X marks the not

And now ... it's XFL 2.0, folks!

Proving once again that no bad idea ever dies, it just hibernates until someone trips over it, nudges its sleeping carcass with one foot and exclaims "Hey! Look at this! I bet it'll work THIS time!"

There's a lot of that going on right now in the America of Our Only Available President, who never met a proven-to-explode policy he wouldn't roll out again. And so we've got the return of the old trickle-down economics shuck-and-jive, and letting Wall Street robber barons and the big banks off their well-earned leashes again, and a million other tired retreads that always end in disaster and will again this time.

In that sense, Vince McMahon is a man for his times, wanting to reboot the XFL. And to be honest, it was fun the first time, right? Who can forget He Hate Me? Who can forget the whole crazy, Wild West ambience of it all?

That was it was crushed under the weight of the Great American Behemoth, the NFL, was as predictable as everything else about it wasn't. And so the XFL went the way of the USFL, which went the way of the WFL, and for a lot of the same reasons: Because absurdly rich guys who've been successful in other ventures discovered that professional football is a wholly different animal.

(And, in the USFL, it failed because one rich guy turned out to be a lot less smart than most of the rich guys who launch start-up sports leagues. That, of course, would be our Only Available President, who was almost personally responsible for driving the USFL into a tree in less than two years. It was his bright idea to engage the NFL in a bidding war, failing to recognize that that way lay madness. Which is why the Blob has a hearty laugh every time L'Orange's true believers talk about what a brilliant businessman he is.)

Anyway ... you'll go broke taking on the NFL, but you'll never go broke betting there will always be people who think this time it will work. And so here comes another rich guy who's talked himself into believing the Great Behemoth is vulnerable.

It's not, really. Yes, it has its issues. Yes, the TV numbers are down. Yes, the Get Off My Lawn brigades hate that the sport allegedly has been "sissified" because the NFL belatedly has taken an interest in its players' welfare. Bring back guys drooling in their soup again, by God! Those were the days!

And so the Blob can see McMahon's reboot being sold to America with the slogan "The XFL: Football For Real Men." Or, perhaps, "The XFL: Where We Don't Give A (Bleep) If Our Players' Heads Get Turned Into Squash. They're Gettin' Paid, Aren't They?"

OK, So perhaps that's not what this will be. McMahon, in fact, says his reboot will be more family-friendly, and also safer. But we'll see what form it actually takes if it ever actually takes a form..

No, the problem with XFL 2.0 is not that it might present a radically different product. The problem is it wouldn't be different enough. Part of the reason the NFL's numbers are down, after all, is that there's just too much of it. For five months, the NFL is on Monday nights and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons and Sunday nights, and occasionally even Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights. And so the notion that fans out there are hungering for even more football -- especially if you make it more violent -- seems a trifle head-in-the-clouds-y.

And here's the other thing: McMahon is rebooting this on the premise there's a vast pool of talent out there to be tapped. And it's true there are some 1,000 players who get cut by NFL teams every year. But as XFL 1.0 showed us, a lot of the reason those players got cut is because they weren't very good. Even without the XFL, the overall quality of quarterbacking in the NFL is often shockingly deficient. How bad will it be in the reconstituted XFL?

Even if the "safer" vision goes out the window, and you let edge rushers take QBs' heads off, mount them on the down markers and march up and down the sidelines howling at the moon.

The XFL: We Got Your Concussion Protocol Right Here.

(Until We Get Crushed Again By The NFL)