Hey guys, welcome to the marcass read here. It should be a fun
show this week. Will the UFL defive the spring football curse? Lots of
UFL content coming. Hope you guys enjoy. Please like and subscribe. Trying
to get up to four thousand subscribers before the kickoff of the next UFL season,
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are looking for CFL content, we did our big pregame show before the CFL
Week one kickoff, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hosting the Montreal Alolette's. We had
the Professor, Andrew Murray on board with that, Evan Willismore, Jason Hussey,
we had the boys over at the Alowhitz Flight Deck podcast Tim and Cliffe.
So CFL content this week will be on the CFL pregame show already on
the channel streamed before that. As I said, lots of UFL content today.
Look for a CFL Week one recap early next week. Still confirming with
Jason Hussey when that will work for him, Trying to get if Evan can
be involved, whoever wants to be a part of that, and then of
course we will do our UFL playoffs recap as well. Andrew Murray, the
Professor will be out of town. Look, I will look for a guest
for that, but just be subscribed, turn on the bell, all of
that stuff so you'll be notified whenever we go live on the show today.
Dan Kaplan, longtime sports business reporter for decades, helped start the Sports Business
Journal, has been at the Athletic is now freelancing for Awful announcing front office
sports amongst others. Really appreciate Dan. He just wrote the article last week
kind of looking at the totality of the UFL season, looking at attendance,
looking at TV ratings, all of that. What is the viability kind of
going into season two for the UFL. So get Dan's thoughts on all of
that sort of stuff. You have the marketing of the league, should they
be focusing on the player fifty four angle, Lots of good stuff with Dan.
Always appreciate him spending his time. And then of course Partrafino, longtime
guest friend of the program with analyzing educate over on YouTube full UFL playoffs preview
as well as lots of news and notes. This week, we have a
new fantasy sponsor for the league, a new Kretum, Cradam whatever you want
to say, a sponsor for the league that's above my pay grade. But
lots of you UFL stuff coming with that. So hope you guys enjoy.
Like I said, please like and subscribe. We'll see you guys at the
end and I will have an update for the thirty five hundreds describer giveaway if
you know, if you're invested in that, stay tuned here because we will
be re raffling our UFL championship game tickets here. I will give you details
at the end of the show. We'll see it then. Thanks. Well,
this is exciting. We do a check in with this gentleman at least
once every kind of XFL and USFL, and now we have the UFL.
Here we have Dan Kaplan now with Awful Announcing, formerly with the Athletics Sports
Business Journal of decades here of kind of covering sports business. Dan, how
are you doing, sir? I'm great and I in addition to Awful Announcing,
I'm write for Front Office Sports and other publications. Yeah. I got
hooked into one of their email subscriptions now and I love that. I get
that every day. I really enjoy that. So if all of that and
that crew over there, I feel like a lot smarter person reading about the
in and outs of like the WNBA TV deals with Caitlin Clark or whatever.
I do think it's interesting stuff. Yeah. No, they do a great
job. So Dan, we're here. You had an article up here.
We'll pull up in a minute talking, you know, Okay, can the
UFL survive here? Coming to you know, going into season two? Coming
out of this first off, I don't think we've talked to you this kind
of since this whole merger came around and with Redbird and Fox and everything.
What do you make of this new United Spring Football League. Well, I
have to say the TV numbers have been to me is surprisingly good. Uh.
I think they ended up the regular season at about eight nine hundred thousand
average viewership, which is something like two three hundred thousand more than the average
of the other the league's had separately last year. So that's a that's a
good number. Now. The caveat, of course, is that most sports
are up sports sports viewership. I mean it's the NHL, NBA, NF,
the NFL, I mean you name it, w n B A,
UH, women's college basketball. The numbers are are all going going up.
But still, I mean, for for essentially a new league, UH with
with a product spring football that has had so much trouble over the years,
to pull an eight nine hundred thousand that that's that's real viewership. Now.
The question that you know, I had people asking and the story is what's
next? How do they how do they proceed? And I had one person
talking about the quality of the play he was he threw some shade at it,
but uh, the years two and three of these leagues are always the
tells year one. There's there's a lot of enthusiasm, people are checking out
the new product. Whether they can sustain that and improve that's uh, that's
the big question in terms of and the the interesting point you brought up here
because I wanted to talk about TV ratings as well, but you talk all
sports being up, and so is this uh testament just there on better networks
and so just more people are happening to be tuning because we saw these experiments
last year, you know, Okay, h F s one on a Monday,
or the XFL was trying to do these, or the USFL was on
Peacock and all these things. Is it just these are on the networks where
people are probably looking for sports and they're stumbling upon it. Although that being
on Fox and ESPN is a big boon, and the XFL was on ESPN
last year as well, so there is there is a lot of exposure.
But sports consumption, sports viewership is up across the board, and I'm not
saying that to deflect, And there's a significant increase in the UFL's ratings versus
the USFL and the XFL's rats. I mean, we're talking twenty thirty percent
jumps that you know, an increase a few percentage point increase in sports viewership
doesn't explain that away. So kudos to the UFL. They did a great
job where I think the one of the one of the problems they have,
as you as you've written about is attendance. Attendance is a big issue outside
of Saint Louis. I mean, I guess Washington has decent numbers, but
when you have stadiums that aren't filled or venues that aren't filled, that's not
an appealing TV product. And I think not having the players in the mark
gets during the week, doing community outreach, doing the sorts of things all
sports team sports teams that have home markets do. It's hard and probably the
transition from the merger so quickly into the season just a few months gap,
probably hurt marketing efforts. You put those two together, it probably explains a
bit the low attendance. That's something they'll have the whole off season, assuming
there is a year or two that they'll have the whole off season to work
on. But they need to get fannies in the seats. We get a
lot of these comments in here. We talk every week on our money recaps
about that and people, and I completely understand that the money got you know,
brought in at the gate is a fraction of what they're getting off of
you know, the TV ads. But like you said, talking about you
know, the appealing TV product on that, how big is it a deal?
Because I look at it as just another metric of it. Is there
a local interest in this product? And when we see Michigan averaging or Memphis
averaging six thousand people a game and this is the second season, you know
USFL or UFL, I mean they've been in that market two years. That
tells me like, Okay, maybe there's a national appo for a football product,
but there might not necessarily be a local interest in the Memphis area.
But we saw during the pandemic year in the NFL when they played in empty
stadiums, and I realized, Memphis is not playing an empty stadium. But
TV ratings went down that year and people were I mean it was a pandemic.
People were home. People did not like seeing empty stadium games played in
empty stadiums. They just wasn't the excitement and if you've got six thousand.
I don't know what the venue size is in Memphis, but when you know,
when you see stadiums that are barely filled, you're the reaction is this
isn't important. If the locals aren't into it, why should I be into
it? And so give the UFL some distance here. Because the merger of
Court so close to the start of the season, it probably didn't get their
local marketing efforts in place like they would have. And but I do I
do think this issue of the teams not being in their home markets during the
week where they're they're they're at the hub in Texas. I think that that
that that I know it saves money, but you know, getting players out
into the community, doing promotions like that, particularly for a minor league,
that that that is that's pivotal of getting people into the seats. I have
a question, yeah, talking about costs or money's spending coming up here?
Back to the tv rangs for a second before I forget, because it has
been a tremendous increase this year, right and we've seen you, Mike with
Fox Sports sweeten out all the time. Oh you know, thirty percent here
and all that. You know, to me, this is the best of
the best. Right, We've given all all the games, for the most
part, the best windows we can. They're mostly on Fox or mostly on
ABC and ESPN. So to me, if we roll this back out next
year, you're not going to see those same increases, right to this is
kind of the one year. What do you in terms of looking at the
next year, because they unless something really catches fire, I don't see another
thirty percent a year over year game here. That would be unlikely. I
think you saw the thirty to forty percent gain because you've merged the two leagues
and you've got the benefits of that. They were last season you had the
game spread out among the two leagues, and they were maybe some fans were
confused about what was what. But now you've got the two leagues merged and
there seems to be some enthusiasm there. But I it'd be hard for us
to see a thirty to forty percent increase next year. I mean, if
they had a goal, I would imagine it'd be five, ten, fifteen
percent increase. How they do that, I think they have to generate enthusiasm
in the local marketplace and they probably need to make try to make some of
these players more of a brand name. They need to market around players a
little more, not just right now, it seems like they're marketing the UFL
and the UFL people and the people in the NFL always say people don't follow
the shield, the NFL shield, they follow teams and players. It probably
needs to be a little more push around that in your and the It's okay
if you don't have an answer for this, but just kind of in your
general life. To me, even last year when there was some overlap of
the XFL and the USFL, I said, I guarantee you you know,
three out of five or six people aren't sitting there. Oh well, this
is like they're just a football is on. I'm watching. They're not oh
okay, well this is the one that's owned by Fox, or this is
the one that's owned by the right. You know, it's just kind of
spring football. Now we're it's the UFL. Do you sense that that there's
any loyalty or is it just hey, there's football on in the spring,
I'm trying to watch content on a Saturday, or like it's a really brand
loyalty in that wall. Well to get spring football clearly can pull in five
hundred thousand to a million viewers. That's been proved the last couple of years.
Whether that builds enough of an economic case to keep these this league around
for the next for the foreseeable future, only Fox and Redbird and Joinne Johnson
can can really can really answer that. But you need you need to build
brands around the teams and the players, and it's and it's tough. This
has been the problem spring football all along is if a player gets good enough,
they move on to the NFL. So how do you build brands around
players who, if they get big enough, are leaving. So it's a
catch twenty two. You want that top player who's playing great and people want
to tune in and see, but then they don't stick around. So this
has always been the conundrum for Spring football in terms of marketing it as a
business, as as a product that people want to view and consume. In
terms of local franchise ownership, which is always kind of been the eventual goal
of these and especially USFL, and trying to hey, we put these teams
supposedly in markets where receive future and we've talked with the FedEx guy, you
know in Memphis, he's kind of interested. Withever, like, what would
one of these teams have to look like, in your opinion, for someone
to actually want to seriously get involved in spending money to have private ownership.
Well, let me first say that the sooner they get to private ownership,
the better, because the private ownership will do that marketing. I mean,
because then it's not the UFL marketing Memphis, the UFL marketing to you know,
the Panthers in Michigan. It's the there's the dedication at the local level.
If you have an individual ownership, then presumably the teams are there year
round or least during the spring. You move away from the hub system,
which, as I've suggested, may make cut expenses, but it doesn't do
much for marketing in the local in the local markets I imagine there. The
UFL's game plan is a three to five year horizon to sell, to sell
these franchises individually mls. I mean they have the unitary holding structure, which
is the team's owned by by the league, and they eventually went to selling
franchises and it's been It took a while, but you can we can see
now. I mean, the franchises go for hundreds of millions of dollars.
I don't know what a UFL team would go for. I would suspect it
it would be tens of millions of dollars. But the suit again, that
can't emhersays enough. As sooner they can get to an owner owning a team
and having vested interest in marketing that team, that the better because that's where
I you know, and like I said, we get a lot of pushback
talking about attendance, like, well, no, maybe if you're if the
goal is, you know, this league is not going to hold these eight
or ten whatever if they want to add you know, expansion whatever, like
if they want to add teams or grow these teams, you got to have
local And like I said, if I'm sitting there, if I'm watching the
Michigan Panthers pull seven thousand fans, it's like whether am I am I buying
the trademarks? Am I buying you know, ten percent of the merch that
the UFL is going to sell, Like I just don't even know, like
what that ownership would look like where there's already so many hands in the pot
with you know, Fox and Red Bird and you know Danny and Dwayne and
you know everyone else that's involved in that. It seems like it's a lot
of like cooks in the kitchen. Well, an owner may not necessarily want
to keep that franchise in that market. They may want to move it to
a different market. Maybe you can answer this why I don't know why the
league's not in Seattle. That was a very successful market for the XFL.
It doesn't I looking from far, I couldn't understand why they were in Seattle
other than that it was a geography issue. It travel costs, you know,
running the women field, right. I mean that that I think the
original plan back in twenty twenty, I think Seattle was kind of a hail
Mary anyway to get in there. I mean, I get that we've talked
forever about wanting the West coast and even just to San Diego if you're not
going to do LA or anything. But people talk about taxes and like,
you know, all the kind of stuff going into out of California. But
to me, it's worth it to have that. Yeah, do you like
kind of just the center cut of America? And that's where you know they
post the map like where are you rooting from? And it's like Texas to
Alabama, and that's kind of all you can to be the States representation.
Well, yeah, this gets back. Now, the XFL two point zero
had teams in La New York and those were two I mean they only lasted
five six weeks because of the pandemic, but those were two of the least
successful in terms of attendance of the of that that league's teams. Uh.
There it was. It was hard to break through the noise, but Seattle
was extraordinarily successful. It was a big market. It was right up there
with competing with Saint Louis in terms of which was the number one team in
that in that two point oh XFL league. So I'm a big believer that
you need fans in the seats, you need that enthusiasm and that spreads.
I mean there's the through social media, through fan groups and word of mouth.
That's the that's the way you build these things from at the minor league
level. So I get that. You know, you've got six thousand fans
in the stadium, so if it's twelve thousand, what's the difference. Economically?
The issue is is TV ratings, But there's an intangible benefit from having
a big vociferous fan base. Well, we were talking too about wanting an
increase year over year. I think, you know, including the New York
market or including the LA market would potentially be a way that you would be
able to spike a little bit more of that viewership than just like, well
we moved a team to Canton, Ohio, or we moved a team to
you know, Nashville, or we moved the team to like, you know,
to really feel like you're you're moving into one of these larger markets.
Might that might be something that would spark as well. Yeah. I remember
when the XFL went to a press conference at MetLife Stadium shortly before the pandemic,
before the XFL two point zero launch, and Vince McMahon, I guess
we can say his name. He's before before he was completely discredited, he
talked about putting the teams in larger markets because he wanted that big market pull.
He knew what it was. It was gonna be a lot of money,
and he spent a lot of money, uh for for venue for venues
and ads, advertising and all that. But he felt it was very important.
And I think most people who were around that XFL felt it was a
survivor that it was going to last if not for the pandemic. So the
question is if you're not if you're not in big markets and you're not marketing
the teams because you don't have the players and the teams and the markets during
the week, how do you do this? This will be a critical off
season for the uf L to see what see what they do, and again
getting back to ownership, getting getting owner operators or someone who's more than just
a team president of each of each team, but someone who has skin in
the game. That would be a big help. I have a question here
about from Max. One of our producers wrote in here, I want to
get to uh real quick. Are you surprised because we're talking local marketing,
not getting the players? You know obviously with the travel and everything, and
you know we're maybe at best we fly him in kind of the morning up
and kind of hit a couple, you know, things on the way to
the game or whatever. But like we were just down in Arlington again just
as fans here over Memorial Day weekend, we were in town for vacation.
I took my wife to the game there at Chalktaw You know, until you're
in the stadium, you would not know that the exit the UFL exists,
the XFL conference, you know, champions are there, that that's the base
of the UFL. Like I mean, even just in that market, around
that Texas Rangers stadium there you have Texas Slide, you have all this stuff.
I mean you just even just at that level like having you know,
signage and banners and things like. It's just very weird to me that we
exist in one of the sports meccas of the world in Dallas and Arlington kind
of that area, and you would have no idea walking around that stadium.
Well that that was the That's the argument against putting teams in big markets is
that you get drowned out. You should go to markets that don't have big
time professional sports, that don't have the NFL. So it's a debate.
I mean, obviously I mentioned the Vince McMahon argument. He he went the
other way although New York and l A was struggling, and uh, my
guess was, if the league had survived, those two markets might have might
have dissolved and those teams moved elsewhere. So but yeah, I mean it's
tough. You're playing where the Cowboys play where the Rangers play, I mean
the same area. And uh, it's that's it's a big market. I
mean you have to a certain point step back and realize the UFL is a
small business. Uh, when you in professional sports, they only have so
much advertising budget, they only can do so much. But that's why,
I mean, it's it's so important to build up these local fan bases because
that you're not going to go from zero to sixty right away. But I'm
if they could send some of these players to the to the markets to do
promotional events, community events. I mean, just get that's in the NFL
market, the players are out all the time on their off days and such.
You're not getting that with UFL. And the UFL needs that. We
talked about off season marketing and I agree, right we need to have a
you know, a plan here. And I don't know if that's a you
know, June eighteen or seventeen, you know, the day after the championship
came on, or if we pick back up in December, like, I
don't know what that looks like. I know the XFL last year, you
know, they laid off a lot of their marketing people following the season.
Wanted them to be seasonal employees. Max here has a question. You have
a firm like Redbird, who has so much experience in sports, why don't
they translate like what works for what they do with like to lose their football
club in terms of marketing and comedity engagement, creative marketing. Why do they
seem so hesitant to dump that same money and resources into something like the UFL
where obviously they know it works, they know they're going to you know,
they see returns on it here as it just well, we don't want to
spend as much money in this because it's not as lucrative a property. Well
to lose with me, it's a traditional sports league sports team because you know,
you have a team in a sports league in a market, and and
you can market, you can market around how the players are in the market
a year round. I mean this is a seasonal This is a seasonal sports
league. Uh, you know, abbreviated schedule, and you don't have expenses
are are are high? I mean I think I said in the story I
wrote it's expensive to run a football league. I mean there's insurance costs,
there's travel costs, there's equipment costs. I mean, player costs are not
that big in UFL, but they're they're there. So I don't know how
much they're making from television. I mean, I I think it has been
reported they were they were getting a rights fee from ESPN, But how much
that is and how much they're getting from advertising, And they're clearly outside of
Saint Louis not getting much from attendance from ticket sales. Uh, the people
I talk to figure they're losing that. I mean, it's not surprise,
but probably lost tens of millions of dollars this year. So I mean redbird
looking at that, I mean they're private equity. Private equity usually has short
term investment horizons of you know, three to five to six years. They
get out. They don't want to keep throwing good money after bad. I
a couple quick ones here before we get you out of here. I appreciate
your time. You had a quote from Eric galco here, a friend of
the show formerly you know, the DPP over with XFL twenty twenty and he's
with the Shrine Bowl and everything now. But I thought it was interesting.
This is this debate of like marketing and you know, how do we get
players in and want to move on. But then you have the players in
the league that are maybe the sub NFL guys, but wanting to make sure
that it's a place that they can play. We've talked about that. We
had a long discussion on the show Monday about you know, you need to
get to the place where people can kind of make careers out of being in
the UFL, even if then they supplement with other things in the offseason.
What do you make of that? It just kind of the general long term
vision. We had Darryl Johnson on the show preseason in talking like they don't
want the UFL to be a developmental league. We mix reviews. I if
that's even possible to not be. But what do you make of this long
term vision for the UFL. Yeah, I mean it's sort of muddy.
What you know, what what is it a developmental league? Is? If
it is it? What Galco's point about Dwayne Johnson the Rocks is h mantra
that it's for the fifty fourth player, that that that is the player the
first player cut from at fifty three NFL roster. Galco's point is that that's
that's that message is sending, is this is not a NFL caliber play.
This is this is me, this is below NFL caliber play. I mean
that seems self evident. But his point was that that's not a message you
should be sending. And it's it's it tells, it tells perspective players who
might want to be on an NFL roster that this is not the place to
go. I don't know if that's true. I mean, if if you're
trying to make an NFL roster and you you excel it in the UF oh,
I imagine you know that that footage goes to the NFL scouting departments and
helps you out. We'll see how many UFL players get on to get into
camps this this off season, NFL off season, how many make teams?
Uh? That that would be pretty pretty, pretty interesting. But it's it
is It is hard because is it is it developmental league or is it or
is it a league unto itself, divorced from the NFL and in its own,
in its own ecosystem. Uh. For so long with these spring leagues,
they people have talked about the NFL needs a developmental league, the NFL
needs a developmental league. They point to the NFL. Yurop Kurt Warners the
biggest example of of that, and there's probably some truth in that, But
as we know, college serves as the the minor leagues for the NFL.
And it's not as if the NFL isn't doing well. I just I always
remember back when there was the CFL XFL talks and we had on a bunch
of CFL reporters right rightfully so kind of defending, you know, the legacy
of the CFL. Why do they need all that? I remember we were
already having a debate with one of the reporters and they were just like,
you know, is that enough for the XFL at that time to be the
show that you're watching the players on the way to actually be on the show?
Is that? Is that enough of a driving point? And I don't
know, and I think they need to get away from that more, do
you. I mean, is that is that a twenty year league? Hey
watch them before they become the big I mean that's the minor leagues, right,
I mean that obviously minor league baseball. I mean people go for many
reasons. Some people go becuz they want to see the stars before they become
stars. Other people go because it's just a fun it's a fun night out
or day out, and it's it's family friendly, and it's goofy and such
like that. So if you look at the minor league baseball model, those
teams are in the communities, you know, and these teams in the UFL
are not in the communities. And I know we've been hitting that hard that
that point, but I think the sooner the teams can be in their local
markets and claim those markets for real, the better. Last question for me
here two point. The theme of the episode this week is can the UFL
defy the spring football curse? I think is what I have basically, kind
of going off of your article title here, how do you feel going into
season two? And then what would you like to see you know, obviously
a lot of different things, but kind of one tangible thing you'd like to
see them going into season two if it is the case, well, I
mean, in spring football's defense, we've had almost uninterested spring football other than
twenty twenty one, twenty nineteen with the lines of American Football. Twenty twenty
we had XFL two point zero twenty twenty two with USFL, and last year
with USFL and XFL, and now we have the merged UFL. So there
does appear to be be interested in demand for spring football and the people willing
to put money behind a league in it. And to labor the point,
but what I'd like to see next year more team marketing, more you know,
more getting getting fans in the seats, getting players into communities, getting
players out there promoting it. I mean, that's what that's what's going to
drive this. I know the teams probably have marketing staff in the markets,
but they nothing sells football more than the players. Yeah, I I I
lamented this week going into because there's been lots of talk of Birmingham and kind
of their subparer attendance even going into you know, it's your three now with
all this, and like they had two media mails this week going into the
playoff game, and I'm like, okay, if you're not like you're not
in the market. But then remotely you're only having you know, Skip Holtz
again for the eighteenth time this season, Like I don't it just doesn't seem
to be any sort of like this is a time to seize on this.
We're going to be in the playoffs again. We always say maybe next year,
and I always get people to tell me that we'll read you will try.
You know, oh the merch wasn't good. They'll get it right.
Eventually, they'll get it right. We know these spring leagues there's not always
there's not infinite time to do all this. I think you need to strike,
you know, you need to go now or not? Right, that's
right. I mean, look, I think the big question with the UFL
is you mentioned Redbird is what you know? What is their commitment? How
how long will they? What's there? What's their time horizon? They have
a lot of other investments in sports, this is not anywhere near the biggest
one. What uh you know, what's there? What's their time horizon?
Well, it would be good to know a long long term here with all
that. I was just looking at your Twitter handle. Make sure you can
play it before you go, Dan, anything else from you today? I
appreciate it obviously with the off announcing in Front office sports at Capitlin Sports Biz
on Twitter. Any other thoughts before we get out of here. No,
I just I mean, I'm rooting for the UFL. I want to do
well and I think they. I mean the TV ratings were surprisingly good and
I and I hope that continues for the playoffs. Awesome Dan follow him on
Twitter. I appreciate it making time today. Thanks again, all right,
take care. Well here we are. I don't think we've had this gentleman
on at all this season. Pat's been working on his channel as analyzed and
educating and also just real life work stuff. It's crazy. Like even me,
I'm like, okay, minimum sometimes we got real life stuff ahead of
us here. But we have Pat Rafina back on here. We were previewing
the UFL playoffs talking lots of news today. Actually I have like six I
never have like six stabs where the UFLD is coming up. Pat, How
are you doing there? I'm doing well. And like we talked about in
there in the pre show, there's there's there is some good news, there
is some breaking news, and then there's everything else in between. So obviously
the UFL season comes, you know close. We're starting to see some kids
get the opportunity to work out with some teams, and in my opinion,
that's really the kind of the the best thing about this league is Okay,
So who's gonna go and who's gonna stick? And you know, I know,
we have a bunch of things to talk about and the women and the
amount of time. But you know, I was going through the NFL rosters
the other day and this kind of brings in the overarching timeline that Andy Murray
did a bang up job giving a power point about But long story short,
tild are only like forty four roster spots available right now? What are we
doing? Like? Where do we you know, I know, last year
we were the League of Opportunity. This year we're the League of like,
let's just let's just get through year one read Yeah, they don't really we
don't really have a marching order this year. And what like what is our
drive of the league. I think it's we've merged. We're kind of working
through things. Yeah, I mean, in honor of a in honor of
Pride month, we're here. We're blank get used to it timely, you
know what I mean? Like I don't care what the end of the spectrum
you're on there, but I mean that's kind of what the UFL did this
year. We're here, you know, watch us, We're on Fox.
Great. So but overall, I mean, like you know, we have
we've been waiting for this for three weeks. These these four teams going to
the conference championship. I feel like it's been pretty solidified for I think they
all clinched going into Week seven, And I mean, I don't think we
have any disagreements as far as these are the four best teams. And I'm
pretty excited that we didn't have any excuse me, any hiccups as I hiccup
with the tiebreakers or anything like that. And as someone who kind of lives
in Saint Louis Reid, I am in one agreement with you on your take
about, well, if you really wanted to get into the playoffs, you
should have beat Seattle, like like just last year. Last year. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, Like I I'm it was intoxicating and nauseating to just
hear people talk about that like scenario and I'm just like, or we could
have just won. So are you surprised because we talked so it's really been
solidified for a while here. We just preseason and oh, these are all
going to be, you know, all star teams, and we're like,
really is such a divide? I mean, there's there's four good teams and
then there's I mean, I would say of those four, there's probably two
exceptional teams. One at least with the Stallions, and then there's a lot,
there's six. Like, I'm just surprised that this was so locked up
here weeks ago and now we're finally here. But are you? Are you
surprised kind of going into what we expected? I mean, I thought Michigan.
I didn't think Michigan was going to be as bad. I thought Michigan
would have been a like five and five team. I know there's some people
who are saying they were terrible. My biggest thing with Michigan was I didn't
I didn't feel like there was any like true dynamic playmakers on the outside.
And Ceoc Mariner and Marcus Sums both proved me wrong, which great, Who
am I one to prove me wrong? Cooc Mariner is probably one of my
favorite players in this league right now as a football player. I don't know
him as a man whatsoever. But you know, Michigan surprised me. I
mean they were kind of like, if you can get over Memphis, you're
gonna be in type thing. Memphis surprised me. I didn't think their offensive
line would be this terrible. I mean, case Cocis has at this point
a fetish when getting met up behind big men. He's kind of like that
that casting couch meme at this point. Arlington, I mean he went four
and six last year. That was a five and five, six and fourteen
to me. I wasn't as low on DC as I think a lot of
as like Mike was. But I was definitely one of those guys who was
like, it's not going to be that good this year too, boys,
like there's a lot of holes here. I was like, they lost some
coaches and you know, he's he's not someone we should care about completely.
But I was like, uh, like, we have excuse me, I'm
losing my train of thought. We had like even like they were losing backup
offensive Linemanto to uh what you mna call it to retirement, and then Josh
Hammond retires and then you have Abram Smith retiring and it just kind of was
like non stop retirement, retirement, retirement, injury retirement, and you know,
for me, it was just like this is this is not gonna be
okay. And then the icing on the cake was obviously Abram Smith. And
then you know, Emery Hunt, I think, is really the only person
that's like truly vocalized this is they took Deeric King out of that team.
And when you lose Deeric, you're not only saving reps on Jordan's body,
but you're also like supplementing the run game. And like that was a loss
that I don't think enough people cared about. You know, they're just like,
oh, dear King, Lindsay Scott City deer King. Derek King almost
threw forty five passes last year. I think Scott through like nine. So
it's been it's been a crazy time in terms of I guess we'll go through
some of the news here because you're talking about the Panthers. I have a
bunch of tabs opened up here. Speaking of the Panthers, let's talk through
here. Mike Nolan go to the year Michigan. I don't know if there's
competition there. I guess back on that, you deal with the I mean,
are you co signed that, Nolan dealing with injuries everything else going through
I deal with the injuries one into a lot of people had Michigan as like
a four to six, five five, with some people have having them way
worse than that. Another thing with Nolan is that they were four and sixth
last year, two and eight the year before after that you had and like,
when I think of Coaching of the Year, like why would we give
it? The skip holds He's lost four games in the last three years.
It's expected. Okay, the battle Hawks were expected to go to the playoffs.
They were seven and three last year Waite Phillips, he pretty much cannibalized
his roster, tried to do what you know Flipp did. They went seven
and three and then they were seven and three as the Houston Roughnecks last year.
When you like, when you break it down in that standard, like
what else do we got here? At Homie like it it makes sense?
Like it just Nolan was, in my opinion, the only obvious selection.
And I just feel like if you want to like get edgy about it,
like I don't think you're reading the tea leaves personally interesting. So you go
with what's expected versus you know, overcoming. I think, yeah, they
look at that like in the NFL too, like who over came the adversity
or who had what I mean by that logic, Belichick should be you know,
a seven time, eight time Coach of the Year. I mean Andy
Reid should win it every year. You know, takes you know, Bryce
Perkins, Brian Lurk. I mean, if you watch the film, you
d Danny Etling was a half decent player. I mean e J. Perry
to me was kind of an unknown because he only played in two games last
year, you know, some limited preseason experience, and he was performing admirably
when he played. He was a little erratic, but he was starting to
calm down. I mean, yet you took a bunch of dudes who really
didn't you know. The offensive line a couple of unknowns there. Corey Coleman
retires. The defense was great under Colin bock Bauer. I mean, and
how much does Nolan help with that? But in the end, like I
mean, new new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator, a lot of new
faces, and these guys came out, they put together a good season and
I think they match up very well against Birmingham and we can get an upset
there. Yeah, well we'll get into that. So that's good and we'll
talk the game specific here. I want to make sure we get to the
and I know that I think the time permittee and I think we're working on
our own marcass UFL team and if that doesn't come to fruition. That's completely
understandable as well. But we have the UFL here, the you know the
league. I think I think I put in the description you know the league
awarded here right the league designated UFL team. We don't. I don't need
to go like point by point through here, but any anything stand out,
any Glarian omissions or anyone that you super agree with. I would have put
Sal over Chase. I think Sal was like top five in a lot of
these categories. A lot of people really were high on Stephen Gonzalez. I
think Steve took another step this year as well. Matt Casey, he's a
swing tackle for the Stallions. I think he could have been the other tackle
over Jared Jones. Smith kind of lacked uh Daniel Wise as an interior.
I mean, Wise had some great games, but nothing too crazy. Malik
Fisher, who's working out right now for NFL teams. He could have been
my edge, my defensive end guy. Kind of wanted them to expand on
this a little bit, but I'm very curious to see if there was anything
with like the union that allowed them to because I believe they said they're giving
the bonuses to these all UFL guys. I love Jake Bates. I just
feel like either Cochland or Andre Schmidt should have got his award something they didn't
have. How so? How so? I mean because he's really been the
focal point of the special teams all year, him and obviously markuat king Get
in his own private concert after the Rennagades game that I was at, would
Baits? I mean, it was a lot of it was a lot of
glam, and then it kind of fizzled out, which you know was kind
of my argument is when you set the standards so high, you can only
come down. I mean, Cochland was I think the highest rated kicker and
then Bates missing a fifty one and what it was, it was a game
winning fifty one. He missed at thirty nine, really had issues kicking outdoors,
and you know, I think Baits deserves an NFL shot and they'll probably
get it. But in the end, like just because you hit the ball
really far a couple of times, like there's ten games in a season,
you know, I think he really tailed off towards the end, and I
mean, we'll see what happens. You know, I would have liked them
to have a special teamer like the USFL did last year. They had Vinie
Popoli last year as their specialist and I just thought that's a need award because
they gave a Special Teams Player of the Year award to a special teams guy.
Well, now that we have that, did you that that just came
out as we were recording that with but but at Garrett with Garrett? Name
with Garrett is this Chris Garrett? Yeah? Yeah, But but to expand
on that, they didn't have an all UFL specialists a special team Yeah,
so like the special Teams Player of the Year could have been a kicker or
punter, long snapper, return guy or you know, a gunner or just
a special team's ace like Garrett was. And you're gonna give Garrett the award?
Why would you not have a special team specialists there? I mean,
they slimmed down on this a little bit. You know. I think it
has to be because of the NFL or the ufl PA, because I think
that's what they said they were going to do, the bonuses and whatnot.
So you think they provided less awards because they didn't want to have to give
out as many bonuses. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean
I mean they you know, we're cutting corners on finances. You have two
interior defensive linemen. You know, realand Speaks is not an outside linebacker.
Neither is Chris old Bodem. I mean he was a defensive tackle. When
the season started. You only had two interior linebackers. I mean, kind
of a little slim pickens over there. You only put one running back.
I think you should have had two, you know, three wide receivers,
no fullback. You know, just to me, it just kind of it
just seems a little bit slimmer. I like that. I like the controversy.
I like that. I mean, fight me. You know, I
don't think anyone would disagree with me. You know, they give Adrian Martinez
the all UFL, you know, all UFL quarterback. I wouldn't have picked
him. I think you could even based off the Manny Wilkins experience, you
could even value that AJ McCarron is the most valuable player to his team.
But that would mean we'd have to do some thinking about what is an MVP.
It goes back to my argument I talk about a nauseum with Andrew Luck
was the most Valuable Player two in the NFL for years and never won an
MVP because you know, we don't go off that, we go off stats,
So you know, what is value? What does that mean? Marcus
Simms kind of stopped existing for three weeks and they couldn't have given it to
Justin Hall or John Jay Kirkland. That's who I would have given to.
This isn't just your AJ love coming through here, No, I think it
comes down the value. I mean, if Manny Wilkins, you know,
reversed his stat line with three touchdowns in one pick, they win both games.
I mean, he's playing school yard football and I love it. But
at the same time, I mean, if they didn't, they had to
change the whole game plan for him, you know, and he looked out
of place against the Renegades, which they have a secondary that I'm pretty sure
I could suit up and play, and they had Joe Palell. Joe Palell's
older than me. Guy looks like a trolled all out there with his hair.
Anything else from this, I want to a couple other news and notes,
and I want to talk through the games. Anything else in the all
ufl oh No, I mean, I mean there's always going to be controversy,
especially with money involved, and you know, I mean there's a couple
of guys who went put on there, and there's a couple of guys that
are on there that deserve them. But in the end, hopefully to see
a couple of these guys, you know, dressed up on the sidelines on
the Sunday in a couple of weeks, well, I guess to point out
to right, fourteen USFL Conference players, twelve XFL Conference players. So if
you want to add that to your you want to add that to your conspiracy
pot, right, Any thoughts on that, I mean, they're not not
really. I mean, I mean it's when you're looking at the guys,
like every guy, in my opinion, really does have a case. You
know, just it is what it is. I mean, people got caught
up in the controversy of like what conference is superior and whatnot, and I
mean I don't care. I mean if I'd have way too much many other
things to care about, and just like you know, you know, wax
wax wax off to that, and uh, I mean it is what is,
you know, Like I mean, I think it's it's good tweets,
it's good engagement tweets, and I know the UFL don't got the blue check
mark does this, so they ain't making any EU money off that, which
you know costs eleven dollars. I'm willing to guarantee you that we cont the
turn back. Let's talk through here. We have a couple of different sponsors
shan and we'll get to the game preview. One interesting thing to me,
uh so, I don't know anything about this is cbdre them. So the
first time I ever heard about well firs so creative. We have an official
partner now with the UFL CVD cret them then the official CBS and creative partner,
I mean based in Saint Louis, Missouri, right, I mean,
yeah, I guess I guess so like I mean, I mean, I've
worked with cannabis industry, doing a lot of assessments for them and they haven't
called me. So I guess I'm not as cool as I think I am.
I mean, are you surprised though? I mean this to me,
is you know, slightly out of the box partnership. Yeah, I'm surprised.
I mean it's I mean, I'm not going to advocate one way or
the other based because of work stuff, but I mean, if it keeps
the lights on at this point, you know, and it helps these players
recover and feel better. I got it, support it, right, I
mean, this is the closest thing we got to gladiators outside of UFC,
and these guys kill their bodies for us for years, just for our entertainment.
So if they're able to make some money from this, if the players
are able to get good treatment, and it's all legal and within the confines
of the regulation. Now I am curious though. I don't know about this
year, but next year. I don't know how the lot of drug testing
works, depending on how they do it. If you do an ad our
NFL teams some of these old heads, we don't know the difference between THCHC
and CBD and cratoon. Does that put you on the blacklist for an NFL
team? If you're going up there and they're saying, I'm John Smith and
after every game I rubbed this, you know, cannabis cream on my body
and it helps me recover, does that put you on a blacklist for some
players? I don't know. Interesting. Interesting One other thing, and this
is a little bit more. I can speak a little bit more about this
for that much, but I do have a lot more thoughts about this.
Who are naming Underdog Fantasy the exclusive partnership On the eve of the inaugural UFL
Conference Final games, and I had tweeted out I said, this is great
to see now I presumably better late than never here we have three games left
in the season. I know we have many many dfs and Fantasy and all
sorts of people that follow the show and have been on the show and talked
about this, Cody Maine and the established the runner, like all the different
things. At least we're doing it now. I don't know why you don't
have this at the beginning of the season, but at least maybe this speaks
to them having some sort of idea in their head about working towards this next
year. Yeah, and I think a lot of these moves are definitely working
towards next year type items. I think confirmed season two. I think that's
confirmed. I think we'll you know, we'll see a video once you post
this, We'll see a video on this from someone. We may cry and
you know, I think. I mean, when it comes down to it,
as long as we got things moving forward for season for season two.
And by the way, I hate it when people say season two, it's
it's the twenty twenty five season. It makes you sound like it's sad.
It's sad, it's the twenty twenty five season, you know. And I
don't even like it that we call it the inaugural UFL season. I mean
the league played for There's United Football League played for four years in the mid
two thousands. I need to update my YouTube description. I think I have
Dan Kaplan talking about season two of the UFL. Oh my god, I
guess I don't know it depending it just changed the thumbnails too, Why don't
you Okay, all right, I'll do the whole redo, the whole thing.
But no, I mean, but this is good because I mean we've
talked about this and nausim on here, and I hope this parlays more into
sports betting and everything as well, because you know, again we've talked about
this, but you know, the announcers on the broadcast know so little compared
to the people that are actually spending money and gambling on this. It's really
almost what's the word, uh and pandry. It's almost like not man'splaining the
right pa, Like it's like, do you think Cody Main sitting there like,
oh, I got to hear what the ESPN booth is saying about the
over on this game, Like, no, the people that are really bending
money and spending money on this and advising others and partaking and running sites and
doing all this, like they do not need the UFL broadcasters talking like,
well, the over are still in play on this kickoff, like let's go.
Yeah, and I'll buck back a little bit on that. The fact
that like I feel like when Joel Klatts on the on the on the stick
and that I mean, I mean he's he's in Metafi's not bad either,
but yeah, definitely the side some of them friends, Yeah, I mean
Luke's Luke's is good. I mean, I mean some of these guys,
man, like I don't even think they're like looking at the damn score sheet
before they're like going on there. I mean they're checking. I mean some
of these guys they just say the incorrect names. And you know it's like
I get in granted, like I cover this league, you know, supplement
my retirement with the income I make off this league, and like to see
like these guys who get paid way more like just be so bad at their
job. It's like it's annoying, Like it's just like all it takes is
a Google search of one player. Well, I get it, I get
it, and it's And then I said to me, you're turning off people
because you're turning off the casuals that don't want to hear about it because you're
not because you're talking to NonStop about it. And then you're turning off to
people that you actually know about it because they're like, you're an idiot whether
I need you, Like I don't need this, I don't need this expertise,
you know, expertise on here. Yeah, And it's just such a
filler of bs, like like it's on the screen like I know how to
do basic math, like like I understand what twenty three plus twenty is and
you have a forty six like like I don't know, Like it's it just
it's just filler. It's just bs. I mean, it's such a coin
flip when you're watching an ESPN game because at least when I watch Clatt,
I'm like, this guy is gonna teach me things. And like Clatt's awesome
too, because like he's going into coverage breakdowns and talking about like bracketing and
flip flipping up the hips, and then like you got an ESPN guy who's
like, that's good. What do we think, Dean, It's like,
I don't know, man, it haves and have nots, and I do.
I was against the Fox broadcast, like just with the USNFL being a
little stale, but going back and forth this year, you can really tell
the difference, especially if you're watching like back to back days or you know,
two games on one day or however they haven't lined up. Yeah,
no, it's it's it's it's and have nots. So it's it's it's sad,
it's exhausting, and you know you kind of wish for it to be
better, but I mean hopefully, you know, it's about improvement, right,
It's constantly building for twenty twenty five, and you know, like like
we heard all the time, let's just get through this year. Let's just
get through this year. We're getting We're getting through here, all right,
let me so let's hear them focus on this so the rest of our time
here. I think this is a incredibly compelling playoffs, right. I think
last year the Arlington Roughnecks that left a little bit to be desired here on
the what was that the South Conference, whatever the heck they called it last
year, the XML Stallion's Panthers here, you know them hosting the Protective we'll
see the attendance there was about seven thousand last week. And then Saint Louis.
You're obviously hosting the first playoff game in the cite Saint Louis and however,
you know they posted all that, you know years and years and years
since that. What do you make of this? And are you excited for
the playoffs? I mean the best part about this is that both teams are
two and zero versus versus each other. It's very hard to beat a team
three times in one year, and I haven't looked up how many times it's
happened, but it's extremely difficult to do it because the odds are you will
get lucky at some point. Michigan has ever been in this new era,
has never been in Birmingham, and San Antonio going back to last year,
has not be Saint Louis, and obviously San Antonio Day exists in twenty twenty.
So for me, there's that like storyline there which I find semi attractive.
Obviously, City of Saint Louis. I think it's nineteen years to UH
to bring this back. And I'm really expecting forty k people to be there,
and I know I expect forty k tickets to be sold. I saw
something that saw a lot of resellers and whatnot. So I wonder how when
those resellers don't show up, like how that works for the attendance because they
bought the ticket, right, well, they'll call it ticket in. I
mean, that's what doing for a week. I'm good with that. I
don't care if you're in Memphis or Saint Louis, because if you paid the
money, that's revenue the league gets. Let's get the let's let's pad the
stats, all that goofy stuff. Now, I do think that Saint Louis
could easily get a forty K. I don't know who's playing. I don't
really care. I got some heat for this. I made this appoint is.
Linden Wood University is the major university for football there. They're Division one,
Double A or FCS school. Last week they had their football Combine,
which has like all the Midwestern power fives all the way down from like Power
five to Division III. College coaches and all these kids from all around the
state of Missouri who go to battle Hawk games. I know these kids.
I talk to these kids. They're in my DMS. You know, they
asked me this stuff. And ninety percent of these kids, who do they
have they got parents and their parents take them to the game. So like
they was and I know we make the joke about the gas station stuff,
but like it's like, these are football kids in the area who would go
to this game, and they were all at the camp. They also had
First Form, which is one of the biggest like businesses in Saint Louis.
They were having a thing called Summer Smash. Steve Aoki there, if Ludacris
was there, Nelly was there. I mean, like, this is pretty
like and these are active people who go to these games and whatnot. So
like I don't want to go to Toby Keith's route by anything like that,
But there was stuff going on in Saint Louis and they still pulled thirty four
K. I mean yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that with a
push at the forty K, but I'm still saying like stuff was going on.
The Saint Louis version of Toby Keith was going on, No, I
think Saint Louis has showed up quite a bit. I mean, I think
that they're doing good. I think, I mean, I'm really curious to
see and especially in the championship game, if Saint Louis is there, I
mean, I think this could be pretty spectacular thing just for the legacy of
the league. I mean, are you are you off the boat of saying
if Saint Louis goes to the championship that fifty thousand people show up. I
think we'll see. So I've had a lot of conversations and like even like
the Dave Naylors of the world texting me like, hey, what do you
think, like if the UFL doesn't survive or do you think that they could
think Saint Louis could be the tenth team? Right? Because everyone's like,
how can we relate to this to the CFL. And I told him,
I said, we don't know what the ceiling is. We know what the
floor is. You got about thirty thousand people they're gonna come. I don't
know what the ceiling is. We'll see is it fifty thousand plus? I
don't know, all right, but I think we'll we'll find out what the
demand is and if they can't sell it out or if they can't get to
But we don't know that number yet. We only know that their floor is
higher than anyone else's ceiling right now. Yeah, by twofold, And I
mean if the league folds, I mean that conversation needs to happen, right
like at least a phone call to someone. I don't know who that someone
is, but I mean I think it'd be silly for the CFL. I
mean, I don't think people in Saint Louis will I don't know how much
they would care at this point. They would just want football. They don't
know if they would get Yeah, I don't. I mean there's very few
Americans who like adamantly hate the CFO like we're beyond like like the casual American
is just like, oh this is football, Why where's there? Where's worth
down? Yeah, there's more Canadians that hate American football than their Americans that
hate Canadian which Tyler feel very strongly in saying that. And when you have
a city like Saint Louis that like is starting for this, like they want
this to work, like they need like they because they haven't done anything wrong.
They've supported their team and you know, all this stuff, and it's
like they've done all this stuff, they've done the right things, and they've
been burned from it. Like this is a city when the move, the
team moved. They were in the super Bowl fourteen years prior, like they
they were in the playoffs with Mark Bolger, like Sam Bradford was still a
budding not a star by any means, but like the Sam Bradford like Lord
was still there where they could be a decent team. They're like, oh,
if he just gets one more piece, like people cared about this team,
and I mean, like twenty twenty, they get the you know,
they get a little what's what's it called twenty twenty, They they get a
little like you gotta little say it's a little apposite, yeah, yeah,
yeah, And like they they I don't think they broke thirty in twenty twenty,
and then they bump up to thirty eight at one point, and then
this year they broke forty and like now it looks like they might do it
again. Like man, if I'm the CFL, like I'm I'm making those
phone calls, you know, like I'm figuring this out. I love it.
I really would love it. But getting back to the game, like
we talk about that, but yeah, because yeah, no, and that's
I think it's I'm happy we went down that route too. For the game,
people are kind of calling for a Panthers upset here, But in terms
of Saint Louis brahmas, I think people have the brahmas or excuse me,
the BattleHawks favored a lot more thoughts on the Saint Louis matchup and then we
can talk for him. I think outside the SAT, outside of San Antonio,
I think you're getting more fans of the league that if you're remotely tied
into this, you think that Saint Louis going to the championship is the best
thing for the league. And I think people are cognizant enough about this if
like they watch your show, they read articles, they just care about this
league. Yeah, Like if this is the baseline and they're here as far
as caring about the league just slightly, they're like, this would probably be
the best thing because fifty thousand beer drinkers and ticket buyers and jersey buyers,
all that you know that is you're looking at a pretty hefty, hefty work
day as far As, like, you know, volume of revenue coming in,
and but do you think that the Malahawks have enough to do that?
I mean, I guess that's my question. I do I think you got
aj another week. It looked like they were very conservative with him. I
think a successful season for Saint Louis is getting to the championship. So I
think it's all all the tricks, all this all that. I mean,
what they really need to do is just generate a little bit more pressure from
that defensive line. I think. I think there's I think there's just a
little bit underwhelming. They bring in Peta from last year, and I think
the team either had they were either plus one or minus one. As smart
as sacks that they had last year, they only had nineteen last year and
this year they were either at eighteen or twenty. Their linebackers looking great.
Mike Rose's still a little bit nicked up, it looked like, but he's,
you know, he's when he plays, one of the highest graded players
in the league. Willie Harvey has put on a masterclass this year. He's
got four sacks and a bunch of TFLs. I mean, I personally think
like this defense as long as they get pressure from the defensive line, I
think they should be good to go for their offense. In my opinion,
they just gotta they gotta just open up all the stops. Man. They
played a little conservative. AJ's obviously maybe not one hundred percent whatever they want
to say, but like with the ankle, but if you're on the field
with him, open it up. I mean, Jacob Sailors can take a
lot of pressure off your team. And then from there, if you're able
to push forward and everything like that, you can't hold anything back. You
know, it's it's playoff football. You're one and done. Uh. In
terms of the USFL side here we tied and then we talked Panthers off the
top of the show. But them going into you know, productive stadium here
in Birmingham, I mean it's like we talked about, I think you're getting
Danny Ettling back, and he looked pretty okay, and they kind of looked
a little conservative and whatnot. Danny Ettling is a pretty athletic guy. I
know, Bryce Perkins looks, you know, like Superman out there, but
Ettling is a guy who can move around and make plays and you know,
he's uber athletic. If you look as preseason highlight film. Who with no
disrespect to these players, a lot of these guys are preseason football players.
He is carving teams up with his legs and whatnot. They match up well.
That Birmingham defensive line is violent. But you know they Colin Bauer on
that defensive side of the ball from Michigan really pulled out the stops and really
when he got exotic coming off the edge and whatnot, really gave Adrian Martinez
a lot of trouble. Martinez is not Alex Magoo. He does not diagnose
coverages the best way. He does not have, in my opinion, the
freedom that Magoo or Jamr had over the past couple of years. When Martinez
gets pressure, he looks like a child. He hasn't played that well the
last two weeks outside of his five game masterclass. He wasn't really maximizing his
potential and whatnot that he has had and has shown in my opinion, if
you're getting pressure on this guy, which Michigan has no problem doing. Between
Brielan speaks even Garrett Marino, Walter Palmbo or Daniel Wise, like you know,
like the Marino gained like fifty pounds of books like this week, and
he's moving better this year, and he's moving better a little chunky boy.
And I could say that because he blocked me on on Twitter, so he's
not gonna watch this. Maybe he does with a burner, I don't know,
but he got he got these guys out there like it's it matches up
well. And I think Birmingham put their left one of their left tackles on
injured reserve as well, so it's like, we'll see what happens. And
in my opinion, the guy who's running this defense kind of cool from the
safety position him Bryce Torrainan, Levonte Taylor and Nate Brooks. These are all
solid fringe NFL guys who do if they don't have NFL experience, they're pretty
close to having it. And you know, these are not bad football players
on that defensive side of the ball. And so if you have to make
your pick here before we get out of here, I think pretty confident to
say Saint Louis on here, but you're a little frozen, but we're still
got your audio, Saint Louis, And then who do you have for them?
We'll say, who do you have for the XL and USL Conference.
I got Birmingham because you know, I've bet against Birmingham a couple of times
just because it's I usually do it like two or three times a year,
just because it's hard to go ten and zero. But I mean, Birmingham
is the champions until they're not. And I mean, you know, Michigan
is hungry. But my biggest thing with Birmingham is how long could they do
this? And it's hard to threepeat, but if anyone's gonna do it,
it's going to be Skip Hoole, who literally has a has a machine of
guys that he just keeps churning out, you know. And every year there's
two, three, four new players that you're like, oh my god,
this guy's a guy, you know, and we'll see what happens. You
know. The biggest thing for me is another guy too to keep tabs on.
It's gonna be Jace Sternberger. They had this guy, Bumper Pool man
what a name covering Jace Sternberger and he just looked Bumper Pool just looks so
lost out there last week and they were like, oh, he's gonna be
like, uh, you know, Ginda, And I'm like, yeah,
I mean, no, not at all. So if you can line that
matchup with Sternberger in the slot and kind of work, especially if they're going
into like a cover two zone, which is one of the safeties. You
know you have a nice little gap between the linebackers and safeties. Pool couldnot
cover that whatsoever. And Nakua, you know, if he's going to bite
on that, he could get beat on the double move, which is what
I would do if I was a Skip Holtzen company. So we'll see.
But you know, there is a little bit of drama with the John Chavis
leaving and and you know, the Corey Chamberlain. They've given up more points
and whatnot. But we'll see. You know, I'm excited to see it.
Well, Pat, it'll be good. I appreciate it extended time today,
I know. And then obviously Pat doing the zone, the quarterback,
rand kids and everything. Oh for overhead analyze and educate anything else you need
today, Pat, founder of Creative Arts, Founder of Creative Arts. No,
I mean after the season, we'll do our all UFL team. If
you're a player that's watching this, we actually made certificates. They're nothing fancy.
You know, they're going to be on nice paper and everything like that.
But if you want a certificate and you are a player, I'm not
going to make ninety for all the players because I feel like only four of
you will want them. But if you're a player and for whatever reason,
you're watching this, and don't act like you don't, because I'm definitely Reid
has referred to you to me for certain things when they're like hey Reed Judson.
Oh yeah, they probably called you Mark by the way, but they
were like, hey Mark, do you know anything about this, and be
like, oh talk to Pat. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're watching
this and you want to serve, will you all that stuff? You know
how I need that Twitter engagement, so I'll make that. I'll repost the
video and whatnot. But yeah, we want people to know that, like
we care about you, and you know, like maybe if I'm feeling really
motivated, I'll edit the Wikipedia pages and put the here you go, hey
mar cast on your thing. So yeah, that's you know, that's something
we wanted to do. Just know that people care that you exist and like
we appreciate you entertaining us and putting your bodies on the line. Well,
Pat, I appreciate you. Thanks for making time today. We'll catch it
with you soon and stay safe out there. Always always huge special thanks to
both guests today coming on Dan Kaplan. Always appreciate him spending his time extended
over time with Dan today and then Pat is always making time to come on
the program to talk through all the UFL stuff. Really appreciate that. As
I said, look for a CFL recap coming early next week as well as
a UFL playoffs recap. We'll get both of those scheduled. Just you know,
subscribe to the channel, hit the bell, you'll be notified for all
that stuff when we go live. And then as a reminder, we will
be live Sunday, June sixteenth in Saint Louis for the UFL Championship game,
so we will do the recaps early next week. There will be no Friday
episode next week. We will be live on Sunday. You know, padd
will be there either remote or in person. Andrew Murray will be there,
Anthony Miller, maybe we'll get some more remote guests, but I will post
all of that stuff. So no regular Friday episode next week, will be
live, lots of live content next week, so hopefully that is okay with
everybody. A couple last notes. All the giveaway items have been claimed save
for the Brandon Silvers jersey. This is your last chance go back. If
you were invested in the Brandon Silvers giveaway announce the winner last week, you
need to go back. If that's you, send me an emails podcast at
gmail dot com. Otherwise, I do have a runner up winner for that.
So this is it. I would say, probably by Monday, if
you haven't claimed it, we will be releasing that to the backup winner,
and then the winner of the UFL Championship Game tickets to sit with the Professor
Andrew Murray fifty yard line. I think it's row m that winner will be
out of town unable to claim, and I'm able to utilize those tickets.
So here's the deal. If you it is right now as I record this,
you know June sixth, you'll be listening to this on June seventh.
You please comment on the video say you know I want to win the tickets
UFL Championship Game tickets. You need to have tickets be in your comment because
I'm going to search through the comments. I'm going to get all of those
and then Monday morning, Monday, probably midday Monday, the tenth. I
will go through and I'll post a video. I'll do the wheel thing,
but I'll just do a pre recorded to give that away because you guys,
we gotta you know, there's no time here. The championship game is the
sixteenth, So if you are invested in that going to the UFL Championship Game,
comment some sort of I want the tickets entering into the tickets. You
need to have tickets be in your comment on this video. I will go
through Monday morning, Monday midday and we will post that. So that is
how you will win the tickets. You will be sitting in Row M with
the professor Andrew Murray. We had another set of tickets today, a wonderful
listener I guess donated to us to gift out. We gave those the way
for the UFL recap. I guess it was on Monday or Tuesday whenever.
That was Andy and I. So you never know when you could win it.
You know you can win a free jersey or free set of tickets,
so make sure you subscribe. We'll see you guys next time. Hope you
enjoyed the rest of the CFL Week one. Hope you guys enjoyed the UFL
playoffs. We'll see you next week. Take care, we'll see you next
time. Picks