In what is clearly the first sign that the UFL intends to be a true contender with the NFL; former NFL Quarterback, and 2004 first-round draft pick from Tulane, JP Losman has signed with the United Football League Las Vegas Team.

"The United Football League is providing me with the opportunity to play the sport I love at a high level and for that, I am extremely grateful," said Losman. "I am excited to get back out onto the field and represent Las Vegas during the league's first season."

The NFL recently announced that they had to lay off some 1100 workers do to the tougher economic times; clearly thats a sign that an alternative lower cost league could work. If you can't afford stupid NFL ticket prices, then enjoy a high quality UFL game at the rate of an NBA or MLB game.

Obviously the other good news from that is that there is plenty of talent available for the United Football League to choose from; hopefully they continue to make carefully thought out decisions.

So it's a long shot, but Michael David Smith from AOL started an interesting discussion. If Michael Vick were to be convicted of dog fighting and banned from the NFL, could he be the showpiece for The United Football League? It's an interesting discussion that Michael started in response to Peter King's comments over at SI.com.

So it was recently announced that the 2008 Opening Season of the United Football League has been canceled, and that the opening season will likely be 2009. From a business perspective it's evident that the UFL is doing everything they can to ensure that they're not a 1 and done league like several of their predecessors.

So I noticed a huge spike in traffic today from the standard 50-60 visitors to about 400; curious I did a little searching and found that the second UFL website now has a newsletter signup. I went ahead and signed up for the newsletter thinking right away I'd get some great news or updates, but no. I did get an auto responder that I've quoted below.

Okay so since we're not The Official United Football League Website, just a really good fan based community, I thought it was interesting that The UFL came out with a "second" official website because lets face it UFL2008 doesn't go over so well in 2009, 2010 and so on.

In an effort to solidify their intentions, the United Football League has hired former NFL executive and player agent Michael Huyghue as their new commissioner. Still slated to begin play in August of 2008, Huyghue was hired based upon his 20 year tenure working as an attorney with the NFL's management. During his time there he worked with both the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars as well as a player rep for the Carolina Panthers first-round draft choice Jon Beason as well as more recently suspended cornerback Pacman Jones from the Tennessee Titans.

The NFL has rules that specifically do not allow football players from turning professional until they have been out of high school a minimum of 3 years, that's a clause that could put the United Football League at a big advantage. Instead of going after players that have several years of college experience, they can go after younger players with a great deal of upside at a lower cost. As well, they can begin molding the players to their processes and systems much sooner than if they were introduced after 3 or 4 years of college.