My Saturday afternoon was spent on the couch watching six-plus hours of the XFL’s inaugural games, and here are the highlights from my notebook: A pick-six. A blocked punt for a touchdown. A live F-bomb. Big hits, devastating sacks. Some fantastic throws. Some wounded ducks. Razzle-dazzle plays. Live in-game sideline interviews immediately after good and bad plays. Live audio of coaches calling plays. A camera and audio inside the replay booth. Jim Zorn in grandpa glasses.



Oh, and perhaps most important: No maddening debate over what the hell a catch is, which the NFL cannot define despite having exactly 100 years to do so.



So, not bad, Vince McMahon. Not bad.



McMahon is the billionaire WWE owner and showman who hatched the idea of trying a spring pro football league again, nearly 20 years after he and NBC blew through $70 million on what proved to be a tacky catastrophe of sex, dumb violence, gimmicks, bluster and bad football. There have been a few...