Who is the highest-paid XFL player? All you need to know about Dwayne Johnson’s league ahead of XFL kickoff 2023

Dwayne Johnson is here to satiate our desire for more football with the XFL. With the NFL concluding last week with the Super Bowl, football fans could have been left anticipating an offseason without any games on the field. Thankfully, the XFL is here to fill the void, and it begins on February 18, 2023.

While its prestige is not yet at par with the NFL, we will see many upcoming and exciting players, as well as former NFL veterans, looking to resurrect their careers here. In fact, the highest paid player is former NFL quarterback Brett Hundley.

Hundley played college football at UCLA and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth round in 2015. He stayed with the team till 2017 and was responsible for taking the field when Aaron Rodgers was out injured.

He commanded them to a 3-6 losing record over that period. Hundley was then traded to the Seattle Seahawks for a season before moving to the Arizona Cardinals from 2019 to 2020. He has also been with the New Orleans Saints and was with the Baltimore Ravens last season.

Now, he gets to play regular football in the XFL as the highest paid player, earning $200,000 with the Vegas Vipers. He will be part of the opening slate of fixtures. Read on to find out more.

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Dwayne Johnson's plans for XFL

The first thing to note is that this is the third iteration of the XFL. It was initially founded in 2001 by wrestling mogul Vince McMahon before being rebooted in 2018.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it filed for bankruptcy. In 2020, it was purchased by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia, his business associate and ex-wife. Garcia will serve as the CEO of the organization while Johnson will be the commissioner.

This year, the league starts on February 18, 2023. The league has two divisions: North and South. The teams in the North Division are the DC Defenders, Seattle Sea Dragons, St. Louis Battlehawks and Vegas Vipers. The teams in the South Division are the Arlington Renegades, Houston Roughnecks, Orlando Guardians and San Antonio Brahmas.

In the opening day of games, the Vegas Vipers will take on the Arlington Renegades, followed by the Orlando Guardians going head-to-head against the Houston Roughnecks. The weekly slate of games concludes on Sunday with the St. Louis Battlehawks pitting themselves against the San Antonio Brahmas, while the Seattle Sea Dragons battle the DC Defenders.

The teams will play each of their divisional rivals twice, home and away. They will also play teams in the other division once. The top two teams in each division will face off in the semifinals for a single elimination game. The winners of the semifinals will then fight it out for the XFL Championship, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 13, 2023. The full schedule is given below.

There are some interesting wrinkles in the rules too. For example, instead of one, there can be two forward passes, as long as they're from behind the line of scrimage.

The extra-point value depends on whether the offense runs a play from two, five or ten yards, with the attempts carrying one, two and three points respectively. The play clock is 35 seconds from the previous game, and there are kickoffs and punts that have additional new features.

It looks set up to be an exciting experiment. Many other leagues have tried to replicate the NFL's formula without much success. However, one must remember that the NFL in its modern form is an amalgamation of the old NFL and the new AFL, which started as an upstart league.

With fans starved of football in the offseason, there's no reason why the XFL cannot become a viable model going forward.