Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, co-owner of the Colorado Crush, chairs the Arena Football League executive committee and favors making the indoor game more closely resemble the NFL. Review-Journal File Photo

Just what a closer relationship between the Arena Football League and the NFL might entail can be debated, but the AFL clearly is moving to establish stronger ties.

Most notably, the AFL has changed to free substitution this season -- ending 20 years of "ironman" play that helped define the league -- in an effort to better mirror the way the game is played in outdoor stadiums, especially the NFL.

Colorado Crush co-owner John Elway was a proponent of the change. Perhaps it's not surprising the Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback recently was named chairman of the AFL executive committee.

"One of the things we have been involved with this offseason was to get this game as watchable as we can," Elway said at a news conference in December. "I remember back to when I first started watching arena football and the difficulties I had understanding certain aspects of the game.

"The AFL is a different game, so that was the goal of the committee, to make arena football more like traditional football -- just indoors."

Elway also said the AFL hopes the change attracts players who might otherwise choose the NFL Europa League (formerly NFL Europe) or Canadian Football League because they now can stick to their position specialty. Those players, Elway said, would elevate the AFL's talent level.

There are other changes, too, such as removing coaches from the playing field. Officials believed the presence of coaches on the field during plays made it difficult for many to take the league seriously. Coaches standing within a few feet of the action resembled baseball players jogging in the outfield during spring training games.

The league also will play Monday night games under its new television contract with ESPN/ABC.

"The thought process behind that was that ESPN is having so much success with the NFL and 'Monday Night Football' that they want to continue that with the AFL," Elway said. "They would like it to where every time someone is turning on ESPN on a Monday night, they are seeing football."

AFL commissioner David Baker said former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and his successor, Roger Goodell, believe in promoting football at all levels.

"People don't stop being football fans when the BCS Championship or the Super Bowl is over," Baker said. "We see ourselves as just growing the game. I think for us, the excitement of the game is fans can be very close to it, and it's a great way to introduce themselves to football, which works great over the summer with young fans.

"We now have eight NFL owners who are part of this league, and there's a lot of room for the relationship to grow, so we're both going to grow the game of football."

Baker, though, was uncertain how specifically such growth would take place.

One possibility would be player sharing, but nothing concrete appears to be in the works. Even if such an agreement is reached, Las Vegas Gladiators general manager Sam Jankovich said it was important to maintain the AFL as an independent league rather than convert it into a farm system for the NFL.

"It's a professional league run by very professional people," Jankovich said. "It's not a stepchild to the NFL. We're not in the business to produce players who are going to go up. We're in the business to get the best possible players we can get."

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said he couldn't predict whether a player-sharing arrangement would ever take place, but said the league was committed to growing NFL Europa, which serves as a training ground for the NFL.