COLORS: Red, Blue, and White
OWNER/GM: Jeff Beale
Coach: Mist-in-Mourning
Following the failure of the MFL to expand succesfully into the European market, the Lugano franchise was purchased by a consortium of Naples investors including Larry Bird and the founder of Papa John's Pizza. The leader of the consortium, Jeff Beale, stated at the time of the deal's closing that "while I don't know much about football, I do have a large supply of Public Enemy quotes at my disposal. Naples got tha flava!" Naturally, the league owners welcomed the new management with open arms and high expectations.
Nor did the new Florida franchise disappoint on either side. On the field, the Navahos were uniformly terrible, dropping six out of their first seven games with their lone win coming over the disintegrating defending champions of Mankato. However, the firing of coach Bull combined with a blockbuster trade with Westfield seemed to revitalize the team, as the Navahos managed to win four of its next six games, including upset wins over title contenders Savage and Ponte Vedra. Only two close losses to Minneapolis and Savage, by a combined eleven points, prevented Naples from ending the season on a six game winning streak.
Naples upset Vadnais Heights in the 2000 Toilet Bowl.
The Navahos expect big things from Randy Moss in 2001.
Off the field, the new owner kept reporters busy with a constant barrage of press reports and other communications that ranged the gamut from amusingly quotable to outright bizarre. Unfortunately, posts from the first part of the season were lost thanks to Yahoo's extremely lame decision to erase them halfway through the season, otherwise, future generations would be able to read with interest about former Venom coach Timmy Stahl's sexually agitated interview with the Naples front office and benefit from the wisdom emanating from Coach Bull's well-packed peace pipe.
Naples won a measure of respect throughout the league by defeating Vadnais Heights in the consolation championship game, otherwise known as the Toilet Bowl. Although Savage has set the bar almost impossibly high for an expansion franchise, achieving seven victories in an inaugural season in the cauldron of competition that is the MFL is no mean feat. Some veteran observers, impressed with the team's late season success and Coach Beale's increasingly savvy team management, have even gone so far as to anoint Naples as an official dark horse candidate for the 2001 Loki Cup.
