The new Alliance of American Football announced last week that one of its eight franchises will play in Birmingham in 2019. The AAF's Alabama entry won't be the first professional football team to call Legion Field home. This story focuses on the Birmingham Barracudas, a Canadian Football League team that played at Legion Field in 1995.

Of Birmingham's six professional football franchises including the newly formed Alliance of American Football squad, all but one have been from upstart leagues.

The lone exception was the Birmingham Barracudas, who played the 1995 season at Legion Field as part of a short-lived expansion into the United States by the Canadian Football League. Birmingham joined teams in Shreveport, Memphis, Las Vegas, San Antonio and Baltimore as the CFL expanded from nine to 15 teams.

As with past pro football teams in Birmingham, the Barracudas tried to populate their roster with former Alabama and Auburn players. One of those was Roosevelt Patterson, a starting offensive tackle on the Crimson Tide's 1992 national championship team.

"It was good playing back at home," said Patterson, a Mobile native. "I had a lot of friends in Birmingham that supported me. It was great being at Legion Field. We'd had a lot of success there, won a lot of games there playing at Alabama. It was a great experience. I loved it."

Patterson had failed to catch on with the NFL's Oakland Raiders and Los Angeles Rams after his college career ended in 1993. He said his agent told him about the new team in Birmingham, which was coached by former Houston Oilers and NFL coach Jack Pardee and also included on its roster the likes of former Alabama lineman Thomas Rayam, ex-Auburn quarterback Reggie Slack and Troy graduate Kelvin Simmons, who had played with Patterson on the great Vigor High School teams of the late 1980s.

Patterson arrived in Birmingham as Barracudas training camp was winding down. He quickly realized the style of football was a little different.

"It was a big change," Patterson said. "There were only three downs, and all the motion, with the receivers running going in motion and getting a head start toward the line at the snap. You only had two downs to get a first down or you had to punt. So you had to throw a lot.

"I was trying to keep in playing shape so I could hopefully go back to the NFL. But I loved it in the CFL. I played there for four years."

The Barracudas opened their inaugural season on July 4, 1995, beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 51-28 in front of 31,185 fans at Legion Field. Crowds remained strong for the next few home games, which were typically played on Saturday nights.

However, as the college football season approached, interest in the Barracudas waned. Gene Hallman, then as now president of the Bruno Event Team sports marketing firm, said team owner Art Williams made a fatal tactical error midway through the season.

"He called me down to his office midway through the season and asked me if we could get involved and help," Hallman said. "He told me during that conversation that he was expected to lose $6 million. I told him 'whatever you do, Art, don't publicize that number. Because the second you start talking about losses to that extent, people are going to be back off in fear that this is going to fail. If this is going to be a long-term play, you cannot expect this to be successful in the first season.' And he agreed to it.

"I walked outside at Legion Field, and I kid you not, there was a paper box at Legion Field, it had the afternoon paper in it, and the headline was 'Williams expected to lose $6 million.' He'd already told the press the day before. From the point he said that, that property was dead. Corporations didn't want to sponsor, people didn't want to invest their time and money in something they didn't think was going to be around."

Led by eventual CFL Hall-of-Famer Matt Dunigan at quarterback, the Barracudas finished the 1995 season at 10-8 and qualified for the playoffs. With Dunigan sidelined due to a broken finger and Simmons at quarterback, Birmingham lost 52-9 in the first round of the playoffs in San Antonio.

Williams sold the Barracudas early in 1996 to a group in Louisiana, but the new owners eventually elected to fold the franchise. Patterson and the other players were dispersed throughout the CFL.

Patterson played three more seasons north of the border, one each in Hamilton, Toronto and Montreal. He was teammates in Hamilton with Doug Flutie, the 1984 Heisman Trophy winner at Boston College who later played several seasons in the NFL.

"It just all of a sudden happened," Patterson said. "We all had to go live and play in Canada. But it was a blessing to be able to go to Canada. I met a lot of great people up there. I lived there six months on and six months of."

Patterson had one more shot at football years later with the North American Football League's Alabama Lightning, a semi-pro outfit that played its home games in Orange Beach. By then a self-described "old head" in his late 30s, Patterson split his time between playing on the line and working as head coach.

Now 47, Patterson works at the Strickland Youth Center in Mobile, mentoring troubled youth. He looks back on his CFL experience as a positive one.

"Art Williams was the owner and he treated us very well," Patterson said. "It was pretty much like the NFL the way the team was run. The only difference was the field, it was wider and longer. Money-wise, it was a little different. But the game was the same."