8 Things We Learned From WWE's Opening XFL 2020 Games

4. Games Need To Be A Bit Quicker

Before the XFL's launch, a lot was made of the league's drive to speed up game length and shorten it from the NFL's standard three-hour plus format. That was fine in theory, but it didn't really work in execution.

Clock changes, like the fact it runs almost continuously (there is a five-second delay on failed pass attempts before it starts again) before the two-minute warning, didn't shave much time off. Neither did the fact that both teams only have two timeouts to play with each half as opposed to the NFL's three.

The shorter 10-minute halftime, whilst fun and more informative than in the NFL, didn't ease things much either. Stoppage still happened for injuries, commercial breaks were as plentiful as ever and the whole experience ran for almost (wait for it) three hours. Seattle at DC was hilariously almost longer than some NFL games.

This is something the XFL will need to fix if they want brevity. If games are going to live up to the billing of "faster football", then further tweaking is needed. It's hardly a disaster that games are still NFL length, but it's not what was advertised.