Well here we are live in Texas. I hope this looks good, sounds
good. Everyone should be I realize now I'm gonna have to change my headphones
here in a second. But we are here, live the Professor Andrew Murray
standing by. We have Anthony Miller here, Evan Wills Moore. How are
you guys doing to that? Uh, it's it's crazy that we're here.
I mean, this is It almost feels like it's like the third different league
we've been covering over the last three four years. So it's, uh,
it's surreal to finally be here. But it's a it's an exciting time.
I think it's uh, you know, we we're in a world where the
USF and the xfl are merge and we're finally going to see how the final
product looks today. So I'm excited to watch the games today and tomorrow.
Yeah. I saw Mark Perry post, you know, hopefully the last time,
you know, starting covering the beginning of another league. Evan, we
were here last night. Lots of action going on. I'll pull up some
comments here as well. How are you doing. I'm doing great, man.
I think I think Anthony nailed it, you know, it's like whatever
different league that we're covering now, and it never seems to amaze me or
never fails to amaze me. Rather how how many changes we have here.
But I'm excited to be here man, first time in Arlington, you know,
at Chalkedaw and excited to see how everything works around here. Lots of
people checking in, foods off fans. Are you ready set the stage here?
So we're going to have We're gonna go live two hours here. Anthony
and Evan they're going to be here for the first hour. They're going to
start heading to media availability. Professor Andrew Murray is going to be on with
me, and we have guests every fifteen minutes. I posted on Twitter.
The lineup is in the YouTube description to every fifteen minutes. We've got Emory
Hunt's coming on, Mike Mitchell's coming on, Eric Eager is coming on,
Coach Craig javon Alf all friends of the show going to be good. If
you like any of the stuff that we do, please like and subscribe.
Lots of work coming here. We're adding subscribers. We're at the kickoff today
and then if we get to thirty five hundred, we're like one hundred and
change away two free tickets to the championship games, so I might actually make
it to Saint Louis. I wasn't sure if I was going to, but
I might actually be there. But anyway, two free tickets for that,
like and subscribe. Lots of work coming here. We'll get into kind of
some of the football stuff, but just overall surreal back at Choctaw. How
are you sensing kind of the vibe here in the community. You know,
I'm relatively surprised to see that all the tailgating go on this mark. There's
quite a bit of people out there already outside of the stadium and we're three
hours away from kickoffs, so you know, you know, Arlington has always
been like in term of twenty twenty XFL twenty twenty three XFL, they were
always middle of the pack when it comes down to attendance, Like they've always
had enough people that come out and enough interest that there was a lot of
excitement. You know. The last couple of days we've seen a lot of
media, like the local Fox station, local ABC station was out at you
know, Choxhau Stadium with coach Stoops and you know, fans were out there,
So I think as the week has gone on, there's been built up
for more, you know, more and more excitement, and you know,
I I think there are people that are excited to see the running gades back.
I think there's more excitement this year just because they won the championship last
year, so I think the expectations are higher. I think there's a lot
more excitement that this team could end up repeating again because they have you know
that this is a more talented roster than they were last year, so they
have the capabilities of doing it. It's gonna be very tough. There's I
know, we talked about a week or so ago. You got you know,
DC, you got Saint Louis, you got Birmingham. We are probably
the favorites to win the title, but Arlington can be in the running for
it. So I think there's people that are excited, especially having Louis Pez
back. I think that was a big pick up them to get him back
for this year because he made the difference in their championship team last year.
So I think having him back, and you know, a lot of most
of the team is back, so this should be a really good football team
this year. We have a question about Matt Carroll. We'll talk about that
in a second. Always, guys, if the audio sounds weird, let
me know. I think we're all good. But if there's any issues audio
video, just check in. I can kind of monitor it here. Evan,
I had a comment here, I'll pull it up. Talking about attendance.
You know, I was a little whelmed last year with attendance. I
didn't think it was fantastic. Obviously a beautiful day here. Today it's a
lot where you can literally see chalk taye here behind us, Rangers are playing
at six. I'm going to that game. I'd be friend of the security
guard that got me like a thirteen dollars employee. We went around. I
felt very sketch. We went around. I was like, is this legal?
But so hopefully you get people out here going to this and then going
to the Ragers because it's kind of this complex here. We'll get anthe as
thoughts attendance as well. But Evan, what's your sets? I mean,
I know we looked at the seed charts this week. Always up to judge,
but what do you think? Yeah, I definitely agree. You know,
I was a bit skeptical at first, and maybe the Rangers game would
actually take away from attendance and more the attention would be on that. I
think they're raising the World Series banner tonight, if I'm not mistaken. So
there's that. But you know, I think I think because the Rangers game
is happening, they'll actually be a decent amount of fans who come to the
game because of that, and they'll do both, so hopefully that'll increase attendance.
I'm not expecting anything crazy. Again, We've had so many different iterations
of these leagues that I think, you know, some people might be getting
worn out. But we were at Texas Live last night and there was a
guy wearing a Renegade shirt down there, so you know there is some fan
pull. It's good to see, Yeah, said Evan, and I were
at Texas Live. I was having the shinderbock, Evan was not. I
saw some of the league officials there, so obviously they're they're peeking around,
appreciative of what we're doing. I see Andrew Murray checking and give me a
thumbs up, and he's ready to go. We'll pull him on then.
I don't forget Greg Park's first guest coming up here at about ten minutes.
So Andy's fixing this here, Andrew. How are we looking? How are
we sounding here? We're doing all right? You're muted, so I do
know that that is not my foot. That's okay, look at and the
other. No, we'll get Andrews still muted here, Let's get you unmuted.
There we go. How are you, sir? I still can't hear?
Can you guys hear? No? I and you see if you can
work with that. Let me see if it's our setting this as well,
Anthony, Uh, let's talk this. Uh to me, the biggest breaking
news coming out is that Matt Corral is Matt Corral as his writing quarterback.
I think a lot of people thought, JMR is do you know anything about
Is that an injury? What are we expecting there? I mean, that's
a great question. I haven't heard anything about it. I mean I'm surprised
that JMR is inactive. I mean that that's that's I think the biggest surprise
of the season so far. Like, I don't think people I don't think
many people are surprised to hear that Matt Correll was either going to start or
at least be one of the you know, the two quarterbacks that you know,
Skip Holes talked about was going to be in you know, uh,
you know, using two quarterbacks this season. So I don't think that was
the surprise to see Matt crow is gonna be one of the two. But
for Adrian Martinez to take that backup job that that's a a really big surprise.
And you know from the injury boards. I mean, JMR is not
on any injury board, so I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's
an injury. So I think, look the potential with Matt Correll coming in
here, He's already been highly you know, regarded as one of the top
quarterbacks in the USFL or the UFL, and just you know the way he's
been able to you know, what he did at Old Miss being able to
the way he threw the football, the way was you know, able to
run it as well. He's got a lot he's got a lot of Alex
Magoo in him, and I think that's what Skip Holes kind of saw in
him. So I'm not surprised Matt Correll is you know, going to be
you know it as one of the two quarterbacks. But it'll be interesting to
see what they use what Adrian Martinez. I can see him as more of
like a package quarterback for like you know, trick plays and running plays and
stuff like that. I don't really see Adrian as the guy that's going to
be able, who's going to step back and you know, throw five to
seven passes a game. It's probably gonna be more. I would not be
surprised that Matt Carrell gets the majority of the steps well, because I just
had that question too, and then we'll I'll Evan will get Andy popmagin here.
I think he's good. The question was like, oh, jmr,
he's QB three because you know the UFL has that rule you can have the
third quarterback injuries all that. But I mean he's totally active. I mean,
you'd have to be dressed, right, So what's your thoughts on that?
And I'll pull up Andy here. Yeah, I mean, I you
know, I was a bit surprised that they named Matt Corrall the starter,
but there's no doubt that he's one of the biggest quarterback names in this league.
And to be honest, I mean I keep saying the rich get richer
with Birmingham. I think that quarterback room in particular that they have between Matt
Corrall, Adrian Martinez and even Jamar Smith. He's going to be an active
today, but all three of those guys I think bring a lot of value
to the table. When your QB three, the inactive QB three is a
guy who led you to a championship in twenty twenty two, that should tell
you a lot. So I think they think very highly of their quarterbacks and
I'm excited to see Corral. Hopefully we get to see a bit of Adrian
Martinez around this time last year, his name was getting a lot of traction
in the NFL draft. I think he signed UDFA contract with the Lions,
and then obviously now he's with Birmingham. So excited to see how it unfolds.
I know that Matt Carrow's name carries a lot of weight and he was
one of my top players in this league going into this season. Andy,
let's see you on here? Can we get here? You now? What's
your thoughts? I can hear you, Mike go what is your thoughts here
that Matt carl Jmr Smith debate? Well? First of all, hopefully I
have more false starts than they are in the entire game, So I'm glad
that's not going to happen hopefully anymore. But yeah, it's really interesting that
jamr is not in the lineup at all, is not listed on the activity
A roster today. I think that's kind of a testament to how much depth
there is on the Birmingham Stallions roster in general. But also keep in mind,
I mean, Skip Holtz has had to have a lot of moving pieces
when it's come to the quarterbacks, right, I mean, you me,
Reid. We saw Alex McGoo starting for the Stallions in twenty twenty two,
and then he eventually got replaced by j Mar Smith in that game where he
came back to win against the Generals, and he was kind of the anointed
start of the rest of the season unless he got hurt and wasn't in the
lineup. Fast forward to twenty twenty three, Jay Mar Smith gets hurt,
Alex McCoo comes down, has a spectacular season and now goes into the NFL.
So, I mean, Skip Holds is kind of used to shifting pieces
for Matt Corral. I mean, this is a great opportunity. I mean,
I just hope he stays healthy because injuries have just absolutely plagued him since
he ever since he came out of college, and he even got hurt in
his last game in the Sugar Bowl for Old Miss. So for him,
it's really just the key is staying healthy. And I think if you run
rpo with him and if you're able to kind of use his legs a little
bit more, it could really make some dynamic things happen in this offense.
I think that's why Magou was so effective last year. I mean, his
legs and his arm were both things that were just fantastic assets for this entire
squad. And also you know they I mean they got injured at other positions
too, like with Cyrus Mitchell and a couple of their receiverd Marlon Williams,
like they got really decimated by injuries last year at the receiver positions, both
Scarborough, both Scarborough got hurt. So really it's just a matter of them
staying healthy. But yeah, I mean for Corral, I'm not surprised that
he's starting and that Adrian Martinez in the mix. Maybe it's a little surprising
the people who follow Janmar Smith and especially on Twitter, he's very pronounced on
Twitter. But I think it's just a testament to how much depth there is
on the roster. I'll getting questions here about Louis Perez. I know Andy
will have thoughts on that, but we'll circle back. Let's go to Anthony
first. Here I'm gonna get my Andy and my Anthony messed up all day.
I have a feeling. But you know, Prez coming back. We're
getting comments we was on see Lindsay Scott as well. So I know you
cover the Renegades. You do a great job covering a lot of the teams
Sports Illustrated, but certainly the Renegades as well. Being here at the Arlington's
what are you making the quarterbacks there? Yeah, So obviously Louis Prince is
going to start. Obviously he's the main start of this team. A lot
of praise from him from his leadership ability to how quickly he can learn an
offense like his football IQ. I really think he's among the highest in this
league just because of all the trades and all the moves that he has been
you know, put through the ringer nearly since twenty nineteen in the AAF with
the Birmingham Iron. So obviously not a surprise that he's starting. I know
a lot of people have questioned about, you know, Lindsay Scott and how
he's going to be used. Coach Dubes has you know, he hasn't really
said it, you know, formally, but I know Mike Mitchell and I
when we were on a zoom call a couple of weeks ago with Coach Tubes,
he did say that, you know, there there could be packages for
Lindsay's gott and I think that you're really there really should be packaged for him.
I think he's you know, when I saw him in the open practice,
he's got a great arm. You know, when he rolls out of
the pocket, he is, you know, pinpoint accuracy with the football.
I think with him you can really use him on running plays, play action
RPO plays. That's the type of stuff they're probably gonna be using him for.
So is there gonna be a two quarterback system? I know, not
really. I think Louis will probably get the majority of the of the plays,
but I think Linday Scott's gonna use a lot like how Kelly Bryant was
using the offense last year, where you know, he was mostly just running.
I think he threw it maybe once or twice, but for the most
part, Lindsay Scott's gonna be out there to be a decoy kind of throw
people off. But I would like to see Lindsay Scott throw the football a
little bit more this year because I think there's a lot of upside with him
where you know, if Louis Perez decides that, you know, he wants
to call it quits for football, Lindsay's got would be a great replacement for
him. Well, that's my question to Evan is you know, obviously you
know, you guys are the football experts are here when Lindsay Scott was being
courted by the league and coming in, I mean that was it seemed to
me at least our fan base is very excited for that. So obviously you're
gonna go with Luis as long as you can. But what upside do you
see from Lindsay in the quadeback situation there? Yeah, Lindsay's name carries a
lot of weight. He's somebody that I'm glad to call a personal friend.
Very intriguing college career. Believed he played a seventh season, starting at LSU
Goo Tigers and ending at Incarnate Wards, So you know, he was in
college for seven years. But yeah. I mean he's a bit undersize,
you know, never really I think fit the NFL game pretty sure. When
he came out in the draft, he was already twenty five years old,
so had many camps with Jets and Buccaneers. But you know, it wasn't
exactly a prime NFL candidate, I think for a lot of teams. But
I do see a lot of upside in him. I think it's an interesting
discussion to be having now that Luis Perez is getting older. You know,
we've seen him go through all these leagues. You just wonder when is he
going to slow down? And I certainly think that he's still got a lot
more guests left in the tank. I'm not rooting against him. He is
a Spring league legend. We all know that. I'm gonna give him my
flowers whenever I can. But you know, I see a lot of a
lot of potential in Lindsay Scott, and I do think that they found the
right guy to take over in the event that Louise slows down or gets injured,
or you know, this thing keeps going for a couple more years,
any one of those scenarios. You know, we think very highly of Lindsay
Scott. Andy will toss you and then we have Greg standing by. We'll
pull him up here in the medvent and we'll talk more. You the don't
feel like he had a wax poetic on Luis here for ten minutes. But
I want to make sure you get a chance to comment here. We'll circle
back. But thoughts on this and the upside Lindsay Scott everything else with the
Renegans. I mean, time is a flat circle. Read this guy,
Perez just keeps showing you up time after time after time. I've been watching
this man for five years in string football now starting with AF You and I
covered the game when they opened the USFL in twenty twenty two. We see
him in the championship game last year. I mean, this guy just doesn't
he doesn't go away, like don't forget the joust the Jousers. Of course
your your team, the Jousters, And I mean he's just he's a gnat.
He doesn't go away. He just keeps bugging people and he performs well
in a way that his football knowledge is. I think he could be a
coach after he plays, because his football knowledge is incredible. He really just
has the acumen to understand the game at a really supreme level. Maybe his
athletic traits have never been there, and maybe the reason why he's not in
the NFL. But I mean, there's no doubting his cerebral knowledge of the
game of football. So for him to be here once again to start against
the Stallions again just as a testament to him. But I like your points
on Lindsay Scott. Really, this whole roster for the Renegades really fascinates me
a lot. I'm really interested to see if people, like for example,
Javonta Peyton, if he can consistently produce over the season, because I know
he exploded in that game against the Roughnecks, which I know Evan and Anthony
we're both witnessed too, but I just we are. We have the mad
trying to break into I was trying to make us and he's coming out.
My god, the door's coming down. I mean, hopefully she should have
a battery ram, but I just just yeah, just to go off.
Though, I think this Renegade team gets stronger. I agree to the points
about as I mentioned, Lindsay Scott, one of the names that's really kind
of interesting for me to look at is Cameron Hunt, who's the starting the
starting center for the team. I know he's played guard. He was drafted
by the Stallions in twenty twenty two, so he has familiarity with that coaching
staff. Honestly, Johnathan Heinbach, who you've all talked to, the offensive
line coach, has been on both rosters, so there is some familiarity,
some crossover here as well. So that to me is really fascinating just to
kind of know that both these teams, these players, and the coaches are
very familiar with one another. I'll comment your comment here, Bobby Scott will
to get to that in a second wide receivers for Ari on the fan.
Let's pull up Greg Parks here UFL board. Greg, we look sounding good.
How's everything going here? You look great? Uh? You sound great?
And I you know, I thought what better time to try my first
Zoa Energy then on kickoff weekend for the UFL. And you know, it
is the official energy drink of the UFL. And by gosh, if you
paid attention to the Instagram stories of these teams throughout training camp, you know
that they almost you know, put this right into their veins. They had
it so often. So whatever advertising they use worked for me, so I'm
trying it for the first time here today. All I wanted to say is,
look at you, Greg, look at you. Look at you.
Look at you, Greg. And when this and when this stream is done,
I want you to keep the same energy about this, Zoe. Yeah,
the rock is really I am liking this a lot. I don't know
if it's the best for promoting football, but it certainly is good to get
them on TV. Greg. What's your status here? I mean I think
you're a little bit more of a pragmatic realist like I am. Here.
We're coming today. I'm back in the same hotel I was last year.
We've got the same kind of you know, different different uh you know,
branding, different league stuff. We have different letters on the depth chart,
So what do you make of them all this? There is a certain level
of deja vous that you're feeling. I think, Uh, you know,
I was here last year when we were kicking off the XFL in twenty twenty
three, and you know, we had pretty high hopes, but I think
we were pretty measured in our expectations, and I think it's the same way
this time. There's a little bit more reason for optimism. I think just
because you have you know, last year there was the concern of these two
leagues potentially taking viewership away from each other, and we've seen online that tribalism
between the two fan bases that hopefully goes away for the most part. You
know, they still got the XFL and the USFL conferences. But you know,
we're we're all pushing in the same direction this year, and so you
know, that concern is out of the way. So it's still spring football.
It's still an uphill battle to be successful. But I think when you
have entities like Fox Sports, like Redbird, like ESPN again all pushing in
the same direction, I do think it gives you a better chance at success
than uh the USFL or XFL individually that we had last year. Talking about
that. The rivalry right you know, XML versus USFL and boiling that you
know today especially right tomorrow, I think is more in their conference games.
Anthony, what do you I mean to me? That's really smart obviously champion
versus champion and kind of the both teams, But what do you make of
that as the kind of the I don't know if the branding win maybe is
as good as it could have, But I think that at least in theory,
this is the best way to start out the season with this matchup.
Yeah, you had to have the two champions go against each other and you
know, have the tribalism that Greg was talking about, you know, be
in full fledge with you know, USFL fans supporting the Stallions and XFL fans
supporting the Renegades. I think there could you know, talking about the marketing
side, I really think they could of. I didn't see as much marketing
on you know, these games as I really should have, Like I know,
on some of the you know, the typical you know, Fox shows
that they have in the mornings, you know, first things first, Like
I know, they kind of talked about a little bit, but again,
like I hate when they do that because you clearly know that these you know,
these broadcasters don't know the league like that. That's the most frustrating part.
I would rather them do like a one on one interview with like Darryl
Johnson or somebody within the league or you know, somebody who knows the league
better than anybody else, like r J. Young, Like I wish I
would have seen him a lot more, Like I know, we have our
opinions of it, but he he is the Fox expert on the on the
UFL like that. I should have seen him a lot more on TV instead
of you know, Nick Wright not really talking much about it and just you
know, speaking in generals about it, because there are experts out there that
know this league, you know, better than the you know, the talent
that they have a Fox. So I wish they would have done a better
job marketing, but that that's something that they have been doing over the last
couple of years on thoughts with the USFL, and I wish they would stop
doing it and bring on experts. Now I'm not saying they need to bring
us on, but there but you know, get Joe klatt On, he
knows that he knows these leagues better than anybody else on national television. Put
him on TV everywhere and let him talk about it. Well, and they
had they had clad on. I did see him on Coward, but he
was in the context of like we're talking first round picks and then what do
you make I mean I did watch that because I'm like, oh, let
me hear what Joko has to say. Evan In terms of the matchup in
terms of you know, kind of the premiere I hate you where the premiere
is bringing with the two premiere teams here, I mean, certainly a good
way to roll out. Just overall thoughts on that, it's kind of the
way to kick the season up. Yeah, I mean, look, you
know, there's a lot to be excited about, you know, obviously now
that we've joined forces, I think there's going to be a lot more exposure
on this league. But the take that I always keep having, and then
I'm going to say now is we're here a couple hours away from kickoff,
is just want to make sure that the talent level is right, you know,
if you've got more eyes you know on this with the big networks,
you want to make sure that you're putting the right product out there and that
you have the right players. I work in player personnel. I understand the
importance of that. You know, it starts with that on field product.
I mean, you can do, you know, all the great stuff that
Fox does from a broadcasting perspective, but if you don't have the players to
get it done, it's gonna be a pretty tough you know, to be
able to enjoy the game and to get excited about it. So I feel
like these teams, you know, roster wise, are very good. I
know we touched on that a bit with the quarterbacks, you know, So
yeah, I mean I expect it to be a good game. I do
think Birmingham will win. I know we're not getting the predictions yet, but
I do like the Stallions in this game. So excited all around. I
think again, you know, like you guys talked about they picked the right
matchup, you know, having the two champions go against each other. It
was something that you know, I think we had flirted with before the merger
had even really been been a thing. People were saying like, oh,
could you imagine if the Stallions played the Renegades, Like wouldn't that be so
cool? And now it's actually happening. So just kind of crazy how things
work out. Man. I can't stress that enough, you know, just
how surreal it is again to be in this position. But yeah, and
overall, I feel like we're in a good spot right now. A couple
hours before kickoff, Greg talking football here and then we'll get andy these thoughts
as well. We were talking quarterbacks. I had a question some of it.
Sorry, just talking about kind of the wide receiver corps for Arlington and
overall, you know, bringing in Louis, I want to get your thoughts
on that matchup, but we'll probably transition to some of the other matchups as
we go through these guests. But at least while we have you here at
the beginning and what are your thoughts on who do you see kind of go
because at Birmingham's scary and I think I've had a lot of people comment at
both you know, football players in otherwise like Birmingham's going to come in and
bollywop this. I hope not. I hope it's a little bit more competitive
game. But yeah, Birmingham seems far and away, at least on paper,
the best team in the league now. As Chris Berman always used to
say, that's why they play the games, right, So we'll see.
You know, Arlington's receiver corps is interesting. I wrote about this in my
positional rankings for UFL board that I think they have some interesting pieces. I
just don't know how they fit all together really well at receiver with guys like
Javonte Payton, with guys like Lewan Winningham. Certainly sale canal at tight end
is going to be an important piece of what they do in the passing game.
So you know, they had to replace a lot of offensive linemen,
and so how they gel together and work together, and how all offensive lines
across the league jael together because that's the one position. And you heard Jim
Harbaugh waxing poetic about it earlier this week about offensive lines and how every position
relies on the offensive line, but the offensive line doesn't rely on any other
position basically to do their jobs. So you know that's going to be interesting
to see over the first couple of weeks, is how do these offensive lines
shel together? Are the offensive lines that are most successful, ones that bring
players back from previous seasons and have worked together before in those schemes. So
I think Birmingham does bring a couple of players back along the offensive line Arlington,
I think just one, Cameron Hunt. So it's really going to be
interesting to see how that develops as well. We'll go to Andy here and
they'll get one more for Greg. I see Emory Hunt's punctual standing by here
in the background, so we'll get him on here in the second Andy the
matchup of that, because the continuity right Birmingham right three p here coming back
in Arlington. You're seeing now the continuity with some of the XFL. Is
that enough with with Arlington and all of this or what are you making to
just kind of piggyback off of what Greg was saying and I was trying to
point out a little bit earlier, is Yes, the receiving core for Arlington
is a little bit of a mishmash. Javonta Payton, like I said,
came out in the playoffs and looked really good, but can he do it
over the course of a full season. And Deontay Burnett continues his moment of
with Arlington that he had with Houston. Guys like Davion Smith. I like
Davion Smith a lot. I wonder how much Juicy has left. Guys like
Leeddy Brown are a little bit more intriguing to me that are sitting right behind
him. I think this Arlington team is still going to go through its growing
pains with its offense. Obviously, it's going to be working more of the
intermediate routes, not a deep field passing game. It's going to be a
little bit more methodical. To Anthony's point that I know he said this on
your show, The other day looked like and Jonathan Heinbach also talked about this
too on your show. The practices have been more crisp and they've been a
little bit less janky like they were last year. So maybe coming out of
the gate they feel like they're more prepared, but I still think it's gonna
take time for this offense to gel so defensively on on special teams, I
think they're just fine, Like they're gonna be wrestling on the same laurels they
had last year, and their coaching staff is gonna kind of keep the game
manageable. But against teams like Birmingham and Saint Louis and maybe something with a
more fire power on offense, they might struggle a little bit to kind of
get out of the gate again. And it's not because of the lack of
talent. I think it's just cohesion. Greg thoughts for you. We'll get
you a couple more comments here from you, we'll let you go and then
we'll bring on Emry. Like I said, guys like it, subscribe,
you appreciate the work. I have a lot of guests today. I really
appreciate everyone taking the time early Saturday morning here, Greg, whether you hoping
to see from the game today, from the weekend, and then just kind
of overall here, just kind of looking for it because you know, we
don't even know what expectations are fraid of this stuff right now. I mean,
we're assuming we're back here next year. What are you hoping to see
as far as on field, just clean games, a minimum of penalties,
a minimum of turnovers. You know, turnovers can be exciting, but not
half dozen the game. I think that that can be concerning for offenses and
things like that, and so close games, competitive games, you know,
like a lot of what we saw with the XFL last year. I know
their margin of victory was pretty small, and I think they hit really the
goal that they wanted to hit last year in terms of how close the games
were into the fourth quarter and things like that. So you know, that
I think is really all you can ask for the first weekend and then kind
of let the chips fall where they may in terms of viewership, in terms
of what's out there who talks about the league. That that's something that the
league doesn't really have a ton of control over at that point either, you
know, But to go off of what Anthony said in terms of what kind
of marketing was done. And I know this has been a big focus of
us in the offseason. You know, all of this is stipulate that they
only had really less than three months from the time they announced the league to
the first game, so that Hamstring's league ownership a lot in terms of what
they can do from a marketing perspective. But from my vantage point, it
looks like a lot of the marketing came down to a mix of what the
USFL did and what the XFL did. The USFL had tons of commercials throughout
Fox last year. They did that again. I don't watch a ton of
Fox, but I watched NASCAR and I watched wrestling. You know, I
sound like a true Southerner. I do live in Florida, but I'm from
New York. But I've adopted the Southern philosophy of racing and wrestling, the
two rs, if you will. But you know, the the ads during
those programs have you know, you can't miss them. I mean they're all
over. The announcers talk about the league and things like that, and it
seemed like that was the crux of USFL's advertising last year, and then for
the XFL it was you know, trying to get in market. The USFL
didn't really have to do that as much because of the hub setup, but
we're seeing the town halls that we saw last year with the XFL in these
home markets this year, and it's just it's a little bit it's not to
the level that you would want, which is I think the main complaint about
XFL marketing last year, and it's the same I think with the UFL this
year. So, you know, all of this to stipulate again that they
didn't have a ton of time and while we hope it would be better,
we can kind of understand why it wasn't. And just like we talked about
last year with the XFL, year two is going to be really important to
see what changes they make in terms of acknowledging from a marketing standpoint, what
they can do better and how do most importantly, how to get their name
out there, because name idea is so important, and because if people don't
know that you're out there, they're not going to tune in. So just
getting your name out there, getting the UFL brand out there is going to
be a real big priority for this league in the offseason. Well, Greg
Parks, I appreciate you taking the time today. Greg over at ufl board,
make sure follow him over there. Lots of good content. I appreciate
that, and kind of everything else. Anything else you want to plug and
we'll bring Emory in. Nope, that's it, you plugged it for me.
Just enjoy the day, gentlemen. Who you guys are there live,
so take it. Everything in and I hope everything works well for you guys.
Yeah, and Greg, I'm I'm locked in next weekend WrestleMania. I
haven't watched WrestleMania years. I'm so excited. So follow Greg's work for that
as well. I appreciate Greg, Thank you. And so we're talking with
Greg talking about kind of the No. I wouldn't want to say the casual
because Emory is anything but a casual. But Emory doesn't live in this world
day to day. I'm really excited to hear we have Emory Hunt here,
and believe me, I could pick your brain for a million hours about where
the commander is doing at number two here. I'm very invested in this offseason,
as you can imagine, but emvery Hunt, how are you doing,
sir? I'm doing fantastic, guys. I appreciate you'all bringing me on.
I tell you when I post when Memory is coming on, I get lots
of comments. We're excited everyone's here. Evan and Anthony are excited as well
that they can see on here. I will get to we'll talk games,
and maybe we'll move to Michigan here, right, we'll do all that.
But overall, what are your thoughts here? Because you don't live in this
world. I know you come in and I appreciate you kind of talking the
alternative football? What do you make of UFL here? Because I haven't talked
to you since all this merger stuff. Listen, I love it as always.
I'm all about more football because it's just another opportunity for these guys to
get out here and play. And I'm always willing to dispel the myth that
there's not enough talented guys to fill rosters. I've said this before, with
you even read that. Just you know, if an NFL team wanted its
own, you know spring league, they could fund their own spring league.
Each team could have their own you know league, right, their own team.
You bring ninety guys to camp, you cut forty five. That's your
spring team. So there's more than enough talent out there, and that's why
I'm excited for the UFL, and I do expect it to continue to row
and get bigger. Now that we've combined resources and made it, we have
to, you know, shrink a little bit to expand even more so,
so I'm excited to see how it plays out. Let's get Emory thoughts first,
and then we'll go around here. So we've talked to you. We've
done Arlington, Birmingham, and we have Saint Louis here going into Michigan h
Emory. You know Saint Louis and they're a very loud fan base. Obviously
missed the playoffs last year because of the Sea Dragons. What's exciting to you
about kind of what coached back? And everyone soon we got aj mcchairback.
What are you looking forward to here? Continuity is king in football, whether
that's the NFL, college football, whatever. You know, you have guys
returning. It makes it a lot easier to go into a season because you
know what to expect. Guys have worked with each other the time. It
should be well. So that's why you see, let's say, from a
point spread perspective, a seven point favorite going on the road in Saint Louis
because they have so much continuity. And yes, we like e J.
Perry. We liked what he did when he came in late in the season
for Michigan and was able to do his thing and got those guys playing really
good football because he's talented back there, he's mobile, he's an athlete.
He's gonna find a way to make away. But can we see that for
a full season, And I think that's gonna be the biggest question for Michigan,
who lost some guys. And also, you know, you look at
what they have defensively. I'm talking about Saint Louis. They're good, They're
faster, athletic, they have a lot of speed on offense as well.
They have the big receiver in that Keem Butler. So this is a tough
matchup. But we've seen this before last year with Michigan and e J.
Perry and Cinity. He's found a way to make the games competitive and won
some games in overtime. So I'm excited for this matchup. But it's gonna
be a tall task for the Panthers against the battle Hawks. Yeah, that's
my question. Anthey, I don't see any any world here where the Panthers
all home or otherwise, and I think they can play on Mars and the
Saint Louis probably What do you make of this matchup? Yeah, I think
the big thing for Michigan is they're gonna have to lead on the running game
like they got West Hills. They got Matt Colburn, who I think are
maybe two of the may Bee the one of the best running back duos in
the league. Like the two of them together, I think is gonna be
really good. West Hill's had a breakout season with the Breakers last year,
so I think Michigan is gonna have to lean heavily in their running game.
I just I don't love the receiving corps for Michigan. I don't think E.
J. Perry has enough weapons to really do much offensively, so I
think they're gonna have to lean a lot of their running game. But Saint
Louis is way too dangerous. I mean, I can't wait too Jacor Pearson
gets healthy and gets on that field, because once he's back on the field
that that passing game is gonna be absolutely Another guy I'm really interested to see
is Wayne Goleman, and the new running back for the BattleHawks. He you
know, he had a good NFL career as a you know, at backup
running back, mostly with the New York Giants. He has some success there.
I'm interested to see how he does making the transition into the UFL.
Like I think Saint Louis, I yeah, I think they're gonna I think
I had them winning by like eight to nine points in my prediction. Like,
I like him to win this game. I think they're just a superior
team or Michigan. I think what helps Michigan good running game, and I
think they have a pretty good defense, Like Frank Ginda is obviously one of
the best defensive players in this league. But you know, I think Saint
Louis is over And one thing about Saint Louis too, they have really rebuilt
their secondary. Well that was a defense that wasn't great last year, and
I think Anthony Becker did a really good job building that defense this year.
I think they're better than they were last year. So yeah, I like
Saint Louis beating them. Same question you Evan, Yeah, I mean I
like Saint Louis as well. I think Anthony covered all the points very well.
But I actually had a question for Emery that I want to ask for
it. And this is kind of looking in the bigger picture too. You
know, we're talking about some of the games this weekend, but just for
the whole season, I want to get your opinion on who you think the
strongest team is and who you think the weakest team is, at least from
a roster standpoint, because obviously I know your expertise regarding the NFL draft.
A lot of guys on these rosters that you're probably familiar with. So just
trying to, you know, get a better idea of you know, maybe
where you're at with that DC has the strongest roster and San Antonio has the
weakest. That was easy, you know, that's just you know, how
this thing goes. And DC again, with the amount of guys they have
returning and what they are able to do at quarterback is going to help those
guys out. Now, there is some teams that have improved in certain areas,
but they're like I said, last year and all throughout the season until
sometimes something's changed around the way. You know, some teams are starting the
wrong quarterback. And this is a league where until the offensive lines jail,
you better be able to get out the way, and if you have a
guy that can't get out the way, you're gonna eat a lot of sacks
man And so that's probably what we're gonna see a lot in this ball game
early with Arlington. You know, I know, mister Springball is back there.
You know he's Louis Perez is a good quarterback. But you got Lindsey
Scott sitting right there miss the offense. And it'll be fascinating to see how
long we see before we see Scott this season if he plays today. So
that's what I do. Think DC's roster is legit. Their secondary. They
take the ball away and they bring it back the other way. So I
like they have those guys returning. But San Antonio has a lot of work
to do, uh with their roster, and it's going to be interesting to
see how they work out those little issues, you know, on defense,
But you gotta trust way Phillis. We'll get the defense right. But you
know, I do like Chase Garberge. I think he's very underrated and we'll
see how quickly he can get the ground get on the ground running from a
quarterback position. Philip had a come here walk up at two thirty and am
to start smoking. I was like, oh the breast cut, smoking the
breast cuts and Philip your I mean, I was loving four thirty. I
was too nervous for the show, too excited. One more the emory and
then we'll toss to Andy here. Yeah, everyone's standing on San Antonio.
I mean, they really haven't done a lot. That's my team now,
I you know, we lost to see dragons. I followed Wade Phillips over
there and aj Smith and everything else. So I mean, what is the
deal because it just seems like you have so much knowledge in that room and
all the other staff they have. It's just about acquiring talent, and that's
the biggest thing. You know. I don't know from a commitment standpoint how
many guys they reached out to that turn that turned them down, but it's
again, this is the purpose of these spring leagues is to get those guys
and get those guys that game experience, you know. So we may even
see a surprise from this team and they will band together. Nobody believes in
us type deal. But it's gonna be tough because you're fighting youth versus continuity
and experience. And we saw that playout with Birmingham last year in the USFL
when they had a lot of guys returning after their championship season, they ran
it back once again and route to them the championship. So when you have
that continuity in a league like this, it is huge. And yes,
you may have individual individually talented pieces, but it's gonna have to come together
as a cohesive unit, and they do. You're right, they do have
two excellent coaches that to get it on the right track. But it's about
the Jimmies and Joe's and not the ex's and o's. At some point,
Andy, are you surprised with that? Because I mean, in like,
we're Chase Garber's and I know Max and he's coming on here in a little
bit. You know, I should be excited about all that, and he's
got just you know, and even Darryl Johnson on the show last week.
Oh it's good. You know we have all this talent coming together, and
that we still have these quarterback issues at certain areas. I know emory'stocket.
Maybe we're not playing the right quarterback right now, but it doesn't seem like
san Antonio is anything. I am very skeptical of Chase Garver's just from watching
a mcal Just from my standpoint, no offense, I think it's funny to
hear the sort of talk about him in the same light that they do about
PJ. Walker, that being the Brahma staff. I find that fascinating.
If he can run and throw like PJ. Walker, fantastic, great for
them. I have yet to see it, so I would like to see
mister Garber's actually performed for that level before I'm willing to throw my weight behind
the promise. I am a bit skeptical of their operation. I just the
whole setup is just so bizarre to me. I know, we look,
we've already talked about it on nauseum, but the whole moving from Houston to
San Antonio thing is very just odd. And so as far as adjusting to
that market, I think that's really the biggest thing. They were getting used
to working out of TDECU Stadium. Now they have to work out of the
Almodome, you know, different setting. So we'll see if they can like
kind of move that whole operation over there. But it is a bit strange,
I think, just again, it's a different kind of adjustment period for
some of these other teams because it's relocating as opposed to just just having your
same continuity with your staff and your players. And they do have some of
that, but again it's also trying to readdress to a whole new place and
a new community and all of that. So for me, that's sort of
their biggest hurdle too. But yeah, some of the quarterback death on some
of these teams, Like again, what Emory was going off of with Michigan.
I'm not so sure about J Perry. I mean, I know he
made a couple of nice downfield roads last year. I liked some of his
ability to push the ball down the field, but I'm not sure if he
can do it consistently throughout the entire season. So yeah, I mean,
look, I think you have to throw your way behind the guys that we
know about. It's the Birmingham kept quarterbacks. AJ mccerran, it's the Luis
Perez, It's the same guys we've seen because again it's continuity. But that's
I guess my question for Emory, and then we'll bounce back here is you
know, the guys we wanted to come back came back, right. We
got Mccaarrean, we got tam you know, Matt Corral Now is kind of
be said. Are you just surprised that there is no more Eleo outreach?
Is it? I know we're not paying this much this year because right,
and the XFL is paying you know, the Huntlings and everything. More like,
what do you? I just I'm curious your thoughts. Yeah, that's
the interesting part because I would have completely went about it a different way.
But it's hard to compete now monetarily when you are an upstart league and you're
dealing with nil money, and you're also dealing with the you know, the
dangling carrot of hey, you could be in the NFL. You could potentially
make it. You know, your dreams can't come true. But otherwise,
if I was a DPP or a GM of one of these teams, I
am straight targeting some of these quarterbacks and telling them go bypass that the NFL
process to Leah Tungaba Loo would have been one of my targets. You know,
you look at Jaydon Delaurial would have been one of my targets. You
look at guys like dj Irons out of Acron would have been one of my
targets. Joe Milton one of my targets. Like, I know the money
isn't there, but you get at least three games, you know, before
the NFL drafts, so you got a chance to really show up and show
out. I know the amount of games on the body, I get that,
but listen, you know you talk about wanting people to tune in.
This will get people to tune in. If Joe Milton was starting quarterback for
you know, the Arlington Rennegades. That's why I was saying, Hey,
you gotta get Lindsey Scott out there, because we know this dude can play.
Every time he's been on the field, whether it's been LSU East,
Mississippi Community College, Nichols, ui W, he's balled out. So that's
the type of impact we need in the in the UFL. And I do
feel like, you know, you'll you'll obviously we're gonna watch because we're a
football fans and we love the UFL, but we're gonna get frustrated with the
casuals that pop in on Twitter from national outlets and say, aj Mcarell,
I don't want to watch a j Mcca. This Leade's gonna suck, you
know, Oh, Louise Frriss this leade's gonna suck like and we're gonna get
frustrated at them because they're casuals jumping in. But that's why we need the
PJ. Walls, we need the Lindsay Scotts. We need to Chase Garbers
to step in and really ball out and just wow people. Right, see
how we got all behind Alex Magoo and how well he played, and so
that's what's needed. And maybe after a season we can go back and target
some of these guys that are just toiling around on college football rosters. Why
is Emrie Jones not in the UFL? Right? You know he's not going
to get an opportunity to play in the NFL and he's probably best suited to
play here in the spring league. So there's options for a lot of these
guys. It's just that it's hard to compete when the money isn't enough to
really move the needle yet. But I think it's gonna get there. I'll
let you respond to that and then you can respond to answer question before we
get him out of here. So what do you make? Yeah, I
think the way the league is being built now, they really got to appeal
to college fans. I mean they got like Emery talked about what they got
to get college stars in here. You know early, you know, they're
going through that NFL drafts and b like, hey, come in here,
shell out. Maybe you get a higher draft pick and then you can go
on to the NFL. Because you know, the reality is, I don't
I don't know how many. I just think a lot of fans that are
going to be watching this, they're looking for college stars. You know,
a lot of times when they're bringing up these big time players. You know,
Aj mcchaeron, it's what he did at Alabama. It's not what he
did as a backup quarterback in the NFL for the Cincinnati Bengals. It's all
about what they didn't call. You know, Matt Corral he didn't do anything
special for Carolina or New England in the NFL, but he was a big
star in college for Old Miss. You know, why do you think you
know, guys like Joel Kladd and r. J. Young are the ones
that are the you know, the the main analyst for this on national television.
Those are college guys. So the UFL has to lean more on finding
these college stars. You know, maybe maybe not the ones that are going
to be projected to be, you know, the first three four rounds of
the NFL draft picks, but ones that really shelled out. Maybe they were
all conference performers that are going to be mid to late round picks. Get
them into this league, getting people excited about that. So, because a
lot of times we're selling on the college story if we're not selling on the
story of what they did in the professionals, because a lot of times they
didn't really do much in the NFL. So it's all about, let's get
some college stars in here that you know, can really sell this league for
what it is. It's you know, I know Daryl Johnson doesn't want this
to be a developmental league. This is a developmental league. Let's call it
as it is. This is a developmental league to get guys into the NFL.
I know that's not the story the league wants to pitch, but I
think that's the story they should lean on. Get college stars in here,
develop them, get them ready for the NFL, get them moving on,
and that's how you build a story with the league. Let's see Evan and
I want to get Emory's thoughts on that as well. Yeah, I mean
fascinating point by Emory. I think that a couple of the names that you
brought up, Talia Tagovailoa and Joe Milton, I definitely see those guys coming
to play in the UFL, especially with Joe Milton. I mean, hell
before my guy Jane Daniels tore it up at LSU, Joe Milton was kind
of the favorite to be the best SEC quarterback and guys still got a hell
of an arm. But in the bigger scale of things, think you brought
up a really interesting point just trying to, you know, sell the product,
like, hey, you can come here and play, and yes it's
less money, but it's an opportunity to get reps. And I'll tell you,
like with my work in the IFL, I always stress the importance of
game film. I say, look, you know, you come in here,
you get game film, you stay healthy, you stay active, Like
that's what these coaches want to see. They want to see that you're playing
and that you can still do it at a high level and that you're at,
you know, your best shape in the event that you know, you
get signed to another league. So I think the same applies here with the
UFL in terms of moving up to the NFL level, you know, so
I just hope to see more of that. I definitely I am glad that
you brought that up. Emory Emery final thoughts from you. I really appreciate
you taking the time on a saraay to do all this be curious like and
I don't know if you saw, you know, Mouse Johnston on the show
last week. Yeah, like, we don't want to be a developmental league.
We want to change perspective on that. What do you make of back,
because I know that you've had various controversial takes about what you how should
these leagues actually exist? Listen? And you know, I'm smiling because he
hit the nail on the head of what I was saying what two years ago,
like, hey man, stop trying to be you know, the second
cousin and be your own. And I'm glad they're going in that direction when
they talk about ownership, because that's the that's gonna help spawn expansion, is
gonna spawn the rising salaries. And now you're going to be able to offer
an attractive, attractive package to a guy that's saying, man, I could
I could, if I could just get on a practice squad, I could
make this amount of money as opposed to being a starter here and getting this
amount of money. But now if you can, you know, get individual
ownership, get a salary cap, you raise a level of pay. Now
it's a livable wage for a pro athlete. Because we all know, and
even football players know, they're a little bit more realistic than basketball players in
the sense that they know there's a line of you know, elite level talent
and right there at the line of good talent. You know, that's the
difference between a Power five and a group of five, and an f C
S and a D two. We know there's levels uh to talent and athleticism
and players, football players a little bit more uh aware of where they are
on that scale. And so a league like this will be beneficial if guys
can come in and be a pro because that's all you want is to get
paid to play ball, because we know we can't. You can't rec league
football. It's the only sport where you just got to go out there and
play. There's no Sunday leagues, uh you know, no church leagues or
no you around the way leagues that you can go play. That that's that
you know that that gets you healthy and ready to go, so you got
to play ball. And I think that's where this league can grow, can
expand can attack. And I like that interview you did where he talked about,
hey man, all right, we're not gonna be a developmental league.
You know, I was hoping he was gonna touch on the expansion part,
but that's a that's what you get another interview with him, and then I'm
like, what's he gonna say right now, March now? Because how did
you know? I'm like, you get another interview with him, an he'll
he'll he'll, uh, you get him at the championship game. He'll expand
on that pun intended. But I do like the fact that we're getting,
you know, valuable opportunities for these guys to play, especially the offensive line,
because as much as people that watch the NFL say there's a lack of
offensive line, and no there's not. It's a lack of development. And
in certain parts, yeah, you're gonna it's a developmental league because you're gonna
play, But you can't call it a developmental league because you want to stand
alone, because development does happen when you play. So in a way,
yes it is, but in a way. You got to sell it that
no, this is something completely separate. This is your own league. You
could be a pro here. Which is why I like that Luis Perez does
come back and tries to be the pro spring league veteran, because you need
that, you need to be able to tune into Okay, I'm gonna watch
Louis Perez play in the spring. I know that springball is around, that's
what they have to continue to build. But it takes young players to buy
into that, that know there's there's no NFL opportunity for them on the other
side. As harsh as that sounds, that's the reality. So let me
just settle in here or in Canada, but most importantly here at the USFL
or UFL level and just play springball three, four years, five years,
whatever you know, you get, get your football out, and then you
go and do something else productive as an adult. Well, Emory, I
really appreciate when a few minutes over with Emory. I don't think anybody will
complain about that, so really appreciate it. Taking the time. We got
two hundred and seventy people watching here in another two one hundred and fifty six
on Twitter, so there should be two hundred and seventy thumbs up right now.
I appreciate Emory. Anything you want to plug before you get out,
go and order the Football game Plan twenty twenty four draft guide. Over nine
hundred individuals scouting reports at Football gameplan dot COM's last twenty twenty four draft guide.
A lot of the guys in that draft guide will end up being a
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positive comments all around here, Emory, thank you so much. We'll
get you out of here. We got Max standing by. We're going to
talk a little pro football focus here a little bit, and then just just
at the stage, we got about ten minutes, you guys are going to
head start head to media. Andy's gonna stick around. We've got Javon Alfred
coming on. We've got Mike Mitchell coming on, a coach Craig Sports and
then Eric Eager, so lots of fun stuff still to come here at the
halfway point, as I totally delete hear my note they had all of my
guests, Max, how are we doing? It's been a hectic week,
man, There's so much basketball stuff happening right now, and then I'm trying
to keep up with spring football on top of that. It's it's a lot
right now for me. Honestly, I have a article here pulled up,
and let me see if I can just throw it in the stream just a
week and see it. Amanda checking in, we'll do a little of a
non football's talk here while we got you know, obviously football, but you
know the xs knowe here here we have a wonderful article pro football talk,
Spring League after Spring League after Spring League has failed with the UFL, the
product of the XFL USL merger, change that trend, the experiment begins today.
Wonderful exciting headline at wrong UFL logo on that. Let's go Max,
let's get Andy talking again and then we'll get the guys here before they get
it out of here. Max thoughts of that, because it's like basically like
why even try? Well, I mean I think the why even tries?
Because everyone wants to be the one who did it. Everyone wants to be
the one who overcame all these troubles, all these pitfalls that have come across
all these leagues over the past. What we're coming on fifty years now since
the WFL. So everyone thinks they can they can out business, they can
out intelligence, they can out market, and what ends up happening is some
of them get closer than others, but all all of them never fully listen
enough to the fans to ever get across the line. And I'm concerned that
this one is not listening to the fans and not either. So we'll see,
we'll get a follow up on it. Andy, What do you make
it? Because it's like it's just this narrative And that's what I get so
hard because I get always get this reads the negative Nancy like I'm the one
here and we're here in our early day. I'm cut off here. Sorry,
uh you know, So what do you make of this? Because,
like I said, it's this is the national media. This is to me
is always like this is how they're viewing things. Well, first of all,
Florida is the type of student that would question why we have homework in
the first place then actually doing it. So for him, I don't think
it really matters one way or another what league there is, or what pictures
you have to use, or what available information there is for these kinds of
leagues. The national media is not ever going to be able to put in
the proper preparation to actually study these things because they don't care. They don't
care. I'm sorry they don't. So for me, I think it's more
about what happens at the local level and what kind of media outlets do you
have around your own base that you're able to kind of work with and sort
of use as the sort of the foundation of your league. So for I
mean, look, Fox and ESPN have to do a better job of that
because look, they have stakes in this property, they have viewership they have
to get. They have to do a better job of promoting this so that
these kinds of oversights don't happen more with some of these national media evers,
and they look foolish for being wrong. I mean, look, the amount
of correcting I've seen sometimes for someone who throws out a wrong player's name,
or wrong player's origin, or some team's origin, or the fact that you
know they say like, oh, this player played in the XFL. They
played in the USFL instead. You know that happens all the time. So
the more you make those people kind of I guess blush when they find out
that they're wrong and there's people that are going to call them out on it,
then the more notoriety and the more validity you get as a leade.
But that comes with time. You know, it doesn't happen overnight, and
you need that to come over over a long period of time. I and
the XFL has brand identity going back to two thousand and one. The USFL
had brand identity going back to the nineteen eighties. What kind of brand identity.
You can debate about that as far as when they came back in this
iteration, but you know, they both had their own sort of style and
points to them, So you could point to that as far as like what
people remember about them, but it wasn't always emblematic of what's actually happening right
now. So you have to do your own work at the local level.
You have to make sure that your own people are doing the work to promote
their league, to make sure that other people don't make those mistakes. And
when they do make those mistakes that they're held accountable for them. That's for
you guys. And then we'll go up up here with because that's why I'm
such an advocate even for the work that you do with Sports Illustrated that Mike
does, and I wish that the marketing, promoting and building up so it's
something that people take seriously because you know, we see these takes like here.
You know how many people are going to these you know, coach zoom
calls and everything putting in the work to actually cover this the training camp here.
What are your thoughts, because I mean, you're intrenched in this as
much as anyone. I'm just really excited for Monday or Tuesday when we get
the ratings and then Mike folio posts that the ratings are going down. It's
a falling apart. The league is going to cancel them with midway because that's
what always happens. I mean, the national media only covers the ratings part.
And look, I think the reality is we all know this season may
not go as smoothly, so I think they're expecting that it's going to be
like XFL twenty twenty, where it's like two three million viewers you know a
game, and even with that league, you know, you know, in
Week two, ratings were down by fifty percent, there were only a million
viewers a game. And even then they were talking about the xfls falling apart.
It's not going to last through the whole season. So the one thing
I want to say, like Evan, I know you're part of the IFL.
Look what makes the IFL work so well? And the IFL has been
a while with ten plus years fifteen yeah, fifteen years. You know what
makes it work and Andy talks about it. It's what they do in their
local markets. They I think the IFL understands they're not competing with the NFL,
but they do such a great job marketing in their local markets. Like
Friscal Fighters. Over the last two three years, they've done a great job
marketing. I mean, they may not get crazy attendance, but they get
a lot of attention. One because they're a very good team. But two
people care about them, and the league understands we need to market into the
local you know, into you know, our local market, into the people
that live in the area and get them excited about it. They know they're
never gonna you know, get the attention of ESPN and you know, Fox
and that, but it's all about like Andy said, it's all about what
you do in the local market. That what makes leagues like the ifl's that's
been around for so long, like the CFL, like we all know,
they don't get crazy ratings, even in Canada, they don't get crazy ratings,
but they market into their local areas and they do a really good job
of it to get people excited in their local cities. So, I mean,
the national media is always going to crap on the spring football leagues.
We all know it's gonna happen, at least not until the NFL backs it.
I think the only way it happens is if the NFL starts their own
spring league and they end up funding it, then I think people will buy
more into it. Evan thoughts on that, and then we'll toss back to
Max because I want to get some more stuff that we got them on here.
Yeah, well, I appreciate Anthony here plugging the league first of all.
You know, yeah, man, I mean, I think you know,
it's all about perception and all about how you market yourself, like until
the UFL really figures out that niche and what they want. You know,
it's always going to have it's always going to be looked at, you know,
very differently by multiple different groups of people, Like the USFL had a
different brand identity than the XFL. I mean, because I was around the
XFL more last year, I can tell you their big thing was player development,
which we were talking about before it was all about. I mean,
we've all heard the player fifty four term a million times and XFL to NFL
and you know, countless times on the broadcast. That's what they brought up.
And then ultimately when you have only one guy that makes it on an
active NFL roster, and that's the Packers punter who was with the Defenders,
it's like, okay, well maybe we need to change our strategy a bit.
So for me, I think you have to market it as player development.
I think that's really important. You want players to get better or you
care about them. They're good athletes, you see a future for them.
But at the same time, you have to limit those expectations and saying,
hey, the reality is why we want you to develop and be a better
player. You know, you might be staying in this league. And again
that's going back to the player point. It's a bit off topic from the
perception, but it does help with the overall perception. I mean, we
talk about continuity so much, right, I think that you know, if
you have the same players sticking around, that will gain you know, you'll
gain a better fan base that way. I think of Luis Prez, like
that guy's been around in so many of these leagues. Now we can just
say his name and it's like etched into our brains because we've seen him play
so many times. So I think all those things come into play. I
hope that's something that the UFL can, you know, continue to figure out
this year, like, hey, what's the identity? What are we really
striving towards. There's a lot of great people working in football ops in this
league, a lot of guys that I respect it again, have experience doing
this before. Darryl Johnson is you know, the primary one, just because
he's got an incredible wealth of knowledge, and again I think we can all
appreciate Darryl for that. So yeah, I mean that's that's kind of where
I'm at with everything. We got over three hundred people here watching that.
Make sure there's three hundred thumbs up here on the YouTube channel, we would
appreciate that. Let's get Max on this. I'm going to use the opportunity
to I have two people here. I'm going to go take a pit stop
before you guys head out, So Max, why don't you go to that?
And then we'll get Andy and then I'll be right back. I mean,
in terms of the like the player development angle, the biggest issue for
me was always the framing. You can't frame it as this is a developmental
league. You have to frame it as more this is going to be like
some sort of battle between the players, all for their last chance, and
like all or the players you remember from college or whatever, who will shine
and who who will who will stringing for the limelight? Who was going to
come up from out of nowhere and be the underdog story. There's just if
they marketed the unknown, it probably would be more interesting than marketing the developmental
aspect, because no one cares about development in terms of the broader audience.
Like there's a reason no one watches the G League. G League plays playing
fantastic basketball every night. No one is watching that unless it's G League ignite
and not anymore because now the G League Nite is going away and they are
terrible this year. So I mean, no one talks about the G League
unless there's some sort of policy change or there's some sort of young player playing
really well gets called up to the NBA. Otherwise, no one talks about
the G League. So whenever people will get so excited for this potential NFL
partnership, what I think people don't realize is once that happens, the stamp
will be forever in boss on the UFL, that it is a minor league
and it is over that you're not instead of people talking bad about You're gonna
go from having bad press to no press unless someone gets an NFL contract or
a tryout, So you've lost everything once you've become the official minor league.
And I just think people need to understand that. I mean, come on,
how much coverage is there in minor league baseball? Just just have some
perspective here, folks. MARLEYE Hockey, What what am I min seeing a
thing here? Folks? I don't think I am. Did the world blow
up when I was gone? Did we do? Okay? Uh? We
got job on here? Standing by second Andy? Any other thoughts on Max,
he or anything else before we get him out here. Yeah, I
mean, continuing Max is saying, and also what Emory was saying earlier.
Yeah, it's hard to pitch it as a developmentally because, as Max pointed
out, no one really wants to know that it's development is going on.
That's not what people tune in for. But does it happen while players are
playing. Absolutely, and look that happens in the NFL too. I want
people to know that development is happening right before our very eyes. Sometimes with
players in the NFL, just people ignore that because they look at the stars
and they look at the players who are actually playing well, and they look
at the guys who aren't playing well and being like, well, there's scrubs.
They can't do it. Look, you can't tell me that you didn't
watch Jordan Love all all your last year. Didn't tell me that there was
a significant improvement in his game mid season as the Packers were figuring it out
in real time how their offense was tooled. I mean Jordan Love and that
offense at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year, night
and day, and it was happening because they were putting in the work and
the practice and the reps as it was going along. Same thing with Josh
Allen. I had a kind of a semi revelation about Josh Allen his second
year that wasn't one of his great years, in fact, it was the
year before one of his Pro Bowl years, but there was just something about
him that I realized he was starting to figure out, and I thought,
maybe if he can get a hold of this and not look like a baby
draft jumping through a flaming hoop, maybe he can look decent. And he
did, and he started to look better. This happens all the time players
developed. They need reps, they need practice, they need game tape.
It's the same thing here. But again, you can't pitch it like that.
You have to say, look this guy, there's this player we really
like. You should pay attention to Luis Prez. You should pay attention to
Jordan trumb, you should pay attention to any number of these players that you
know, Scooby Wright one of these guys. But there's going to be development
as you go along, and once players get better and they perform better,
then you start to take notice of them, and then you start to really
look at that. I mean, that's just how the nature of the game
goes. So again I agree with you. You don't really want to pitch
it as being a developmental league, because once that happens, that's it.
It's a minor league forever it's branded as such. But you want to make
it different, like Daryl Johnson was talking to you about being last week on
the show, then you can't focus on that. But development is very much
part of the process, the part of the process in any any way to
perform, even at the highest levels. Let's see you guys out right,
you want to head to MEETIA. Anything else you guys, realick Jamon,
we're coming to the UFS sar. We're unning about two minutes behind here.
Anything else from you, guys, fre make it to media. I will
just say, if you don't want to be viewed as a developmental league,
there's got to be a point where you start paying players like their stars.
Like I know we're trying to step away from like being a developmental league.
Totally get that. But when you're paying guys fifty five sixty thousand dollars a
year, it's kind of hard to try to pitch as Oh, you can
build a career off of it when we're not raising money. So I think
you have have to pitch it as a developmental league until you get to the
point where you can financially start paying players more. Because because at the at
the end of the day, like Luis Prest can keep coming back every year,
but if you're gonna keep paying him sixty seventy, hang on, let
me get that going for a second here, I haven't my microphone here,
died that maybe just out of powered off here Max to say goodbye here,
we'll get you out here. Let me see if I get this thing plug
back in. Uh, well, yeah, I definitely agree. Like it's
hard to market to players that this isn't a developmental league, but you can
always market differently to players and the fans like those things, Like most fans
have no idea how much these players are getting paid. I'm sure that that's
not even on their mind, but I'm sure they all know it's not that
much. And then secondarily, I want to finish on Annie's point, which
is the development when it's attached to a brand is always more interesting to fans,
and development when it's attached to something they don't care about. So like
development on the Packers. But if the development happens while the players on the
Packers, that's a storyline throughout a season in multiple seasons. When development happens
in some other league, no one cares until he signs with the Packers.
So's that's just the way it is. Unfortunately, Sorry, I want to
make sure they get out of there, Evan anything else, I got the
mispec go And that was a scare there for a second. All good points.
I'm always good talking everybody. Just excited to get over to the game
and see everyone. All right, you guys, get out, We'll see
you over there. Appreciate it. Let's bring in Javon Max. You can
either stay or get out of here. Let me mike these things, guys,
Javon Alford, sorry to make you wait, sir. How are you
doing this? I'm doing all right. How y'all doing goodness? You can
tell we got movie pieces. Everyone can still hear me? Do I look
good? Do I sound good? Still sound good to me? Javanda,
what are you looking forward to today? Here? We got you ufl kickoff
at how you know you do a lot of different the football and it's probably
all that kind of stuff. Like, how does this resonate with you what
we have going on right now? It's an exciting time, you know,
seeing both leagues you know, have a very good year last year, combining
in the one, having you know, under one banner, under the notion
that this is the best of the best playing in one league. I think,
you know, that's very exciting, you know to see and you know,
to have the broadcast partners back once again, you know for another year
where most of your games are don't want to be on Fox, ESPN,
ABC, Like those things help you know, grow the game. And then
with you know, the continued involvement of sports betting involved with you know,
these leagues, I think will only help the league grow. So I'm excited
to see, you know. The action, you know is you get the
two champions from the last from last year going off against each other to kick
it off. You couldn't ask for anything better in your opinion, and then
we'll toss here, we'll get Andy and Max in your opinion, how's the
marketing bringing in these players and Matt Carrel's of the world. Has that done
enough? Do you think to get like a casual or a football fan to
come in to this because I like getting people like you that aren't necessarily in
this every second of the day. Yeah, I would, I would say
so. I think, like you said, having a guy like Matt Carroc,
I think definitely brings the you know, intriguing intention just you know,
knowing some of my friends that are football fans and they're like Matt Crow,
like, haven't seen him, like remembering with the Panthers, But it's that
like what can he do? Factor? And I think, you know,
outside of having the AJ mccarran's, you know, last year, everybody's like
mccaren like, what can he doing? Even though he had some moments last
year where it was like, Wow, like this guy, just go play
Hickeen Butler, Toyamu like those guys I think will help. And I think
Matt Corral being kind of that, you know, maybe hopefully that new faith
of that franchise with seeing the success that Magoo had will only help the lead
because if he plays good and have that like PJ. Walker renaissance they we
saw in the XFL, then that's only gonna bring more attention to more os
Andy. Are you surprised we didn't get more Matt Corral's this year, like
it felt like and maybe we're just trying to get we'll get to next year,
but you know, getting some of these guys than just mccaron and and
like Tamu coming back, I mean, like Brandon Silver's is hanging around.
But you know, I just I feel like that's that's an opportunity that every
talked about that as well. I don't know, with you downsizing these leagues
and only having eight teams, I think it's hard to bring in those guys
because they're already cutting players as it is. I don't know how in the
world do you expect to import more on top of that. And even if
they are maybe qualified players and players that are at the NFL level and you
think deserve to have an opportunity, it's still hard for them to kind of
justify that, especially when there's so many moving pieces. Again, we talked
about continuity with rosters. There needs to be continuity with these leagues. And
once you have continuity of the league, then other players in the NFL can
look at them and be like, oh, you know, I know that
that league over there, I can go play for them. I think it's
less of a daunting prospect that way than say, even for you know,
Canada. I love the CFL. I think the CFL is fantastic, But
it is a move to go up there, for a player to convince themselves
from the NFL to go up there, I don't think that really is something
that happens as much anymore. A long time ago and it had players going
up there because they couldn't cut it here and decided, well, I'm gonna
take my talents to Canada instead because that's where I can get playing time.
That has to be the same thing here. But I think just in the
current iteration with there only being eight teams, there's not any you know,
any expansion talks at the moment or anything with anybody. Actually, I know
there is expansion talks, but not amongst the people who it actually matters with.
Then it's not going to happen as far as getting some of these players
to come down from the NFL to try to get more game tape. Max
quickly, let's get back to Javama. We have him here, but thoughts
on kind of anything with Andy anything else. So when you're talking about these
established players who are sitting around at free asans quarterbacks like Josh Brozen Kilmnd.
I mean, think about those guys were early draft picks who stuck around for
a little while, and it's like Kellen, the problem with Corral for him
is that he played and like kind of embarrassed up a little bit at some
points, and like not necessarily because he was he was always he was like
a bad player or whatever, because he was just in a bad play.
So however bad he was or wasn't, was it accentuated by everything happening at
the Panthers. So he feels like he has to prove himself. But if
you're Josh Rosa Kellen Man, You're like, I've already been given these opportunities
and I've made all this money, and I what's the point I don't I
don't want to do this anymore unless I get back in the NFL. That's
that's kind of how most of these players are treating it until they get a
check big enough for them to change their minds. So you know, it
is what it is. Jamon thoughts on that, because you know, em
we had Emory Hunt on earlier and he was talking about, you know,
even coming in here and playing a couple of games before the draft and maybe
you can kind of help raise your stuck that way. I mean, how
do you think that the players with this league it can really stand out.
We've talked to we wanted to be developmental league. We don't want it to
be a developmental league. Yeah, I think you know what we brought up
about the college guys you know coming in, you know, showcase and I
think we thought that back in the second iteration of the XFL when we had
when they're with Kenny Robinson, when you know draft guy and he ended up
with the BattleHawks in May plays and it got people talking like who is this
guy? Like what can he do? And obviously he gets drafted, didn't
have you know, the best success in the NFL. But those are the
type of guy that you want to you know, go for. And I
agree with Max say right, like if you don't increase the pay like you
won't be able to get you know a lot of these guys that you you
know, potentially want to get. And then even the Andy's point like with
consolidations and rosters, it's tough, right. We saw Cole Kelly get cut
right and Cole Kelly what most would say, it's debt if you're trying to
develop if the developmental quarterback that you want, because he showed something with the
show Boots, but you cut him for a guy like Josh Love, who
we kind of know what Josh Love is at this point. Uh, we
got Mike Mitchell standing by here. We'll get to him in a second.
Three hundred and thirty people watching. Make sure them's up. Subscribe, get
all that. We'll get some comments back on here. People are talking about
hitting the drunes with footballs and stuff today, Javan anything you want to make
sure you plug before we get you out of here, because I know Mike
Scott short time as well. I they want to keep you guys waiting long
in the background. Yeah, No, appreciate you for having me on.
Check out Total sportslob totalsports live dot com. Got a week one picks up
odds and spreads for the UFL season. So got that up, love and
ready, and appreciate you guys for having me on. Do you do you
sense an overwhelming interest right now in that? Like? Are you seeing decent
traffic? I'm always curious about that. Uh, it's a little slow,
and I think that's probably because it's a new name change. Like UFL,
Like it's not like we've had XFL USFL where we can like kind of lean
on for like last year, like you knew like all our USFL's back,
Like people are going to be checking it out now. Will Fader is intrigue
with people betting and wanting to tune in because if you bet, just in
general for sports, you know that eve markets can be taken advantage of if
you just know a little bit of something and you could get like very good
odds and very good favorites. So hopefully it will increase with more play and
we have if you're the great first week, then I definitely think things will
start to boom. Awesome, Jim, I'm thank you. Appreciate you sitting
around here while we could get you on here and running a couple of seconds
behind, So really appreciate it. Thanks guys, problem, Thanks, We've
had he's been referred to as the Jedi Master, and we have Mike Mitchell
here. Mike, how the heck are I'm doing well? Reid? How
are you? Guys? We're good now. Just make sure everyone knows Mike's
popping in today and then we're going to do a long sit down this week
we'll figure out. I know, I'm Mike sually busy with work and stuff,
but we will have that will be the episode this week. We'll have
a full kind of in depth week one reactions all that. Oh, and
I should say Andy and I the page has already made Andy and I will
be recapping on Monday, Week one of the UFL, so you can already
the event page is already up on their like and subscribe. Click the BELLT
Mike, how are we feeling here? We're an hour and forty five minutes
to kick off. Yeah, it feels like groundhogs day. We've had so
many league launches since twenty nineteen, af XFL in twenty twenty, USFL in
twenty twenty two, the XFL coming back in twenty twenty twenty three, and
here we are with the United Football League, this unique and odd merged USFL
XFL entity. Mike, you stole my analogy. I was gonna say that
it cels like ground talk day. I was literally thinking about that analogy all
week. So you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, you know
hopefully where you know this is a regular thing. Now we get to UFL
season five six seven, We're not you know, some new leagues coming on
CBS next year, you know, to try to take over this space.
But here we are. I mean, it's exciting. I'm excited about the
football aspects. You've been debate a lot about a lot of different things.
You've had a great show here today, read a lot of great guests.
Emory hit on some interesting points. Quarterbacks and all that. To me,
I'm fascinated by. You can argue the quality of the individuals getting the opportunity,
but I like the fact that there are four de facto rookie quarterbacks getting
a shot, whether or not you believe in Chase Garber's or any of the
you know, Matt Corral who happen to like I'm hoping this league becomes a
success story for him concerning you know, all the mental health issues he's had
and everything else. So it's kind of a unique you know you kind of
you kind of split it down the middle. How high of a quality do
you want your league to be? Because if you have eight rookie quarterbacks,
it's gonna be messy, You're gonna have rookie growing pains, but in the
long run it could pay off dividends wise, So you know, having the
Luis Perezes, the aj mccerrn's, the coaches that we have, and going
into their third season in spring pro football, that's gonna give a good quality
and continuity to the league. And there's built in storylines which kind of makes
this fun, Like how did the Defenders rebound from last year's championship loss?
Can the BattleHawks get to the playoffs? They got kind of screwed over last
year? Can they make it to the championship game at home? Are the
Stallions as good as everybody thinks they are. We're gonna find out as they
match up with teams from the XFL, the best of the best from these
two leagues the last two years, as much as they can get there,
you know, considering your financial constraints and everything else, is gonna be on
display, and the games are gonna be fun themselves. I think we're gonna
see some exciting games and there's built in USFL XFL RN ivalry. Gentlemen,
If the USFL sweeps today's two games, you'll hear plenty of trash talkers saying
I told you were better than the XFL. If the Stallions beat the Renegades
and the Panthers somehow upset the battle Hawks. Today you'll hear plenty of that,
so that's kind of fun to me. I prefer that tribalism rather than
the one that was kind of separate before. So hopefully this new entity works
out in the long run. We got a question here, how's the attendance
so far? And where did that go? Here? And I was just
trying to peek out, like I do see a little bit of a line.
I know that they're opening, and I think the one of the doors
is opening. They're they're not opening it quite as early. I think media
availability you can get in like two hours before. I know Danny and the
Rock are doing stuff. I'll be here wrapping up. But hopefully Anthony can
go, you know see, hopefully the Rock doesn't beat Andy Anthony with like
a belt so like he did with Colley Rhoades on Monday. But let's get
Mike and then Max on this, like so we're talking. I will say
I have one comment. I am much more excited for watching this in some
of these USFL games last year. Admit, even as a spring football you
know, addicts whatever, like you know, to go from the XFL and
then the weeks and then to go to the USFL and it's like we're watching
Canton with fifteen people there and it's Whoever's wife freezing and the cold and like,
so I do appreciate a lot of these storylines and stuff, but to
me, Mike, a lot of this hasn't built just around us on Mike
Malvill or however you say his name, tweet this week, like these games
are on the big market and the networks are going to do better, Like
it seems that's kind of the philosophy this year. Like we had that we're
going to rely on Dwayne and Danny last year, and now this year it's,
well, we're just going to put them on the better time slots.
Is that how you're reading this a little bit? I spoke with someone this
morning on the UFL side high up there, and they their expectations are modest
for this season. They feel like, you know, because they had to
kind of put this together and do this quick. They're looking more towards twenty
twenty five in terms of hitting their goals. So like, I don't know,
Vegas is gonna have over unders on XFL. Oh excuse me, ufl
attendance. I still think that every time. Yeah, it is what it
is. But but I don't know, if you have over unders thirteen than
twelve thousand, fourteen thousand, maybe they do a little bit better. You
get some walk up. It's Easter weekend, so there's a lot of these
different factors. New gas stations open up down the road. But but I
think their expectations from the sense I got is their expectations are modest. Now,
Michael Malva Hill I always butcher people. That's theation of people's names.
You know. It's the same kind of argument they had last year. We
saw that there was a direct correlation between big network television versus cable time slots.
All that the Derby lead in led to only one of two USFL games
that had over a million viewers on average, and that was kind of like
an overinflated thing where they had like two million viewers. I don't think people
were tuning in for Todd Haley's brilliance, so that was kind of the story
there. So I think their expectation levels are modest. And I you know,
I put out a ratings article at Sports Illustrated. Shout out to Casey
Segar, who's helped me become a better writer who's always editing my stuff.
But you know, my expectations were low on the ratings. I hope I
undershot it. I hope they do a little bit better. They cross over
a million today, But the competition is heavy, and I do since outside
of our bubble that really just isn't mainstream interest or buzz for spring pro football
because people have been there and seen it already. They've already sampled it the
last two years. So what is the rope? What pulls you in?
So I think that's a big factor in all of this, and we'll see
how it goes. I definitely think they bought themselves a couple of years,
so I don't think they're gonna go away after this season. I will say
that we got three hundred and fifty people watched on YouTube right now, which
I appreciate. I can always tell like how many I've got like another two
hundred and thirty On Twitter. I can always tell, like are we really
popping today? Like I've added some subscribers. But I have a feeling it's
a lot of like people that have you know, been through this tour.
Whe's obviously either we appreciate and please like it. Subscribe three hundred and fifty
give me the thumbs up. Max. We have a comment here football fan
so high for the rock speech? Do we get another Let's ball out?
Baby? God? If I know at this point, I mean, I've
I'm not in for those kind of prop bets. You know, someone else
and can be on those predictions. But if it's not Dwayne, then is
it gonna be like Friend of the Show Daryl Bluth Johnson. No, I
think it's either Dwayne or Strayan. Maybe maybe if Strayan comes out and does
something right, because it's gotta be someone interesting doing a speech, or maybe
it's either that or no speech. It can't be someone random, like it
can't be Eric Shanks, like for example, it can't be it can't be
Danny at this point, like I'm sorry, I love you, Danny.
It's your time to find some somewhere else to fit into this because people,
some people are getting really tired of you on the fans side. But yeah,
I'm not, I'm not. Look, I don't know if we should
really expect a big time speech this time around because the marketing has not been
as over the top. But like we're trying to find random things to get
people interested, where it just seems to be very consistent. We're the best
spring league. We're the best spring league over and over again. So we'll
see Andy bounce on any of this nonsense. I think that I just don't
have a class and just throw me in. I mean, look, if
we get the rock coming out and maybe he changes the tagline, maybe he
just says, let's collaborate, baby, because that's fine too. You know,
whatever he wants to put it in, that's great synergy, baby.
I just look two things that I really have to look out for today and
for the season in general. First of all, if I can just get
attendance numbers from the USFL side, that would be great. I want the
attendance numbers. And now's this fudging of like, oh, there seems to
be about a few thousand people there. That's not I don't want generalities.
I want numbers. I want facts, thank you. Second of all,
I mean today it's going to be a bit tough sledding. And just in
terms of the TV numbers, Mike, I'm glad you talked about maybe some
of the reality points for some of the execs in the league, because yeah,
they have stiff competition. I mean, just today at twelve thirty pm
Pacific time, Kaylen Clark, who is a national sensation, is playing with
IOWA on TV. She's going to be playing on ABC around the same time.
You have a lot of NCAA games going on. Obviously, March Madison
is in full throttle. And it's men's and women's. You know, it's
not just what the men and women's has been getting incredible ratings the last few
years, especially with some of the notoriety and the stars that are in that
league. I mean last year, I remember the women's National Championship game getting
ten million viewers, and it was during one of the XFL games, and
I couldn't help but think just the amount of camaraderie and hype that was around
that matchup. So, I mean, that is something they're going up against
ultimately. So the TV numbers people are expecting there to be, you know,
one point five two million numbers, I don't know what they're looking at
because I don't think that's been really in the realm of reality. I think
your article the other day put it into perspective very well as far as the
predictions, and I think that's just something that also the league is maybe also
understanding as well as far as the season and just trying to build off of
that going forward. Mike, I'm curious about that, and I appreciate you,
you know, I like having the I just talked to some of this
morning, and I like that. That's why you're you know, that's why
everyone puts Mike with a little goat and all that. But my fear is
when they're like, we're not expecting a lot this year, We're just trying
to get through, does that lead to like apathy of like, oh,
it's fine, Like I mean, you know, where where at least if
I think the USFL I think had a little egg on their face season one
going into season two, like we're going to take over the world here,
This to me is the opposite. I'm fearing it's like, well, it's
fine, like we'll just kind of get by, we don't really care.
I think they think that they're going to reach their potential a year from now.
Whether or not you think they will, that's another story. But I
think because the way this is kind of put together, I don't want to
say haphazardly, what kind of like rushed and you see what their Panthers late
on season tickets. We've seen this movie before with the Vipers last year,
right, So I think the expectations are modest, and they really kind of
should be. Their expectation level is very high when it comes to the football.
They think the football is going to be very good. I happen to
agree with them, right. So, know, if it's the greatest spring
Pro Football league ever, let's see the games first. But I do think
the quality of play is going to be very good because you have like built
in veterans in this space that are actually very good football players Darius Victor's case,
Cookiss, et cetera. And then you got all these young talents on
the on on the UFL team. So I do think the quality of play
is gonna be very good. Built in coaching staff, continuity, you know.
You know, if this was the XFL in two thousand and one,
vincec Man will probably shoot an angle with the rocket Cody Rhodes during one of
the games. You look at, you resolve it by halftime. Rock will
bloody them up before WrestleMania as a bleed in. But you know, we'll
see, you know, and it's got to come down to them, you
know, getting all their ducks in a row and doing what they're supposed to
do in terms of promotion and marketing. And you know, the thing is
they can't have their cake and eat it too because they're trying to save money.
You know, some media members already messaging me today that they got them.
Uh, they're getting a little shortage in terms of food, accommodations and
everything else. So you know, players, no, don't talk of media
members. You know, they're like the start no start for no foods for
the media people. I thought that all right, So there you go.
So my sources are accurate. You know. It's cutting corners, scrimping and
saving anywhere you can. But I do think, I do think that the
quality to play. I'm I'm a football fan. I'm into these leagues.
I'm going to be into the games. I can't wait till they get started.
From if you look at it from outside the bubble, it comes down
to business for them. And I think if they do eight hundred thousand,
nine hundred thousand viewers, I don't think anybody should really push the panic button
yet. You know, I think you, I think you need to let
this season right out and then you know, like I said, I've been
saying this for so long, these two leagues merge because they didn't see the
light at the end of the tunnel. They're hoping that together they'll see that.
And you know, you don't like to hear this word read, but
they have. I spoke with somebody this morning. They have been talking about
expansion. The places they looked at for Vegas, Tennessee, Arizona, Ohio,
which was if they had been ten teams, Ohio was going to be
one of the teams. So well, they first things first before you get
to that, but that's the hope. And uh, you know, so
I think people need to temper their expectations. They really to rope in mainstream
and casual fans. It's gonna take. It's a process, so I don't
think you're gonna do that overnight. We got coach Craig here long and then
we'll get to him in just a moment. I appreciate that guy, Mike,
you are gonna appreciate this. We have a question from three times CFL
A Great Cup champion, David Sanchez checking in. Thanks for doing this,
Fellas. Any thoughts on the onfield matchups today for anybody. Betty, we
talked a little bit about I mean, we've talked a lot about a lot
of these, but Mike Rundown, just while we have you kind of you
know, thirty seconds each and like I said, we'll do expand it next
week. But give me give us your thoughts on all four matchups this weekend.
I'll go outside the box on this one. I think san Antonio can
cover against DC on Sunday. I know everybody's just look. I predicted that
they would finish with a three and seven record, So but I think san
Antonio is gonna be better this year. How many games they win that remains
to be seen. It's very competitive to vision. You know, Chase Garbage
is gonna have to match up his level of play with aj Mccaeron, Jordan
Tama and Luis Perez. But I do believe that Week one game for d
C is a bit of a trap. They're without three of their best offensive
players from last year and Abram Smith. You know, Chris Blair and Lucky
Jackson. Two of those guys are in the NFL. We know Abram Smithsar's
ACL, So I think DC might have some kinks to iron out week one.
I know everybody loves them and I von Hutchins done a tremendous job.
They have an awesome coaching staff. But I think San Antonio is six point
underdogs. They have a shot there if Garber's doesn't. I don't want to
curse on this show, but if the lights aren't too bright for him against
Greg Williams, ultra aggressive defense and he's able to contain it because they have
a lot of you know, Marquez Stevenson, John Trey Kirkland, Cody Latimer,
Anthony McFarland, who's getting the start for them at running back. I
like these guys. These are young guys who are talented in college that are
impressive, So I do think they have some playmakers there. I think they
can make a game of things. So I'm not a big gambler, but
if I was going I would not. It's not a popular pick, but
I would take San Antonio to cover that one. Everyone expects Saint Louis to
steamroll over Michigan again. There's gonna be an upset or two in the first
week. There's gonna be a wake up call for one of these teams.
Saint Louis should beat Michigan. But but I'm a little weary of that one.
Arlington and Birmingham today, I feel the Stallions are gonna win that game.
I just think they're too deep, too talented. Arlington is a different
team with Luis Perez at the helm at the controls. They just have to
prove to me that they have enough talent on the outside a wide receiver to
compete with the Stallions. I think the Stallions are a better overall team than
them. So and then so, and I'm missing a game here. Memphis
and Houston. Memphis, Houston, Yeah, that's an odd one. Memphis
is very talented. You know, very few teams in the league benefited from
the dispersal draft process like they did. They've loaded up on veteran, proven
veteran guys, you know, the diaries, victors, case cookies, et
CETERA. Interesting kind of breakers show boats combination there with the coach flip bringing
a couple of his star players from New Orleans. So I like Memphis in
that game. Jack Guarantano has to prove it to me first, and no,
Mark Thompson, I'd be all over Memphis if if I was if I
was picking, if I was a gambler. I would take Memphis, and
I think they're just a much better football team than the Roughnecks. We have
one more here, I'll get, We'll get, and then we'll get,
Craig Zach said of the question from Mike before we get out of here.
Yeah, in terms, oh, in terms of the promise, yeah,
John Lewis had the promise winning one game all season, which is which just
rude. I was going to have him on the podcast and I said,
you can't come on anymore. That's funny. Here's the thing. Read all
these teams are better than they were last year. You know, it's crazy,
like the BrahMos have forty one new players. I mean, we need
somebody, somebody needs. Somebody has to lose these games, love of averages.
You can't have eight teams with all five and five records. That's the
only mathematical possibility for everybody not to have a losing record. So somebody's gonna
go. There's gonna be good teams that go three and seven, four and
six. Last year we saw three four and sixties make the playoffs. We're
not going to get that this year. But I think San Antonio is better
than they were a year ago. I'd be surprised if they only won one
game. But like I said, somebody's got to lose these games, So
somebody's gonna play the patsy. Somebody's gonna, as they say in wrestling,
do the job. Got to thank you here for David Sanchez, last question
for Mike. We'll get Craig in here. Zach wants to know about the
kickoff. He wants to know, and we'll talk more about it this week.
But we haven't had you on and obviously we had the Darren Louis Johnson
them at all, and we want to be more traditional, right, real
football. So what's your thirty second take on that? And then we'll get
you out of here. Appreciate it. I like the old school NFL kickoff,
but this has been in the works for a long time, like for
ten years plus. You could see this change is coming. Sam Schwartz seen
the team. What was at the forefront of it. If you're gonna ask
me the NFL kickoff last year versus the USFL kickoff last year, and actually
take the USFL kickoff, But you have the artificial field position there that I'm
not a huge fan of. They have some safety things with the alignment and
all that, and I like the fact that in the return in the game.
I don't know, maybe some people read will watch today's games and go,
why can't the NFL use this kickoff? Because I don't want to try
that crazy gimmicky thing they're talking about. So who knows. You'll get opinions
all over the place on that one. I would have stuck with the XFL
kickoff. And Donald Johnson knows a great interview you had with him last week.
It was interesting that he's you know, the points he made about how
this benefits players of adaptability into the NFL coverage players and all that. Now
while the NFL's not using that kickoff anymore, so that doesn't work. And
then you know, the other aspect of it was that, you know,
he wanted to be more traditional and all that. Well, now the new
tradition might be the NFL is not going back. I'm sorry. I would
love for them to go back to that kickoff. I grew up with it,
love it. I've been watching football four decades. I love the kickoff.
I don't want it out of the game. I don't want the AAF
solution. So this is where we are with it, So maybe people will
like the UFL kickoff the way it's constituted. USFL had a lot of big
plays in it. If you can overlook the injuries aspect and overlook the artificial
field position, then you know, maybe you prefer what you see in these
games in terms of their kickoff. Well, thank you, Mike. We
have over four hundred people watch on YouTube right now. I hope there's four
hundred thumbs up on the video. Please subscribe if you're not four anight.
A lot of work coming down here all the way to Arlington. Andy's going
to be back with me Monday. We're doing nine am Pacific. We're going
to do all the recap for week one, and then Mike and I are
going to do a full extensive interview. I think that'll just be the episode
this week. I will just figure out a good time to do that.
Yeah, we'll pre record Mike anything you want to plug. Mike's over at
Sports Illustrated. We're working through all those website issues as well anything else.
A lot of craziness over at S. I shout out to Anthony Miller,
who's done a tremendous job. You know, It's like we're building up a
division. We've had a lot of hurdles there at SI. The traffic's been
very good. Anthony Miller's doing a great job basically covering every team. I
don't know how he does it, so shout out to him at Sports Illustrated.
Shout out. Like I said, Casey Seger Arc Garcia, who's one
of my editors over at Sports Illustrated, shout out to him. He wrote
for the XFL twenty twenty at their website. Great guy, much smarter than
I. So that's basically that. So thanks for checking out my work,
and thanks for all to all the people out there that are passionate about these
leagues and support them. Appreciate you awesome, Mike, Thank you so much.
We'll see you next time. Let's get Mike out. We got Coach
Craig coming on, and then we're gonna have Eric Eager here rounding out the
show. And then I'm gonna have to shower here again at eleven and then
run over to the stadium. Here I get really sweaty and like the signs
on my back, it's like it's a whole thing here. Coach Craig,
how are you doing so? Oh? I'm all right, a little tired
that I worked all night, so you'll have that, but happy to be
here and happy for the season to get started. And we'll go around the
horn here. But let's start you first, and what is your thought on
the kickoff thing? Cause it's like that all came out and then we haven't
had a podcast since really all, I don't think since all this kind of
came about. So what what? To me? It's not a great look,
what do you think? I think it's interesting just the way all kind
of played out as they were, you know, they were debating the two
different kickoffs, and then it's like, of course, right after they pick
the one, the NFL is like, oh, we're going to update ours
to the XFL version essentially after that. I think moving forward, like next
season will see a flip. Obviously it's too late to try to flip around
now, but I think the XFL kickoff is something that I really enjoyed because
it just incorporated a lot of different strategies of how you could approach it overall,
even though by a team by team basis. Yeah, Andy, are
you surprised that we didn't Like I wouldn't they couldn't they have just made a
reverse call here, like, are you surprised? I think it's a spring
league, Like, hey, we're gonna I don't know. I mean,
I know it looks bad, but that to me, this looks worse.
I'm just gonna be a little bit candid here. It's tone deafness, and
unfortunately, from the standpoint on mister mus Johnson, I think he made a
humongous air and trying to pitch this old traditional kickoff. With all respect to
Mike, I don't really care for the NFL kickoff anymore. I like the
XFL kickoff, and I prefer it. Send me to the doldrums for believing
that, but that's just how I am. Look, I think it's a
humongous gaff because you chose to do something look that not only pushes the game
forward, it indobates, and it also creates something you new and exciting.
I think that's what these spring leagues also stand for, is trying to create
new solutions to some things that don't necessarily work in football or antiquated or don't
really mesh with the TV audience anymore. I think this kind of thing is
really interesting, and this is why I think it was just an oversight by
the league to try and abandon something for the sake of trying to bring in
traditional fans. You need to stand out, you need to be unique.
You need to have something that separates you from your contemporaries. And when you
abandon something like that, you get rid of the uniqueness. And then you
have people questioning why'd you get rid of it? If other people thought it
was a good idea, Like, why did you give up on it so
quickly? For me, it just never made sense that that happened. And
look, if people are out here trying to be like, well, they
can't predict the future, how would they know? Like, who cares about
the future. You care about yourself, That's what I say. You care
about your product. If other people want to follow you, that's fine.
But I personally believe that the XLK coff it's a lot more interesting. I'm
just gonna say it. I think the USFL kickoff is just it's too easy.
It gets too many yards away. I think it's it's it's to me,
it's it's a reward that shouldn't be there in terms of the field position.
It's not it's it's not earned and I want it to be earned.
As a fan, I need it to be earned. That's how I feel.
And for me, it just felt like a humongous scaff on their part.
I really I think this league needs to learn its lesson as far as
when you stick to something, stick with it and don't just change it for
the sake of getting a few more eyeballs. Max, I'll give you the
floor here. I know you got thoughts, so let's start with. Greg
Parks said it better than I ever could in his calm about it a few
days ago, where he basically said the NFL left the UFL behind and that
they were willing to be to embrace innovation while the UFL, well, the
UFL wanted to stick down. And it's you know, Frank and Sign.
You know, we got an arm from this guy, We got a leg
from that guy, and that's gonna We're gonna show it together, you know,
and make a kickoff. We'll hear from one league and another rule from
another league. And Darryl, I hope you know how you look right now,
having called the XFL kickoff gimmicky, just for the NFL to adopt it
and for your darling franchise that you played for, and I'm pretty sure you're
in the Ring of honor for was one of the main people pushing this kickoff.
So they're gonna be in a position now where they have to say,
hey, we could change the rule back, but our players have been practicing
this one kickoff rule for a month. So in my opinion, if they
do change it now, it might actually lead to a lot of officiating gaffes,
and it might lead to a lot of confused special teams units. They
might have to wait until next year because I mean, they've been drilling this
other rule for so long. Now we have a comment here, and I
hope Max you know you're we're peaking viewership right now. It's maxis now,
mister Johnson, I didn't say any of that that maxis Look. Uh,
they say the return yards are necessary for springing offenses, coach Craig, and
then we'll get Danny. But like, because that's what I always saw the
USFL did. Okay, let's get them starting further back, you know,
further up on the field. That what do you make of that? Is
the kind of those gifty yards? I mean, at this point in time,
we've seen these offenses be able to move the ball up and down the
field. We got good defenses. We've got good offenses at the same time
too, we got good coach We got good coaching stats that are able to
design plays to get the ball down the field. And with what we got
kind of now too, you know, even with a lot of these quarterbacks
are turning and everything too, and these teams are beefed up a little bit,
even more than they were last year. I don't think it's the major
issue. Plus, I just want to see, you know, even like
with the XFL version of the kickoff, it just adds such a different element
to the game overall that you can still get those extra yards there too.
I don't know why, Mike, I think I'm back on here. Luckily,
my Mike died with coach Gregs and that's always helpful. And it's not
when I'm in the middle of saying something, Andy, you shook your head
about that you're needing the extra yards. The antiquated idea of it being for
spring offenses, I think is not a logic that I fall look like.
Coach Craig said, these offenses can move the ball just fine. These offenses
can prepare themselves just fine. I think in general, if you're not moving
the ball, that's your problem. You need to strategize better offense and get
better players. For me, like it's not about where you start, Like
that is just so cheap. Give those kinds of yards is very cheap,
and I don't appreciate that. I think you need to earn it. That's
how I feel as a fan. I've always felt that way as a fan.
I don't think there needs to be this idea of like, well,
you know, everyone needs to just start on the forty because they're not good
enough. Well, then what does that say about your product if you really
believe that. I don't think that's the right way to go about it.
So for me, the XFL kickoff at least there was a lot of strategy
involved with it, and there were some really exciting returns. Darius Shepherd,
who's coming back into this league with the Balhawks, had some electric flying returns
last year, and I think for that matter, I just remember it being
one of the most important things that I think came back with the XFL last
year. That was the first thing that I kind of missed when the XFL
was gone after twenty twenty, was thinking man, I missed that kickoff.
That was the first thing I really thought about because it was just so different.
That and the point conversion of tents, among other things. But really
I think it's just again, it's a way of separating yourself from your contemporaries
and instead of just trying to chase the sun and trying to be the same
as the NFL. I just think that it was important to have it still
incorporated here. And look, if you wanted to test it out a few
years and be like, maybe this isn't our thing, We'll try something else,
that's fine. What that's fine. That's part of development. We talked
about development, We've talked about developmental players, we talked about development with rules,
but this one I don't think was for the sake of development. I
think it was just one entity being like, well, our kickoffs just seems
better, and everyone else likes the other kickoff better, so let's just use
that one. I think that was the wrong way to go about it,
my opinion. We got our last guest here log and then we'll get to
Eric in the second Craig before we let you out of here, thoughts,
you know, thoughts on the game today and then kind of what are you
looking forward to this weekend? I want to go back to the kickoff thing
too, now that the fact that they're probably not going to switch it over.
Just real quick, what disadvantage are these players at now because they didn't
have the same Like they're going to lose out on NFL tryouts camps just because
they aren't used to it, Like they could have had such an advantage already
by playing ten games through this whole system. So a guy that is like
a solid kick returner, like he might have had a chance just because he's
already done it ten games and he's proven it and he's put it out there
on tape that he might get that extra chance. And then all he got
to do is go into camp and then beat somebody else out. So there's
a lot of different ways that you could look at it from that regard to
so the guys that could be missing some opportunities for me when I'm looking for
this week and I'm just kind of looking for like how these teams look altogether
too. Obviously some of you guys have been talking about how some of the
teams have more continuity than others, especially like some of these teams where they've
had all these excuse me, moving parts over the course of the offseason.
These teams, especially like from a defensive perspective, that's the one that I'm
kind of looking at for some of these teams that have a lot of turnover
on defense. Memphis Showboats are kind of a team like that too. They
let go some really good players and maybe in favor of some players that I
thought probably weren't as good. So we'll just have to see what that all
looks like. Even you know, Michigan held on to a lot of their
guys, but they cut a lot of good players at the same time too.
Just a lot of rotating units there overall. And I'm gonna and I'm
really interested to see what DC's offense looks like without their top three wide receivers
from last year. Without Abram Smith, Jordan Tama was going to have to
carry this team on his back early on in the year. He really is
well, Craig, I appreciate it. I'm just kind of refreshing over here.
Thank you so much. We're peaking viewership right now, which is always
good here getting into the end. We got our big final guests coming on
here. Coach Craig, anything you want to plug before I bring Eric Hegron.
Yeah. For me personally, it's just you can find me on YouTube
myself at Coach Craig Sports. I mainly do for UFL over there, it's
the UFL DFS. I did a little bit of a team preview earlier this
week as well. Obviously, hopefully you know, moving forward, we got
a lot more trends that we can see from these first initial games. My
initial video was a little bit delayed coming out because I was trying to wait
for all those depth charts to come in and then kind of adjust from there.
I will say too, the announcement of PFF doing UFL earlier this week
should make things a little bit easier. Hopefully they have the snapcounts because that's
going to be a big analytical aspect too. As some body myself personally last
year, I charted all the offensive players for USFL for the last eight games
of the year because nowhere else had that information. Oh, Coach Craig,
I appreciate it, Thank you so much. Homping on here today, We're
going to bring on our last guest here, Eric Eager Suomer Sports Eric,
and this is something. I've been tracking all your stuff on Twitter here and
as you can imagine, as a commander's fan, mock drafts and everything,
I'm very invested in that. But I want to get your thoughts on this
USFL XFL kickoff here with the with the NFL, like we have Daryl on
and what do you make of all this? Well, it felt like the
USFL just kind of daw the issue, which are one of the issues,
which was no one's returning kicks, and ignored completely the underlying reason why the
NFL was trending towards no one returning kicks, which was injury rates and things
of that nature. And so they just backed the kickoff up right, and
that that's been the case for two straight years, and it was it was
sort of the laziest solution to the problem of why aren't we getting kickoff returns?
And I think from the perspective of player development, it made some sense.
Hey, we're going to develop returners, we're going to develop kick cover
men and all this stuff. But then the NFL of course decides to adopt
the XFL rule, which now makes that kind of obsolete. I don't I
didn't expect them in the last week to adopt the XFL rule, of course,
but it is kind of funny now that it's gonna stick out like a
sore thumb. If this league lasts until next year, I'm guessing that they'll
adopt the XFL rule, assuming the NFL, who only has a one year
lease on this particular change, adopts it for the next season. Do you
buy that these leagues and spring football needs those extra yards to get the offenses
going, because, like I always thought, the USFL, hey, we
got to get these guys as much of a head start as we can.
Yeah, it's weird because you know in the National Football League, right,
you had pandemic year and then the immediate year after something like forty nine points
a game and then forty seven points a game. Now it's about forty three
and a half points a game, and it's not necessarily because the offenses go
three and out all the time. It's because the offenses like get to the
forties and punt. And so I'm thinking about this from a betting perspective,
where I'm still looking at a lot of totals that in the low forties.
I'm guessing by middle of next week they'll be in the high thirties, because
I don't think that field position is The field position obviously helps offense, but
it helps it less than you think, because if you the way that current
offense and defenses are in professional football, you have two high shelves, and
so there's not a high like third and long rate or sorry, three and
out rate. There's a really there's a relatively decent series success rate being turning
one series into another series of downs. It's more that offenses can't sustain multiple
first downs in a row to get to the end zone, and it's just
exacerbated in this league. So I don't necessarily know if the extra fuel position
will benefit It really hasn't benefited points in this league because you know these teams,
there's just there's just not that many big plays. There's not quarterbacks that
are capable of it, and defenses are really good at preventing them anyway,
And so I think it helps a little bit, but not as much as
everybody thinks. Andy, I want to give you a chance to respunt.
I think those are some fantastic points made by Eric Heager. Yeah, that's
the kind of the trend we're seeing with offensive defenses. There's the two high
safety shell cover two. There's basically offenses that are not being able to sustain
these long drives. I mean, once the advent of like the spread option
and like all the offenses where it was basically all vertical passing games started to
come into fruition, the emphasis on defense in response was Okay, well,
we're gonna put more emphasis on speed than we are physicality. And now teams
are basically not as getting mad explosive plays because that's kind of what they're trying
to prevent against constantly. And so there's just all of this underneath work,
and there's more focused on trying to do it down by down by down instead
of trying to get these big chunk plays, which is not as easy now
just based on the defensive adjustments. So I agree with you in terms of
that, and if I don't know if the kickoff is really going to help
that in this league, especially in a league where these offenses are sort of
makeshift and there's new players and there's people coming in trying to re establish themselves.
I mean, we talked about continuity. Maybe from a spring league perspective.
We know a lot of continuities here, but from an overall perspective.
I mean, you're talking about the NFL where there's like years plural years of
a player of continuity and coaching, where these people know each other's tendencies and
cadences and they're able to use that to their advantage in order to make things
happen. So I don't know if that's really going to necessarily improve on the
offensive standpoint in the spring leagues. I'm really curious to see what the overall
points total are end up going to be in this league going forward now with
all the talent being reconsolidated, and regardless of what the kickoff is, see
how consistent these offenses can be. We're peaking here, almost five hundred viewers
here on E two. We got another three point fifty on Twitter, which
last year the show did terrible, So maybe this means I don't know if
there's more interest in this this year or not, but or maybe people just
really like Eric, which is also could be the case. We got about
ten minutes left here, we'll toss to Max and then we're going to break
all this down just shit five h two, So really appreciate that. Andy
and I will be back on Monday. We'll do a recap show and then
Mike Mitchell, who is on, we'll be doing all that stuff coming up
for a regularly Friday episode. Normally the episodes go there, max five twenty.
Now, do you want to go on another rant here while we're peaking
viewership? Yeah, I'll go on another rant. The I think in terms
of offensive output, the far bigger effects was when they newtered the the enforced
aggression as we'll call it, on punt rules by making it easier to punt.
They changed the out balance line on punts to twenty five, and they
changed it to touch back twenty five too, whereas before it was it was
thirty five. That whenever it was thirty five, you were you were putting
teams in a real bind to say, we really need to consider going for
it on fourth and medium in between the forties. They're gonna just kick it
now like most of the time, like even more than they already were.
And as as a fan of Spring leagues, as much as I love the
special teams, the biggest action, the most exciting plays are when teams are
going for it on fourth down. That's what you're here to see, right,
You're here to see the last chance, will they move the chains or
not. And it feels like we want everything to be more traditional instead of
making things more challenging and more exciting, ensure punters will hate the fact that
there is in forced aggression, that it makes punter's heart, that makes punting
harder. But let's be real, Dan Willin's in the league right now because
he was able to navigate around those horrific punt rules for him and so that
he's a very field punter. So clearly, if anything, whenever you're a
specialist and you can navigate around more challenge, you're more likely to make it.
Whereas, for example, whenever they're changing the receiving rules to two feet,
let's be real, we haven't had that many, if any receivers break
out and really stick around on even an active roster other than special teams guys
like Turpin. So it feels like we're incentivizing more things to be challenging that
won't help players as much and it will actually make the game less exciting.
And then where we have other opportunities to make the game more challenging and more
exciting, we're turning away from it so that instead we can have it be
more traditional. It just feels like they completely misunderstand what the goal is Spring
football is supposed to be. We are like, we're hitting the almost seven
hundred viewers right now, Max, and the time that you've talked, it's
literally added one hundred and seventy five. The legend you're crazy. Make sure
you subscribe, like and subscribe thumbs up. Give it all that. Eric.
Since we're talking UFL weekend, here talk some actual football gameplay right now.
Obviously we're at Chalk Talk Stadium. What are you looking for in terms
of the renegades Perez and everything else and everything going on. Yeah, I
to me, I was really surprised just generally how big the point spreads are
in this Like you basically have the Memphis game on Sunday afternoon is the only
game that is close to a pick'em relatively speaking. This this game that's immediately
going to start, the point spread is anywhere, depending upon where you look,
three and a half to four and a half, and then and then
this afternoon later sharps are betting that thing out to eight and a half and
it's gotten back down to about seven. I just I have a hard time
believing to what Ay was saying earlier, there's so much turnover in these leagues
a I really want to see. I always put a little bit more in
my model's strength towards coaching in these leagues because I think, like, for
example, the San Antonio Brahmas, like Wade Phillips is is what a top
two or three coach in this entire league. And there when you look at
championship bods or anywhere from twelve to one to thirteen to one, they're one
of the worst teams in the hole in the whole league. Whereas we've always
seen that basically in this league quarterback play, which in the NFL is exactly
what you need in order to win championships. Quarterback play, there's not a
big enough delta in this league for it to matter that much. And then
you know, down the roster stuff, it's just so hard for us to
predict a week to week in game to game, especially considering one of the
big things about spring leagues, and you see it most acutely at quarterback is
a lot of these players they get injured more often because they're not experienced enough.
They're not it's sort of this weird thing like case Cookis is like a
very good quarterback, but he has to use like all of his mental capacity
to play the position, so he can't even protect himself, so he gets
hurt all the time. And that's true about like down the roster players across
this entire league. So if I'm looking and I'm trying to handicap these games,
I'm looking at who the coaches are on both sides. And so this
earlier game, obviously where you know you have you have Holtz and you have
Stoops, like that's a pretty good matchup. I don't think that the difference
between those two guys is exactly a field goal and a half in this game.
So when I look at this game that's immediately happening in about an hour,
I kind of do like the defending XFL champions, especially given Luis Perez
and how experience he is in this league. Matt Corral is going to get
the start for Birmingham over Jamar Smith, who, as you know, is
now relegated a third string. I don't even know if he's gonna address in
this game or be active. I think that that the continuity there quarterback coach
is is going to favor Arlington, a little bit more than maybe the betting
market suggest Yeah, in terms of you know, and we had Darren Luis
Johnson on last week talking and hey, this season, we're kind of getting
through here, you know, two months out, kind of the best we
can we get through the season. How what players you want to see them
target? Eric and kind of what what what do you want the game plan
to be for twenty twenty five And then we'll go to Andy as we are
hitting eight hundred and fifty eight viewers on YouTube. Crazy. Yeah, it
was funny because Max talked about the kick returners and the special teams guys.
You know, Brandon Aubrey for example, being the Pro Bowl caliber kicker for
Dallas, and Turpin has been a great returner for them. I think one
of the things that I and I've written about this extensively is like the offensive
line play in the NFL since the twenty eleven collective bargaining agreement and then the
new one in twenty twenty has been bad. And I think that one of
the so everybody's talking about Sam Schwarzstein and the kickoff rule, and I obviously
he deserves a ton of accoletes for that, but one of the things that
they did in the XFL that the original one in twenty twenty that I thought
was very apt was they tried to make sure that the talent level on both
sides of the line of scrimmage was relatively equal, which is really hard to
do given that often the athleticism disparity between offensive lineman and defensive lineman at the
highest level is really big, especially early on. And so when I'm looking
across here, like, I think that there are legitimate depth opportunities too in
the NFL for offensive linemen for this league to come and develop. And I
don't know how you do that from a broadcast standpoint. I think Pro Football
Focus my old employer being able to grave these guys, that's an awesome that's
an awesome thing so that you can highlight some of these offensive linemen that are
performing well. But when I'm thinking about this league and like what kind of
players I want to highlight, that is, if I'm looking at the NFL,
that is the number one most underserved position group in the entire in the
entire league, and it's only going to get worse because and I'm not trying
to be a boomer here, but nil and the transfer portal and things like
that. At college football, those linemen are going to come into the league
oftentimes having played for two or three teams and not being as developed as they
were even ten to fifteen years ago. This league, that is the number
one opportunity. I think if the UFL sticks long term, it's going to
be because they develop players at these positions that the NFL is neglected due to
decreased practice time and etcetera. I think that that's the number one That's what
I'm looking for and I'm hopeful for for this league. Make sure I'm looking
here. Watched on YouTube a l right, excuse me? Watching on Twitter.
Make sure hit the lank and get on YouTube so you can like to
subscribe on the bumping numbers. I think we have like a huge Twitter viewership
right now, which I'm trying to figure out how the Elon's pushing that Andy
comments on that comments on the Eric STEFPF will put this show to the bed
here pretty simp No. I really love what Eric touched on as far as
offensive line development. I mean, it's true, it doesn't happen enough,
even at the highest levels. I mean, I think that's why you see
a smattering of quarterbacks get injured like we've seen, especially last year. I
mean one that I can just name off the top of my head, justin
Herbert. I mean, Cory Lindsley had had to retire. They're all pro
center had to retire because of a health issue. And so what happens is
you put in a guy like Will Clap and he just functionality cannot do the
same things as Corey Linsley as far as setting protection schemes and blocking schemes,
and he can't even you know, have trouble with staffing the ball, and
that caused issues for Herbert and eventually it led to him just getting beat up
all season and eventually he had to basically sit out the rest of the year
in December. And that's happened to a number of quarterbacks. I think that
happened to case Cocus, that happened to Brian Scott with the Philadelphia Stars in
twenty twenty two. I mean, their offensive line was not good and they
got pummeled the entire season and had to worry about, Okay, instead of
where's my receiver be, it was where's the defensive lineman going to be?
And he's gonna be in my face when I throw, and that is so
different as far as mental processing for a quarterback, as Eric was alluding to,
I agree, there needs to be more consistent and development overall for some
of these linemen and how things shuffle around. I mean even with Arlington Arlington
renegads, I mean there's offensive linemen that are shifting around here too. Like
I said, Jonathan Heinbach, fantastic guess had last week. He's an awesome,
awesome offensive line coach, but it's going to take time for him to
deal with that new cohesive set and for Luis Prez. Hopefully it works and
everything goes smoothly. But yeah, there needs to be more offensive linean developed
because the defensive alignment, I'll tell you, are getting more and more freakishi
of. There are just some absolute animals on the defensive line that just absolutely
wreck shop. And I think that's something that going forward, there's going to
need to be more of a kind of a coming to Jesus moment with how
offensive linement offensive linement line development goes, especially if you want quarterbacks and your
assets to be protected. Max full of comments for me, We'll toss to
Eric and we'll get out of here. I think for as far as being
a steward of the game, the offensive line development is the biggest opportunity as
far as being of service to the NFL. But until the NFL is paying
buyout checks to the UFL to get players, which will never happen as far
as making the UFL able to survive or not, Unfortunately, developing offensive linemen
is not gonna be any more of a help than improving the quality of play,
which is obviously quite important, but unfortunately is not going to be what
it is like, Oh my god, people are going to only tune in
because these off of linemen are so great and the path text is so great
now they can make all these great offensive plays. Unfortunately, it feels like
the quality of football, regardless of how good it is, is not going
to be enough to draw interest. So it pains me to say that,
you know, because you think you can put good football on television and people
will just watch. But I mean, we've seen that you can have really
good football games, and you know, for example, Guardians Offenders thirty six
thirty seven last year, barely anybody's watching. So it's gonna take way more
than that for the UFL to have any sort of impact that's long lasting.
Unfortunately, Eric, real quick, can we get your four picks for the
games this weekend and then we'll put this shore to bed. Yeah, So
against the spread, I'm gonna go Arlington, Michigan, San Antonio, and
then Memphis. Three dogs. Memphis opened a dog, but now they're a
favorite. It's depending upon where you look. So I just think I think
in this early part of the season, like there's just so much uncertainty here.
I have a really hard time And I know home road is kind of
a is different because the travel is the same for both teams, but I
don't understand how there are two road teams in this league who are a touchdown
favorite given everything. And one thing that I did think was interesting was we
said this on the show. I think last year the USFL, the quality
of play held up last year more than I thought it would given that the
XFL took some of the players from the previous year. I do think we're
gonna see right away in an hour kind of right away USFL versus XFL,
like you know, a team that won the championship last year versus the team
that won the championship the last two years to the USFL, which one of
the leagues is stronger, because I think that a lot of people would say
the XFL was stronger, but actually, during the course of the season,
not only did Birmingham kind of run away with the USFL, but also I
thought that the quality of play in that second league was stronger than most people
predicted it would be. Well, I appreciate Eric coming on spending time all
of our guests today, Mike and Emory and Jamon and Coach Craig and Greg
Parks and Max has still been on and Andy everyone else. I'm going to
go. I gotta get over to the media veil at the stadium. If
you're watching on Twitter, which for whatever reason is like a ton of people
are, click the link, get on the YouTube, subscribe, give a
thumbs up, and all that stuff there. Eric, what would you like
to plug before we get out of here. Yeah, so SUMER Sports Show
with myself and former Falcons GM and the CEO of our company, Thomas de
mitrof Is. You know, every Monday and Wednesday on our YouTube channel.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel after you subscribe to this one, and then we
have actually a serious XM draft show. Every Friday night, Channel eighty eight
at seven o'clock. It's a lot of fun, really really fun to talk
to Spring League. I think fewer people like it more than we do,
so I love being able to come on and chat a little bit. We're
back, Yeah, we're back here, kick off again. I'm like,
I called the same person, set me up the same room. So we'll
see if we do it again next year. But Andy and I will be
back on Monday ninety in Pacific. We'll do our week one recap Max.
I'm sure we'll be back on and we'll talk negative stuff as well. I
appreciate everyone's time, and I'll play all this and we'll get out of here.
Thanks, guys, go, I don't know who's my pick o Renegades.
Right, let's go to the least press, all right, see you guys next