Riggins Could have Played in the AFL
Keith Murphy
Saturday February 1, 2003
Riggins brings an impressive resume to the analyst’s booth. One of the greatest running backs to ever play the game; he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1992. Riggins was MVP of Super Bowl XVII, running for 166 yards, as the Washington Redskins triumphed over the Miami Dolphins. He was an All-American running back for Kansas.
But does he think he could have played Arena Football? “Yes. My wife and I talked about the comment that Michael Irving made where he said he didn’t know necessarily if he could have [played Arena Football]. When my wife told me about that I thought ‘gosh,’ if he didn’t think he could play . . . . But then I got to thinking, he’s a tall guy and I don’t necessarily know if he had great acceleration. Michael Irvin had great speed but there’s different kinds of speed. I think the arena game is about acceleration. I think that’s one thing I did have. I could accelerate. I think I could play running back in this game. I’m talking about when I was 21. Or play one of the wide receiver spots and play Jack linebacker.”
The first thing fans will discover about Riggins as an analyst is that he likes to make people laugh. “I bring humor to the game. I think I do anyway. I like to have a good time. There’s obviously a lot of strategy here I am going to have to learn as the season unfolds to be able to be an analyst. But I always like the human side of the game. The Xs and Os are fine but it is boring. There are NFL guys, and I am sure AFL guys are the same -- they sit in classrooms year-round and they still don’t know what a two deep zone looks like half the time. If I’m trying to tell the public about the different zone coverages it’s like putting perfume on a pig. If some of the players don’t understand it, how is the public going to appreciate it? I think the human element is a lot more important than the X’s and O’s. You’ve got to have a few X’s and O’s but I don’t overdo that part.”
Riggins is in Chicago preparing for his first game of the season and he admits that his excitement for the game is building to the point that he may need to line up and take a few snaps. “I may have to just so I don’t get too excited before I go into that broadcast. I was doing a conference call with Fran Papasedero down in Orlando and I said, ‘Fran I may have to come down and take a couple of snaps right at the beginning of the game to calm me down because I just got this feeling that it’s going to be wild Sunday here in Chicago. I was at the game last year when Chicago played Arizona down in Phoenix. I tell you, it’s quite an experience.”
One of the many ties between the NFL and Arena Football is the presence of many former NFL players on rosters and serving as coaches. Riggins sees this as one of the aspects that make Arena Football “Hometown Football.”
“Because there are so many Arena teams, it allows the guys who played in the NFL to go back either to where they went to school or perhaps to where they grew up,” said Riggins. “ Now they are back in the community and it is a great way for them to stay in touch with football and it satisfies this longing for football that a lot of these people have.”
NBC’s last professional football project, the XFL, failed with a resounding thud. Riggins says that not only has NBC learned their lesson but Arena Football is inherently a better product. “Here’s the difference, and I’m not saying that the XFL didn’t work because of Jesse Ventura, that was just one of the many decisions that made you think there was a phoniness to that game last year. Part of it came from production values. They were giving interviews and stuff during the game, cameras in the locker room, and all this stuff. It just looked too forced. I’m not saying the players were acting. When they were allowed to play, it was real; but then there was all this weird stuff in between. I think the whole deal with Vince McMahon and the WWF I think that went along and the people who saw it could never quite buy into it. I think the difference between Arena and the XFL is that with Arena ball you’ve got guys who play both ways, they’ve been doing it for 17 years and what you see on the field is guys with a lot of heart.”
Riggins will join play-by-play Dan Hicks Sunday in Chicago for his first Arena broadcast as the Rush host the Orlando Predators in a 3pm (eastern) contest.
Dr. Murphy has nearly 20 years of media experience ranging from radio to the Internet. He has served as webmaster for two AF2 teams and the football team at Fort Valley State University. He is a professor at FVSU and directs www.bunniwerks.org, a non-profit rabbit rescue organization. He has been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. Murphy is also serving as a first party editor of af2 stories for ArenaFfan. For more information about Dr. Murphy see: www.keithmurphy.info
