Rugrat wrote:

The Zephyrs have better every East division team in the champions bowl. Except the Cannons and Bulldogs. For the Ironmen, as much as I want them to stay in Pittsburgh I think they should relocate to Dallas or Houston to grow the league to a new market

I never noticed that. It kinda goes to show how unpredictable the NFA East has been.

DireBear wrote:

Now that's a game to end off the Zephyrs' dynasty! That game was really rough for Ironmen fans, finding out that they may relocate after they fought their hardest in the Champions Bowl. 

As for any predictions, I think the Ironmen are somehow going to stay in Pittsburgh, and maybe another round of expansion being announced.

Your predictions are actually pretty close. You somehow managed to be both right and wrong at the same time.

Here's part 1 of the offseason!

1963 NFA Offseason Pt.1
League News:
After such a valiant effort in the Champions Bowl, the Ironmen would anxiously wait for the fate of the team. After much debate Joseph Coffee and his family announced the selling of the team to Ted Fordham. As expected from earlier leaks, the team would in fact be moving to Milwaukee. However, in an interesting turn of events. Fordham announced the construction of Fordham Stadium, a multisport stadium able to host almost 70,000 fans, which would take the crown for the largest stadium in the league.
With this announcement, Fordham explained his plan for the Ironmen. Since the stadium is just breaking ground, the Ironmen will get to stay 1 more season in Pittsburgh. Then the following season will be played at Whitehall stadium in Madison, WI, one of the biggest college football stadiums in the country. Then hopefully by the start of the next season the Ironmen will be playing in Fordham Stadium. 
The stadium is scheduled to be finished in September of 1965, roughly 3 weeks before the season starts.

James “Joe” Kennedy and His Vision; The Southern Football League:
By far the biggest story of the offseason was the news that a rival league for the NFA had been and is in the works. Not much was known about this rival league until later into the offseason when one of the presumed founders announced that he and 5 other men were forming the so-called; Southern Football League. 
James “Joe” Kennedy, was a son of a New York tycoon and a Florida native. He had tried in the previous expansion to get a bid to put a team in Miami. He was promptly turned down, Commissioner Wagner stating that the south isn’t a good market for football. Kennedy eventually obliged and watched as Seattle and San Francisco got markets as the league expanded west. He would keep his frustrations to himself until early this past season. He began talks with the Coffee family early on as one of the first interested in buying the Pittsburgh Ironmen, in an attempt to move the team down south. This, much like his expansion tries, fell flat and was rejected quickly. Finally done with sitting around and getting rejected, Kennedy had conceived the idea of the Southern Football League. 
He quickly approached several others who were interested and managed to have recruited a good group of 6 owners by March of the next year. By that June, after sifting through over 12 different cities, Kennedy and his group came up with a final roster of 6 teams concentrated in the southeastern part of the country.
The cities that were selected are the following: Miami, FL, Atlanta, GA, New Orleans, LA, Birmingham, AL, and both Houston and Dallas TX. 
Kennedy said the markets were chosen specifically to show the potential of the South. He cited his ongoing frustrations with the NFA as the motivator here. “If they aren’t going to take advantage of these wonderful cities, then I’ll have them all for myself!”  

This wasn’t it however. Kennedy and another man; Jack Sims, the owner of the Birmingham franchise, had approached the NFA Players Union and talked throughout a series of meetings about creating a more organized free agency where players weren’t as restricted when it came to choosing where they wanted to play. The current system the NFA uses only allowed players who had high enough salaries to choose where they wanted to go, every other player had to be traded or released to switch teams. This meant most of the roster changes had to come in the form of trades. Any other move had to be agreed upon between both the team and the player, so if the team didn’t want the player to sign elsewhere they were allowed to step in and stop it. This is a huge part of why the Zephyrs have been able to sustain success, because they acquired talent through the draft, and imprisoned them onto the team. Basically teams were allowed to effectively stop any free agency moves that they wanted, if they so pleased. Kennedy and Sims’ proposed system would allow any player to sign with whichever team they pleased after their contract had ended and gave the team no rights to stop that player from leaving. This pretty much won over the players union apparently. It will be shown how much of an impact it had on the players when next year's offseason rolls around. 

Finally, three of the franchises elected to hold a local “Name the Team” competition and are looking for people to give their ideas for the teams’ identities. Those teams are Houston, New Orleans, and Miami. In order participate in the contest, contestants must fill out the following information: 

Name:
Where your from:
Team name ideas:
Color scheme ideas: 

All 6 identities are slated to be revealed next offseason!
C&C Appreciated!

Name: Ben Aoyama
Location: Charlotte, NC (initially from Tokyo, Japan)
Name Suggestions:
New Orleans: Dukes of New Orleans (Duke of Orleans) - Purple, Yellow, Green (royal purple and gold plus green for Mardi Gras)
Houston: Commanders (NASA) - Navy, Red (NASA colors)
Miami: Cubans (the Cuban Revolution had just happened, maybe the owner wants to appeal to Cuban refugees) - Red, White, Blue (Cuban flag)

Name: Gavin "Red" McKinney
Age: 38
Hometown: Shreveport, LA
Job: Owner of McKinney's Diner and Steakhouse with locations in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, And Mississippi
Suggestions: New Orleans Krewe (Purple, Green, Gold, and White)
Houston Wranglers (Blue, Red, White)
Miami Waves (Teal, Pink, Black)
 

Name: Billy Rodgers
Age: 52
Hometown: Austin, TX
Occupation: Oil Baron
Team Name Ideas: Houston Spacemen (with the space race of the 60's, the Spacemen would be a name that could be used without infringing on the NBA Rockets or MLB Astros) - Colors: NASA colors all the way
New Orleans Revelers/Revelry (drawing upon Mardi Gras, the Revs drawn upon the huge yearly party) - Colors: Purple, Green, Yellow
Miami Tridents (the Trident is the symbol of Poseidon the Greek God of the Sea/Neptune the Roman God of the Sea) - Colors: Sea Green, Blue

Name: Adam Lisbon
Age: 40
From: Yborg City, FL
Occupation: Owns a locally iconic diner in Yborg City.
Team suggestions:
Houston Railers (Burnt Orange, Black)
New Orleans Revelers (Purple, Green, Metallic Gold)
Miami Waves (Blue, Navy Blue, Athletic Gold)