Minor League Football
Posted: June 9th, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 66 Comments »I was not a big fan of NFL Europe. The games were awkward to watch. The level of play wasn’t good and the stadiums just had an odd atmosphere. That said, it helped to grow the game of football on an international level and some talented players did come from the league.
PFT has a piece up this morning on a new push for a developmental league. I would love to see this given another shot. Phil Savage, former Browns GM and Eagles executive who now runs the Senior Bowl, had an interesting idea.
“I do envision some sort of developmental league, based maybe in Florida or Texas or Arizona,” Savage said. “Anywhere from four to six teams; I don’t think more than eight.”
The idea would be to keep costs low by reducing travel, and to generate revenue by selling the rights to one of the NFL’s current broadcast partners.
Going with 8 teams would make a lot of sense. You could have a franchise for each NFL division. One of the problems with NFLE is that Eagles were spread all over the league. You might watch the Scottish Claymores to check out a young DT or the Rhein Fire to look at a RG. Imagine if one team had all your prospects.
With my idea, the 4 teams in the division would share the minor league team. There wouldn’t be Eagles-only prospects. The team would have a neutral coaching staff that would work on generic player development. Once the season is over, the NFL teams would put in claims on the guys they wanted. This would be done like the waiver wire claim system. Worst teams pick first.
Obviously that’s not a perfect idea, but it is something interesting to consider. Would you prefer the Eagles to have a handful of players that totally belong to them, but spread all over the league? I think associating NFL teams with one developmental team would help to make the league more fun for NFL fans to follow.
As for the schedule, mid-May to mid-July would make some sense. Start the league after the draft and have the season over before Training Camps start.
Thoughts? Ideas?
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I haven’t covered the DeSean Jackson-Drew Rosenhaus story since it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Rosenhaus is definitely a shady character and DeSean isn’t exactly a choir boy. I don’t know who to believe. Let the courts figure this thing out.
“With my idea, the 4 teams in the division would share the minor league
team. There wouldn’t be Eagles-only prospects. The team would have a
neutral coaching staff that would work on generic player development.
Once the season is over, the NFL teams would put in claims on the guys
they wanted. This would be done like the waiver wire claim system. Worst
teams pick first.”
I don’t get it. Why should the Eagles invest in a team when the other NFL teams can just put in claims and get the best players they took to the team?
On a side note, it would be funny for Lurie and Roseman to come up with a plan with Snyder and Jerry. The Eagles and the Giants would argue: here’s our long term plan, guys. Synder und Jerry would say: yeah, sounds great, let’s do that. And next summer they would be: screw this, we need a need plan.
Tommy how would you feel about 4 eight team leagues based on proximity? For example, the Eagles farm system would play in a league with their division and maybe the AFC East. All the teams would be based somewhere within geographic proximity or the fan base of the team (the Eagles team could follow the Sixers and put a team in Delaware playing out of the UD). I know every team having a minor league team would water down the talent pool but I feel like the sheer number of college players out there could still make the product enjoyable and you may eventually start having overlooked underdeveloped players making the team.
I had the exact same thought as you as soon as read it. I love the idea of it, just not in one region. I would think there’d be plenty of talent to go around & it’d sure be easier for me personally to follow it and get interested than if it was in Europe or even the CFL. I’d hope some talent that might normally head north might have a reason to stay in the states.
If you have a team made up players from all the teams in a division then who’s coaching and developing these players? Who decides who the head coach would be? I would think Kelly and the Eagles would want their own players developed to fit their own schemes and not be coached by a Jerry Jones lackey.
As someone who attended the World Bowl as a Scottish Claymores supporter I’d love to see this happen. However, I agree with Dominik, I would want teams to retain the rights to their players. That way fans could follow the progress of their team’s prospects.
I always felt the NFLE was under-appreciated. A lot of its players went on to have careers in the NFL, and wouldn’t have done so without the opportunity afforded by NFLE. Heck, the NFL show went on during the strike year which shows just how many guys are out there looking for a roster spot.
If the change from Andy Reid to Chip Kelly has taught us anything it’s that scheme fit is of utmost importance. Our 2 most efficient pass rushers last year barely even saw the field because they’re not good scheme fits… My point is that every team would need it’s own minor league affiliate. You just can’t have someone teaching zone blocking when you want power blocking. You can’t send your 3-4 OLB prospect down to your shared 4-3 affiliate. Whoever suggested 4 regional leagues of 8 teams each might have been on to something, but that’s the only way this could work.
Yeah I thought the same thing… Our defense is very different from the giants and cowboys….how do we develop a 2gap DE when cowboys and giants,want to develop gap shooting DTs?
To add — who can you trust teaching the techniques in that league? Great college recruit that some coach can ruin with “their” technique? Again, no thank you. Baseball, sure. Basketball/Hockey — sure. Football…..nnnnnoooooooo
Great points, both of you. To yankfan, I didn’t envision great college recruits on this squad. This would be for Trevard Lindley and Bryce Brown and Ificouldspellit Momah.
To Geagle’s point, that would make selection of coaches particularly important.
Ahh…and the Casey Mathews of the league. JK. Ok, so subpar/boarder line talent. I always think there’s untapped talent that never gets drafted. Maybe this is a way for them to showcase…
Meh…. Rather just expand the roster to 57 and add 5 more players to the practice squad
I’m with you on this. No, no, no. Stud college player…NFL looks promising. Snap a knee in a development league? I know it can happen at any point in the nfl and college — but to happen in a “bridge” league? No thank you.
i don’t think a stud college player would have to enter a developmental league. in my mind, the developmental league is more meant for UDFAs and aging vets looking for another paycheck.
but you do bring up a point. part of the minor league in baseball is for the major league players to go there and learn the ropes for a bit, right? the pro team ‘owns’ the rights to that player and decides which league to put them in – the majors or the minors. then, if the guy gets hurt playing in the minors? they’re out of luck!
but i would imagine that something like that for the NFL would mean that this player would still be on the books for a nice sized contract (he is a stud college player, probably high draft pick) so then the injury might not be too different than a practice injury…
i dunno. even after typing it all out, i’m not sure how i feel about this. i’m very much on the fence on this one.
i was thinking something along the same lines.
expand each team’s practice squad to be enough for some 7 on 7 football or something like that. heck, i’m sure there are enough players to make it a full 53-man roster for 11-on-11 football, but that runs the risk of being too watered-down with limited talent.
* having players assigned/owned by a particular franchise allows players to be groomed better. those project players now have a chance to grow in real situations instead of just practice.
* having the players belong to a single franchise also allows the fans to make more of an attachment to those players.
* having a ‘minor league’ team that is a sub-team of a NFL team allows the fans of the NFL team to have an interest in the ‘minor league’ team, thus giving you a pretty solid fan base right from the start.
DJ — we’ve argued good/bad about him. Reading that he’s dealing with a minor leg injury made me smirk just a little. Doesn’t matter what I thought about him, he’s an ex eagle, so I will wish him success in Wash. I hope he drops every pass vs. the Eagles, but I’ll still watch Wash games and hope he does well.
Eff that dude. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player for us, but I always felt he was overrated by the fans. On top of that his showboating (which I don’t mind) too often crossed over into dumbassedness…. Never really liked him. Hope he fails miserably.
When ones training camp start? I need action.. Can’t wait for the preseason
I do think it’s inevitable. The league knows that people will watch (especially in the late spring and summer).
Having teams in big college markets (Columbus, Alabama, Austin, etc) may be the solution to the money issue.
I don’t see an NFL minor league being much more successful than the NBA’s D-league. Which means, “not very at all.”
What makes the NFL a money-printing machine is principally two things, I think.
First is the fierce loyalty fans have for their teams. Look at his blog and the others linked on the right. Does this phenomenon exist for MLB, the NBA, or the NHL?
The second is fantasy football — a once-per-week event, unlike baseball. Every one of the 16 games matters a lot.
(Maybe a distant third is gambling . . . but that’s available for every sport at every level.)
The fans’ passions which the NFL’s so carefully cultivated don’t particularly translate to minor-league football, at least from my point of view.
First, there’s the question of what time of year.
Second, how do you get more than hardcore fans interested in watching guys who couldn’t make anyone’s practice squads. And they’re probably playing in a system that’s not what your favorite team uses.
Third, depending on the time of year, you have plenty of college and high school football, where loyalties and passions — there’re those words again — run very deep.
Maybe minor league football could work. But the concept is not part of the American sports fabric — like minor league baseball and hockey.
The NFL owners would have to show enormous patience with the experiment. But patience in this context means $$$ . . . an outflowing of $$$.
If one word comes to mind when I think of NFL owners and $$$ — after greed — it’s *impatience*.
We’re talking about a league of owners who demand that any city bidding to host the Super Bowl provide FREE suites at the best hotels in town for billionaire owners.
As much as coaches, I think, would welcome a minor league in some form. Even if their system’s not being taught. I’m skeptical that the NFL’s 21st Century owners will shell out the money.
Of course, the NFL owners could condition their next round of TV contracts on the successful bidding network agreeing to show minor league football.
Or the NFL network could do that job to being seeding the potential audience.
But I remain a skeptic.
They have to think small. Small league, small town venues, small profits. They don’t need to invest a fortune in this and they don’t need to make a fortune from this.
The real number one reason the NFL is a money-printing machine: tax-exempt status.
Each of the 32 teams pay taxes. The NFL League Office is a tax-exempt non-profit under 501(c)(6). http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Business-Leagues . They aren’t set up as a charity. They are a non-profit that exists to help the 32 for-profit, tax-paying organizations. Even if their tax-exempt status was removed, their expenses exceed their revenue.
On the other hand, struggling cities paying hundreds of millions of dollars towards new stadiums for very successful teams is a problem.
We agree on the latter for sure, some debate would be in order regarding the former claim as the teams regularly benefit from the NFL’s tax-exempt status. I already know this isn’t the place to debate that, though. 🙂
About the latter…12 of the leagues 32 teams turn a profit on stadium subsidies alone.
When the Vikings wanted a new stadium, Minnesota legislature (although it was facing a 1.1 billion dollar deficit) gave $506 million to the team, covering about half of the cost of building the stadium. As of 2011, Wilf’s net worth was roughly $322 million dollars. With the new stadium deal, the Vikings value conservatively rose about $200 million dollars. Nice deal for Wilf, eh?
I think it could work but it needs to be done in the right manner.
It needs to be in the late winter/early spring. Say a week or two after the Superbowl, the coaching staffs being made up of low level team assistants, and a few contract coaches that may be currently out of work or looking to get into the league. This allows guys like Michael Clay (d-quality control), Jutsin Peele (assistant TE coach), and Tra Thomas (Assistant OL coach) to start to get to be more in charge of a group of players, which helps them develop as coaches.
I agree with D3Center that each team should have their own “JV” squad, based in four leagues, so bunch the NFC/AFC East, North, South, and Wests with each other. Put them in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and SoCal. Practicing at local high schools with weekly games at small colleges. 2 week camp, 7 week round robin season, no playoffs.
The players would be select young roster players (say less than 3 years removed from college, with the player having seen no more than 15% of snaps), practice squad players, and players on futures contracts. This way you can get guys like Jake Knott, Joe Kruger, Ifenayi Momah, Matt Tobin, Bamiro, and Keelan Johnson, much needed game experience.
All players would receive the weekly $6,000 dollars pay that practice squad players earn. Figuring you have 30-40 guys, on top of contract coaching pay, and other expenses for facilities the team could probably operate for 2-3 million bucks, even for the most cash strapped teams that’s affordable. Figuring in some offsets from any media/broadcasting deals, tickets etc., the league would have an expenditure of about $65-100 million but could probably subsidize a quarter or so of that.
The season would end a couple weeks before the draft, help develop cheap players who are on team friendly contracts. There would be some tradeoffs, with fatigue and injuries but there are also alot of positives. The best organizations would figure out how to use these to their advantage.
For rosters the league could easily follow the NHL style which allots each team 50 contracts for their NHL and AHL teams. The NFL already allows 90 players on the roster after the draft so I think you could allow 90 contracts for the NFL and minor league teams combined during the minor league season. And to combat the costs the owners could give up some of their stake in the minor league teams to allow another person to absorb the costs like MILB.
Sigh. I do remember when fanatical hockey fans did care. Back when many players stayed on one team for years, with only a few trades each year. Now, even with the Internet, I can’t remember which teams 3/4 of the NHL players were on LAST year, never mind one or two seasons ago. And who really cares about the Stanley Cup in June?
If it’s anything like NFL Europe, few players would make the transition to “The Show” (yes there are the Kurt Warners and David Akers, but they account for probably 5% of the players).
It would basically be an NFL-branded USFL or Canadian Football League.
I don’t have any problem with that. It’s not like top flight prospects would be playing there and not on the 53 man roster. Talent is too big a commodity in the NFL and the career window too small for teams to be assigning players who would obviously contribute at the top level to the developmental league.
In regards to the division break down of teams -even though players generally support other players regardless of uniform -most fans like the illusion of “rivalry”. Keeping all the Eagles players on the same squad is a good idea, but maybe have one team from each division represented on the same team.
That way Eagles players won’t have to have dirty Dallas jock straps mingle with the team laundry.
If NFLE will supplant these ridiculous games in London I’m all for it.
Crappy day in Florida yesterday, and with the wife under the weather and the Phillies in *free fall* mode, I needed a good *pick-me up* I found a great one as I watched a double header of last year’s Eagles/Raiders and Eagles/Bears games…I highly recommend it!
I like the Spring Training idea. Baseball gets done with spring training, there are all of these venues that could be converted for football use for the next few months. They could scatter games so none of them were at the same day or time so fans could go from one and travel up the coast to the next, etc., maybe even set up some league-watching bus tours. Expenses would be low but yes, players would be scattered around the league. Maybe all of the Eagles would be in one league, but not on the same team, in Florida, and all of the Cowboys might be in another, in Arizona. They kind of have to spread the around like that because every teams’ prospects are out of balance with what is actually needed to field a team.
The spring training stadiums don’t sit there empty after spring training ends. Bright House Field (Phillies), for example, has extended spring training until the end of may. It’s also the home of the Phillies Advanced Class A affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers for the full season, and it hosts the Big East Tournament.
College football stadiums would likely be a better solution.
FOles,just did a live,press conference… he was money as always. Reporters asked him 100 questions about Kapernicks contract and FOles refused to take the bait, answering that he is only worried about improving, and team success, which is smart, snce if he does those two things he will obviously get paid…can’t help wondering how Desean would have,answered those questions lol…,so Desean, seeing a comperable player just sign for 60 million, how do you feel about that? Would Desean go with option A: “Show me the MONEEEEEEEEEY!!!” Or option B: “IM RICH BITCH!!!! ????
…
Nicky seems Genuinly impressed by,Jordan Mathews…. Not that great of a press conerence cuz the media did a really poor job of asking questions. Most wasted their question,on,the contract talk and Nick wasn’t going to go there, so they got nothing out of it. Sheil asked a lame predictable question: “so Nick, being in year two,mdoes Chip want to play faster? I mean, I think we could all assume that’s a given… Not really possible to play as fast as you possibly can the first year learning a new offense… He was asked about Lanes expensive dinner and he said he paid for a,BBQ last year for all the Ol/TEs..
Talked about having to throw guys open especially in man coverage were it looks like guys are typically covered..
..
Chip talks tomorrow at 11:00
You know, GEagle, (not that any of what I’m going to say matters to you)– I’m really glad you are here at this blog; your attitude is infectious, and your positive outlook for some of our star (and up and coming) players serves the fan base well. I was one of the people who wasn’t happy to see you start posting here, but I am now. Thanks for your contributions, even if you do reply to your own posts 3 times in a row 🙂
Seriously, go Birds. Maybe we’ll get to tailgate sometime down at the Linc– trying to figure out which game(s) I’m getting to this year
Good comment. I enjoy all the different flavors the posters bring to the conversation. Those perspectives combined with the civil atmosphere that the community insists upon create for great reading.
Atg- agree whole heatedly; never found a blog like this before. The community keeps it pretty much in check, and only in cases where it’s needed, does Tommy stop in to correct someone or calm them down.
There’s a whole range of types here, and that makes me happy to come back every day (multiple times a day).
Thanks to everyone here for making this a great blog!
Come on you know that deep down we all want to make nonsensical arguments based off: cherrypicked stats, recollections of players performances that we didn’t focus on and happened 8 months ago, and mudslinging and name calling. Personally I LOOOOOVVVVEE other blogs whose comment sections work like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGsyDEZk4Y
boooooooo d3fb boooooooo
You’re welcome.
I was right with you on this. Right up until he “upped” his own like button. Now I’m on the fence.
haha just saw that too.. Who does that?? lol
Yeah, really.
(Sorry, this was almost obligatory).
I agree too b/c I don’t listen to the interviews, so I like that GEAGLE summarizes them for me.
GE:
You have 3 minutes to interview Foles . . . .
Give us the first three (3) topics you’d cover.
(I’m assuming you’ll ask follow up questions, and “keep him on track” questions, so just focus on the topical areas.)
_________________
Community . . .
Weigh in on topics you’d address to Foles if the chance presented, please.
Nick, since I’ve only seen you dressed up in your black and white checkered shirt, black tie, and grey jacket, would you say 15 mil per year entices you to purchase a new suit or sport coat?
Foles: “Maybe a new tie!”
Would 18 mil per year do it?
Foles: “I’d sure get myself a new sport coat.”
Nick, Nick, what about 20?
“For 20, I’d play in a white top hat and tails.”
These beat reporters just don’t ask the right questions to get quality information.
Sure. I like this. There should be a minor league. Would the players be paid ? Or would ” getting a football education” be payment enough?
Tommy the development type league is a good idea.. Players still belong to your Franchise but get playing time n the bottom league n still get paid.. Mentioned before this Sports science, training methods etc are nothing new outside the sport of American Football.. Look at other successful contact sports around the world they are ahead of the curve
I like the idea of having the Eagles prospects on one team. I could envision 8 teams, each with 60-man rosters. One team from each NFC division contributes 15 players. They have positional requirements, one QB, one RB, a corner, a safety, two OL, etc.
That way, I have a team and players to root for and teams to root against (the three with the other NFCE players). The owners could vote for the 8 coaches, then have each of them draw teams from a hat and put together their own staff.
When rosters go to 90 teams have the option to add their own developmental guys first, and sending their 15 would coincide with cutdowns.
think we are underselling our loyalty and simple hunger for anythig NFL. you could designate 5 or 6 players from the 53 as transition players-able to play in both leagues, practice squad has another 10, and camp would get another 30 guys, plus have players work back from injury. have games played Weds night, reallign have Eagles play Raven, Jets, Giants, basically all close,and have Kelly control the staff, maybe 10-12 weeks long. Linc would be packed. i havent lived in Philly in 10-12 yrs, still chased down Pre-season games, no different.
I always felt like rosters should be bigger.
There are always guys that you have that you would like to be Eagles, but need some work. Last year we could have put Bamiro and Momah on there. A year of seasoning would really help them out.
This year I would love to put guys like Villanueva on there. If he makes it, then he is ours when he does. The last day of cuts always forces teams to get rid of players that would make great ‘minor league’ guys.
How much more would we know about Curtis Marsh if he had a chance to start for a year or two? It really is a good idea.
honestly I have no interest in a minor league. My sports watching is too limited already (by life and child etc.), watching a team made up of players that likely won’t ever be on the Eagles isn’t on my radar. Not trying to be a downer, but the post was about do you want this to happen so I”m replying.
I won’t share talent with Cowboys! It’s like negotiating with terrorists.
Ah oh! Looks like this guy has Chip n his O scheme sussed out lol
http://www.hogshaven.com/2014/6/7/5788736/redskins-recon-extra-stopping-the-chip-kelly-offense
Boy we are in trouble now. The blueprint is out to shut down the Eagles offense:
1. Defensive discipline
2. Sound tackling
3. Stuff the running game
4. Tight coverage
5. Pressure the QB
6. Stop the counter-moves
7. Keep the Eagles offense off the field
I honestly believe the author that this would shut down the Eagles offense…and every other offense, ever.
Think he forgot plenty of three and outs and O2. Once your gassed, your done.
As to point #7, they do a good job of that by themselves.
Thanks for posting. Good read — with many holes. I do agree Eagles has problems with press coverage. That was with DJ and not Maclin. I don’t know how many plays Avant played but he’s also gone. It’ll be interesting to see how Chips changes his play calling with different toys.
Hey Tommy, on the developmental league, Ive been monitoring one particular prospective league for years now. It was actually supposed to kick off 2 years ago. Everything was in place except a TV deal never came. They planned for 2 years later which should have been this spring. Though it still hasnt happened. Now they have a new goal which I think is another few years down the line even though they now have secured a TV deal at this point.
Originally the idea was great. It meant to in no way compete with the NFL. Games were to be played in the spring (which would be awesome!) and they were interested in developing a relationship with the NFL to become a sort of farm system like baseball has.
When I visited the site more recently after wondering why they never kicked off this spring, I found some of that information has changed. They are now saying that they will play games in the fall directly stating that they will “compete head to head with the NFL.” The website has also gone downhill as so many of the pages are unfinished and its a freakin .net domain name which is kind of weird. So my excitement has faded as any league that thinks it will compete with the NFL is destined to fail.
It would be great to have some professional football to watch in the spring but that is no longer the plan.
If you or anyone else would like to read up on this league and watch for updates on when they will finally (if ever) kick off, you can check it out here: http://www.afl-football.net/
Sports is about rooting for things. It can be a player, a team, your fantasy players, your wager, whatever. The problem with any start up league, especially a minor league, is that it takes generations to build up a reliable fan base. And you’re asking fans to enter into that in this era of declining ticket sales and hypercompetitive entertainment options?
The USFL succeeded somewhat because they signed some known players from college. College football has the fanb ase based on generations of development and a built in connection from the team to the fan (school pride). Any other league would have none of that.
There is no market for minor league football.
I’d like to weigh in on the Jackson – Rosenhouse soap opera. The story is far from over. If it is found that a bribe was given, I imagine Drew’s career will be in jeopardy. I will also guess if he gave a sack of money once, he must have done it before. As for DeSean, regardless of the nature of the payment, he may well have to answer to the IRS for undeclared income. I wonder to what extent the investigation will take place within the framework of the League and Union, and to what extent legal authorities will be involved.
As far as I’m concerned, these two guys really deserve each other.
A commenter on PFT had a similar idea to this, and I am building on it.. The new league should have every team film everything like in Hard Knocks, and it could be its own reality show. Then people would care about these players like they do other reality celebs. And before each game, they can play the latest episode involving the 2 teams about to play each other.
Would love to see the McCoy party bus episode.
And vote one player off the team each week…
Might not need a D-League if they were able to work out a deal with already existing leagues to share players. The indoor league and the CFL already know they’re not competing directly with the NFL anyway, and could stand to benefit from some of the fringe talent that moves on from them as soon as they get a call from the NFL anyway. Seems to me it could help both parties to codify a minor league type setup with them.
There also was the UFL pretty recently which only lasted I think 2 seasons. They had a few NFL hopefules in that league whether it was guys who couldnt catch on, or former NFLers trying to get back in.
I always intended to watch that, but could never catch a game on whatever channel it was on.
Their idea was to put teams in markets without an NFL team. I remember a team called the Las Vegas Locomotives.
They wanted to expand beyond 8 teams in year 2 but instead it fizzled out after losing tons of money both seasons.
Hi guys, at first place – sorry for my english, Im not native speaker :-). I live in Europe (Czech Republic/Prague), Im around football for last five years and I can see how is football growing even in this small country. When I started with football, there were no TV coverage, and just few teams. Now we have like 7-8 games in TV/week, 3 leagues and even one of our team plays Austrian football league, which is probably best in Europe. The team is called Prague Black Panthers and their actual QB is Kyle Newhall Caballero, who was practice squad QB for Raiders (let say, the same like GJ for Eagles) and he is probably best QB in the league now. In AFL are also two teams with NFL connection – Vienna Vikings and Swarco Raiders, who have some support from NFL, same logo etc. I think, thats the right way – something like NFL Europe v2, where every NFL team can have their developmental team for those players. The costs here are much lower and it can also popularize football in Europe muuuuuuch more (=money for NFL) without need of “original NFL franchise” in Europe. Ive also attended NFL game 2 years ago in London. Wembley was sold out, it had great atmospehere and there were lot of fans from across Europe. People here are starved for quality football, but nobody from US can see it :(. NFL Europe was good idea, but it was too early for it and the format wasnt ideal.
I think it would be better to have the teams based on regions not divisions. I don’t like the idea of any eagles players on the same team as division rivals. And as far as the timeline, it should be played after the final cuts until like the holidays