The Alliance: Polian preaches opportunity in start-up football league

When The Alliance of American Football opened training camp Jan. 4 in San Antonio, there were mountains of work to accomplish in the 37 days until the season-opening weekend.

Standing before nearly 600 players, head of football operations and co-founder Bill Polian had a distinct message. After all, Polian has a fair amount of cachet, having been a general manager for 23 seasons in the NFL with three teams (Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts) and building them to a combined eight conference championship games, five Super Bowl appearances and one Lombardi Trophy.

He was also voted league executive of the year by The Sporting News six times in a vote of his NFL peers.

“Anybody know what this is? Super Bowl ring, that’s exactly right,” Polian, 76, told the players who will make up rosters in the AAF. “That’s what we all dream of and that’s what we all think about when we play in the back yard or in the driveway when we are 8 or 9 years old.

“Whether you’re here for the first time, your first crack at professional football, or whether this is your second chance, we exist to give you that chance. The reason we’re all involved in this is to give you the opportunity to get one of these.”

The players in attendance simply want the chance to earn their way onto an NFL roster and play the game they love on the grandest stage.

And that’s what the league’s eight teams will be doing starting Feb. 9.

Playing the game. The two games on the opening Saturday of the season — San Diego at San Antonio and Atlanta at Orlando — will be televised. CBS will have regional coverage of the opening week and one key game each week. In addition, games and weekly game broadcasts will be available on CBS Sports Network.

The sport’s unique allure is what brought Mike Martz back after not coaching in the NFL since 2011.

So be it that Martz, as offensive coordinator, guided the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl win 19 years ago, or was a head coach with the Rams for six seasons. Along with several other veteran coaches, he said he sees their role as helping make players better in a great environment.

Standing on the sideline as his San Diego Fleet team was practicing in the second week of camp, Martz said, “I like to call this football in its purest sense. It’s like college, but there’s no boosters, there’s no scholarships; it’s just football. I love that part of it. I think the guys that are attracted to this are our kind of guys. … And this is a way for us all to give back to this game a little bit.”

Fleet quarterback Mike Bercovici is relishing the opportunity to study at Martz’s knee.

“He’s passionate about developing football players and this is an awesome opportunity for him to give back to us because he’s taken teams to the highest level in the NFL,” Bercovici said. “And that’s our ultimate goal is that when we get back to the big show we will know our details and our fine preparation and why we do what we do.”

While the product on the field gets a lot of emphasis, The Alliance will be proactive in employee wellness.

Troy Polamalu, the head of player relations and former safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, also is excited about what the Alliance can do off the field.

“What we have built here is a platform not only to show you how to be the very best football player, but to be the very best husband, the very best father, the very best teammate, and the very best member of society,” he said. “What we are building is an approach to help the whole person.”

Still, football and doing this right is king, which prompted CEO and co-founder Charlie Ebersol to say at the opening of camp, “Every single person who has attempted to do this before failed. You have to really dig in and put the best people at the top of it. We have an opportunity to make football better.

“I said this to Bill before. Our greatest hope is that we are standing on the sidelines at the Super Bowl and talking about how we knew you when.”

–Special to Field Level Media