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No, the NFL has no involvement in the looming exportation of American football to New Zealand. Yes, the exportation of American football to New Zealand is scheduled to happen in 2016.

Douglas Webber Events has announced that a pair of teams will play a pair of games next March, at Eden Park in Auckland and at Westpac Stadium in Wellington. The release announcing the games claims that former NFL coaches Herm Ewards and Dick Vermeil are in negotiations to coach the teams in what will be dubbed the Southern Bowl.

Contrary to a report that emerged from New Zealand over the weekend, the event will have no direct or indirect NFL involvement, including the selection of teams specifically from the players who don’t earn final roster spots in 2015 with the Cardinals, 49ers, and Cowboys. Instead, tryouts will begin on July 11, 2015 “across the United States,” with the rosters will be finalized in August.

As a result, none of the NFL players who will be heading to training camp — up to 90 per team — will be involved in the New Zealand enterprise, unless they’re cut early in the process and choose to commit to playing in New Zealand in March.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be talented players. Plenty of competent college football players can’t get a shot at the NFL or the CFL. If nothing else, the process will generate practice reps and two games of film that can be used to earn a spot in the NFL — especially if Edwards or Vermeil will vouch for the players to the coaches and scouts they still know.

So how did the initial report linking the NFL to this endeavor end up being so inaccurate? Possibly (or probably), misinformation deliberately was leaked to secure a higher degree of coverage for an event about which sites like this one would have otherwise shrugged.

It’s possible (or probable) that the “negotiations” with Edwards and Vermeil are part of that ruse, too, with the talks eventually falling through but the involvement of Edwards and Vermeil persuading sites like this one to give the effort another blast of free publicity.

So, basically, let’s see if they’ll fool me a third time.