In October 2005, Ron Selesky, formerly of the Arena Football League's Columbus Destroyers, Carolina Cobras and Tampa Bay Storm, as well as the AF2's Albany Conquest and Louisville Fire, was hired as the team's second coach.

Christened "Arena Football 2" or "AF2" for short, the new league would play by the same rules patented by its parent organization.

The first Steeldogs ownership group, consisting of Charles Felix, David Berkman and Bruce Burge, also owned the Birmingham Bulls hockey franchise.

On January 11, 2000, the Commissioner of the AF2, Mary Ellen Garling announced the league would kick off its inaugural season at the BJCC Arena on March 31, 2000.

Birmingham's first win came one week later at the BJCC, as the Steeldogs shut down the Greensboro Prowlers 18-7 in one of the lowest scoring games in the history of Arena Football.

In addition to the win over the Prowlers, Birmingham racked up victories over Roanoke (twice), Richmond, Tallahassee, Arkansas and Tulsa.

Despite reaching the 60-point plateau, a feat that Coach Humphrey stressed in every game, the Steeldogs collapsed in the fourth quarter and fell 67-60.

The two had met when King played with and Myers marketed for the Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football.

Almost secondary to the outcome of the game was the fact that the Steeldogs had now earned themselves a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a second-round match-up against the top-ranked team in AF2.

[3] The 2002 off-season was much less chaotic than in previous years as Humphrey was retained once again and, for the first time in team history, so was the ownership group.

Injuries plagued the 2003 edition of the Birmingham Steeldogs, as the team struggled to field a healthy and consistent quarterback.

The team dropped four of their next five games, with the one bright exception being a 38-35 overtime victory over the Florida Firecats at Fort Myers.

Injuries riddled the team from the offensive line, to the quarterback position, to wide receivers and defensive backs.

The team's 59-58 win over the Rio Grande Valley Dorados on June 26, 2004 gave Humphrey his 47th victory, making him tops among all current and prior head coaches through the 2004 season.

He had not competed on a regular basis since his senior year at Alabama in 2001 and did not see action in the team's first game, a home loss to the San Diego Riptide, but finally took the field a week later at Macon.

The offensive and defensive lines, hampered by injuries dating back to early season workout camps, never quite jelled into a functioning unit.

After the end of the season, Selesky resigned to move up a level in arena football, taking the position of defensive coordinator and player personnel director of the Grand Rapids Rampage.

[4] On October 26, 2007, owner/managing partner Scott Myers announced that the Steeldogs had collapsed and would not put a team on the field in the 2008 season.

In addition to the NFL, ten players were signed to AFL teams: Bobby Keyes (Dallas), Terrell Browden (Colorado), James Clark (Georgia), Jerry Turner (Las Vegas), William Mayes (Las Vegas), Herman Bell (Detroit) and Ernest Ross (Detroit).

Three players also played in the Canadian Football League: Aryvia Holmes (Montreal), Bennitte Waddell (British Columbia) and Michael Gholar (Saskatchewan).