Alt-football still struggling.

Eric Crouch can't catch a break. Just when the former Heisman Trophy winner thinks he's found somebody who will pay him to play football it turns out that somebody doesn't have any money to pay him to play football.

In a complete shock to no one, the All-American Football League has announced that it is in serious need of some liquidity and, until further notice, the inaugural season is on hold.

Economically speaking, it's not exactly the best time to go looking for sugar daddies to save an alt-football league. They don't really have a good track record here in the U.S. Sure, we're football mad but even at an all you can eat buffet there are certain things you won't touch.

That said, I don't think it's totally hopeless. You see, I have ideas that might sweeten the deal a little bit. I've always fancied myself a Michael Clayton like figure for fledgling football leagues, I've just never had the opportunity to actually prove it.

Until today…

Idea #1 – Eliminate the Forward Pass.

There's only one thing football fans enjoy more than offense and that's violence and football prior to the forward pass was a particularly violent game. So violent that Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ban the sport in 1906 if rules weren't changed. Along came the forward pass and away went the brutally effective flying-wedge and now we live in the era of the spread. If you were planning on having Eric Crouch play quarterback this was pretty much inevitable anyway.

So what better way to distinguish yourself than by muddying things up a bit and bringing all the action to the middle of the field in one giant miasma of eye-gouging and hair-pulling? This would be a game for men, not offensive geniuses.

Idea #2 – Revive the Offenses of Old.

The forward pass idea too drastic for you? How about if we just assign each AAFL team a historically accurate offensive scheme? As the founders of the league are finding out, there's no real good reason to watch a game between Florida and Texas, even in the Swamp, if those teams are not, in fact, Florida and Texas.

But if you could pitch it as the single wing versus the wishbone, well then you have something. Again, if Eric Crouch is one of the faces of your league you have to play to your strengths.

Idea #3 – Corporate Sponsorship.

I'm not talking about putting some Vault ads on the jerseys, I'm talking company teams in the grand old baseball tradition. In the good old days, almost every company had a baseball team. You could conceivably catch a game on a lazy Saturday afternoon between the Shell Oil Refiners and 9 Lives Batteries.

I see no reason why this wouldn't work for football. Ditch the college angle and go where the money is. Who wouldn't want to see the teams fielded by Google and Yahoo? A rivalry for the ages.

Idea #4 – Condense, condense, condense.

If all that fails, why not just use college football overtime rules but do it indoors!

And you thought the Arena Football League was exciting.