, what may have may no sense because "X" said so a month ago, may make sense now, things change and people rethink situations all the time.[/quote]

What you say makes perfect sense and of course nothing the SIFL has done in three years makes any sense, so sticking with what we've done before, why not Florida? The major problem for the SIFL right now is leadership, something they clearly didn't have in 2011 and quite frankly lacked in the first two years as well.

[VinnyTheViper]

It appears that there may been a break in at least one team's status with the SIFL. Last week, the Alabama Hammers website contained the SIFL league logo as well as links to the SIFL league website, this week these SIFL items have now been removed from the team's banner at the top of the team's website. As a result, I can only conclude that the any attempts to gain control of the SIFL have failed and that we will be playing in a new league next season. To be honest, I never understood why the alliance saw any value in retaining the name, Southern Indoor Fraud League, a name has to have stood for something of value or integrity during its lifetime in order to have any value, from my standpoint, the SIFL name is synonomous with the word "WORTHLESS"!

[coachingubigr]

[quote=""VinnyTheViper""]It appears that there may been a break in at least one team's status with the SIFL. Last week, the Alabama Hammers website contained the SIFL league logo as well as links to the SIFL league website, this week these SIFL items have now been removed from the team's banner at the top of the team's website. As a result, I can only conclude that the any attempts to gain control of the SIFL have failed and that we will be playing in a new league next season. To be honest, I never understood why the alliance saw any value in retaining the name, Southern Indoor Fraud League, a name has to have stood for something of value or integrity during its lifetime in order to have any value, from my standpoint, the SIFL name is synonomous with the word "WORTHLESS"![/quote]

Same thing for the Richmond Raiders. Not a peep on the official website about the SIFL. A month ago they were there.

[preeths]

There are a couple possibilities. First, one or both teams have left or intend on leaving the SIFL. Second, the SIFL could be re-branded.

[VinnyTheViper]

Have now confirmed with the appropriate sources that the Alabama Hammers have indeed left the SIFL.

[coachingubigr]

[quote=""VinnyTheViper""]Have now confirmed with the appropriate sources that the Alabama Hammers have indeed left the SIFL.[/quote]

I was told the Raiders will announce league affiliation sometime after Labor Day, but did not get any indication of which league it would be SIFL or otherwise.

[VinnyTheViper]

[quote=""coachingubigr""]I was told the Raiders will announce league affiliation sometime after Labor Day, but did not get any indication of which league it would be SIFL or otherwise.[/quote]

Your information is consistent with what I am being told in terms of the timeline for an announcement, do not know what the new league name will be, I understand that schedules are currently being worked on which leads me to believe that the teams participating in this league have been determined, otherwise how could you attempt a schedule unless the teams were pretty well locked down.

[preeths]

If true, this is a huge blow to the SIFL because it seems likely that Albany and Columbus will leave as well. Any indication if they're joining a new league or an existing one?