Coming up this week on the Marcast. Well, here we are post XFL
twenty twenty three season. The XFL just held its rookie draft. They're signing
undrafted free agents in the offseason, trying to scoop up all of the unsigned
talent they can before the USFL completes in season. In the words of a
semi famous punk band from these Chicago suburbs, this and the scene, it's
a arms race. Exciting show this week, your friend and mine, Rick
Sarah Tella coming back on the program. Big news from Rick in his own
football career here. But also we are grading and analyzing the XFL team picks
here in the off season. Rick has grades for all of the team's rookie
drafts as well as the undrafted free agent safe signs, and we are spotlighting
players you should keep an eye out for heading into XFL next year. Well,
I think it's an arms race right whose pockets are deep enough to laught
for the long haul? And as much as I want to through both leagues
be sustainable and survive, I don't know if that's going to be the case
read and hopefully it's not the case, but I think that the XFL is
really not paying attention to what the USFL is going to do. They're gonna
go about their business, and I do believe XFL has secured the greater level
of talent, and so therefore I believe that the demand or the desire for
the street free agent, at least their preference, is going to remain the
XFL at least that's my understanding from the community and individuals I've spoken to.
And then don't change the dial. You are here on the correct YouTube channel
here the email somewhat known as the USFL Hating Podcast. We are back Pat
Raffino off of our Monday and Tuesday USFL recaps here on the main show.
This week we are doing our official the Mark cast all USFL twenty twenty three
team awards, handing them out. Pat has done a ton of homework you
don't want to miss. At that point, I feel like it's more of
a fan bias than an actual like analytical perspective of like, oh, you
know, Boogie didn't make it or this guy did make it, and it's
like, I mean, they all played really well throughout the whole year,
and at some point the line of demarcation gets like I put boogie as my
defensive tackle. And then we are barreling through the CFL season. Already on
the week three, the BC Lions will have hopefully America's team here hopefully have
beaten the Winnipeg Blue Bombers here at Thursday night before you're listening to this,
but the big slate of games this weekend, we're bringing back Derek Taylor,
the voice of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. You talk to everything CFL Week three.
How bad are the Elks? I guess right now, right now?
Really bad? Apart from the Gino Lewis one hundred two yard reception in week
one, what do they have? Two hundred yards passing at fifty percent rates?
And the run game, which I think a lot of us thought was
going to be really good because Kevin Brown looks like he can really hammer dudes
and run that ball. Hasn't you know, hasn't picked up the slack should
be. I want to help you enjoy. Hey, guys, welcome to
the marcass read here recording things a little out of order this week. Busy
work week for me, so hopefully this all comes out correctly. Here busy
week here, We've had the undrafted signings here with the XFL posting all that
coming off through rookie draft last week. I know, John Bogel, Evan
Wilsmore, coach, Craik Sports, we all kind of did the live breaking
analysis of all of the bad as the draft picks came down last Friday.
If you miss that, that was a good time. Were about an hour
or so kind of knee jerk reaction on that. But I was talking with
Rick Sartella. He said, I want to come back. I want to
do a full breakdown. I got grades and everything for all the teams,
how the DPPs and everyone, the coaches, what Rick thought of all that,
and also just really cool like kind of backstory tidbits on a lot of
the players Rick has been acking here, so something it's not like the sexiest
thing in the world here with the you know these players and do we know
them? Does the casual viewer all that? I think Rick does a good
job kind of fleshing that out, but kind of the you know, the
conundrum right now is XFL signing all of this talent you know USFL and they
did there was it the college draft and all that. How is that all
going to pan out in the arms Race for the talent. I hope that
was a good reference this week. The Fallow Up Boys song came out in
oh seven, if you want to feel old about that here in the year
twenties twenty three, but it was going back and forth with smog from the
desolation of what the Hobbit movies whatever, hoarding the treasure and decided to go
with the arms race all the Fallow Up Boy So I hope you enjoy that.
Rick also has some news to break today, some announcements from Rick Saratella
here coming up in his role with the i FA the International Football Lines.
Really excited and honored that Rick would take the time and feel the desire to
come on our show to share some of that, hoping that we can be
helpful to them and everything in their endeavor is coming down in the future.
So really appreciate Rick taking the time to come on to share that news.
Like I said, did Pat Rofino coming back? Pat and I do our
weekly live recaps following the USFL games over the weekend. But Patti is back,
He said, I wanted to do a you know, I have Pat
write articles for the website throughout the year, and Pat said I want to
do an All USFL Team Awards, So we did that. Pat came on
really exciting. Like I said, I talked with Pat every week, but
like getting him on the main episode, so I hope you enjoy. And
then, like I said, Derek Taylor, a voice of the Winnipeg Blue
Bombers, who is either going to be happier or sad today with the BC
Lions hopefully having beaten them at home. That's that's quite the conundrum. They're
BC traveling to Winnipeg to do that, but hopefully they win that. Lots
of CFL stuff to talk about. I love catching up with Derek. We've
had him on the last two CFL seasons, so certainly a delighted as well.
That's gonna do it for me. Today. We will be doing our
USFL you know recap show on Tuesday. I believe next week Jason Hussey will
be joining me as well for our Monday recaps. I hope you guys are
enjoying those. For the CFL, I think we're gonna do probably a live
kick you know, kick off to the championship game here with the USFL.
If that's the words I'm looking for next week for Friday, so look for
information from now. I'll reach out to everyone kind of now figure out if
we want to do something prerecorded their live, but keep a lookout on the
twitters and Facebook's. I'll keep you guys updated for that. But should have
a live show next week at getting ready for the big us Championship game,
which happens to fall on my birthday, so kind for the USFL to do
that. Also, Canada today a day so infamous in Canada, the Mark
cast birthday that Canada decided to make that a national holiday. So I hope
you guys enjoyed the episode. We'll see at the end. Take care well.
We tried to get this gentleman on for the rookie drive busy guy here,
but I said this is almost better because we kind of do the knee
jerk reaction stuff and I do like a little bit more Ricks prepared here.
We have grades and a little bit more formal on this. So we're talking
all the XFL, the hoarding talent here, all the XFL offseason and signing
and stuff. How are you doing, Rick, I'm doing great, Red
happy to be here and excited for all the new players getting an opportunity in
the XFL. Great opportunity for these young men on the outside. Maybe not
in a training camp or futures contract. Hey, there's plenty of opportunities in
the XFL, and I'm pumped up to shed some insight. Yeah. So
you know when the USFL did their college draft, it was in February.
It was kind of pre the NFL. Do you like the timing of how
the XFL here where it's okay, it's kind of mid June. We're given
players a sense of direction here. Do you like kind of how they're looking
at you? Is it better or worse? Well? I think that I
do like that the season ended and there's something to talk about right now.
I do wonder like, hey, a player gets his rights taken by the
XFL, Well, there's gonna be probably another nine months or so here until
we report the training camp. So what happens when they get approached by other
leagues or they get signed and picked up? So I think there was a
sick nificant strategy involved because you're trying to identify guys that you believe will still
be available to you nine months down the road. So you want to draft
talent, but you might not want to draft the guy who's too good,
because chances are he might get picked up. So it was fascinating to me
to see the individual team approaches in terms of strategy and how they selected the
players, and we can dive into some of that perfect that. So we'll
go here. I've got both tabs up. I guess we'll start with the
Ricky drafts kind of since that was the first thing. Kind of get your
thoughts on all of that as we go through. Okay, so whether we
got here, I do want to just start with Arley. Intend to go,
Dad, You said you've identified some key players of each How do you
want to tackle this? Yeah, so I mean starting with the draft.
I don't really think that players should worry too much where they were taking,
what round they were taking. I think the bottom line is here you're going
to have an opportunity to compete. And if you were drafted as opposed to
being an undrafted free agent, well chances are the team probably likes you a
little bit more than some of the those other guys. But I think what's
great about the XFL they they don't care where you come from, FBS,
FCS, they don't care about the helmet sticker so once you get into training
camp, anybody has a shot. And Si Barnett at a Davenport man.
I wrote about this young man leading up to the NFL draft. He led
the team in receiving, he led the team in punting. Oh, by
the way, he's the field goal kicker as well handles kickoffs. This guy
what can't Si Davenport of Barnett do out of Davenport. I think he's gonna
bring a lot of excitement to the XFL, almost like a jackknife. And
I know special teams has been talked about a lot in the alternate football universe,
But how exciting is it a guy who could come in make a sixty
yard touchdown, catch, stay in the game, kick the extra point,
kick, the kick the kickoff. Oh, by the way, we can
punt too. So I like that. Connor Degenhardt, aut of New Haven,
I really liked this young kid. I thought he was one of the
top twenty or twenty five quarterback prospects in the twenty twenty three NFL Draft.
Now read there's a there's a big hole in the scouting community in the NFL
because there's this big group think box, and because Connor Degenhart who actually led
the FCS. I think in passing the two years he was at holy Cross.
But then I kept asking all my Northeast scout friends, Hey, did
you see the new Haven kid? What do you think of that new Haven
kid? Hey? That new Haven kid's a player. But because he wasn't
on the Blessed Though or the national teams didn't go in, they didn't give
him a look. They didn't take him seriously. This kid has a dual
threat six foot six, two hundred and thirty five pound cannon arm quarterback,
four year starter conn and Degenhart, remember that name. I think he could
be a star in the XFL. And then Merlin Robertson out of Arizona State,
one of these super seniors who at one point was being talked about as
a potential next level prospect, didn't really take his game to the next level.
Had success early on and in Sundevil's career, but then kind of plateau.
So now he's gonna have an opportunity to show off some of that past
rushing prowess for the Arlington Rene gates in terms of Arlington, and I think
in the in the off whatever Wednesday claimed yesterday, I think there's another quarterback
here, but with the rending Gates taking Connor taking the quarterback, and obviously
you know we did Louise and kind of all that stuff. Does that tell
you anything about how they're looking, they're approaching that they're kind of just stockpiling
right now as they can. Well, I think, you know, the
quarterback position, and I don't care what league you are, you can never
have enough of them. Look at the Memphis show Boats for example, you
know, so to me, and look at the NFL. You know,
you're only one snap away from your backup quarterback. And look at the situation
that Arlington ran into last year at the quarterback position. And then you see
the success that Louis Perez has enjoyed. Well, if I'm an NFL team,
I would love to have him as a camp arm as a ninety man
roster camp invite. And then again, you know, you come in and
you're a thrower, You start in pressing and say, hey, maybe we
should sign this guy to the practice squad. So I think Arlington kind of
saw the writing on the wall. Hey we might lose Louis Perez. This
is a good looking player, let's draft him. And you know, I
can dive into the free agents, or we can keep that separate however you
want to work it. Yeah, why don't we do that? We can
do We can do the Arlington free agents here as well as see Yeah.
So Noah Henderson out of ECU again a multiple year starter offensive lineman. I
kind of projected him as a guard at the NFL level. He might get
a chance to stick at tackle for the XFL, So I think he's gonna
come in compete for a starting job. Noah Tailor out of North Carolina,
linebacker, started off at Virginia. Very good physical specimen, probably a strong
side linebacker, can get after the quarterback, set the edge against the run,
and even drops back and pass coverage for a big man a little bit.
So Noah Henderson out of ECU. Noah Tailor out of North Carolina.
Bob Stoops tapping into his college resources there. Yeah that's interesting. Yeah,
he's probably got you know, some of these guys, but Bob and his
staff movie a leg up on that. Just in terms of relationships and things.
I don't know you have that makes any difference at all or not?
Yeah, anything anything else from the running gads. Yeah, so you have
Connor Blumrick as well, quartering back out of Virginia Tech. So yeah,
definitely kind of picking up as many as they can right now, kind of
wanting to figure out what they're going to do coming in the camp. Yeah,
I mean overall, I mean I did it. I did letter grades.
Initial reaction. I gave the Arlington running gades an A minus. I
actually thought they had the second best overall draft slash free agent signings. Well,
it's interesting too because and we were talking on the you know whatever,
the draft show we did last week. You have some of these teams,
Okay, we've had issues anyway we need to figure out, right, you
know, we need to work on a defense or whatever. But then some
of these teams, you know, like the defenders, we have a bunch
of these guys signed at the NFL. Then you just got to make up
for the holes that you have. So you're kind of getting the holes in
two different directions here, whether it's hey, we were so good, now
we have players that are getting taken or we really need to shore up whatever
issue of our team. Yeah. I think also the common denominator amongst all
the teams is offensive linemen, right, whether they drafted him or signed.
Every team is looking to add depth and competition at the offensive line position.
Yeah. I remember we had air Galkon here god like two years year and
a half ago now talking about that that he said, you know, come,
come with all these leagues competing quarterbacks and O line And he said,
back with XL twenty twenty, they had a list of you know, unsigned
offensive linemen that they could bring in if there was injuries. And he said
when when COVID shut that league down, he said, there were very few
names on that list, so that people that they could still call up.
And that was only five weeks into the season. So absolutely so a minus
for Arlington here. I guess we'll go back DC defenders here, starting off
on the rookie draft. Yeah. DC Defenders, Now, I remember when
we recap their initial draft before the season, we talked about, man,
they're gonna run and gun and look to run some spread formations. Look at
all the wide receivers, and again they had success with their wide receiver unit.
I think bond's kind of doubled down here with two big playmakers.
Tye Scott at a Missouri State again an FCS under the radar prospect who you
know, quite frankly had some concerns amongst the scouting community in terms of whether
he could separate. Okay, coming from that small school competition caliber of talent.
Well, guess what. Now he'll get to prove in the XFL that
he can be a big time playmaker at the next level. And C.
J. Johnson again ECU very productive, can make a lot of plays over
the middle, can play outside inside. I think I think Vaughan saw an
opportunity that hey, we might lose some wide receivers to your point read let's
double down. And then again Jack Plumbo out of Iowa, a polished offensive
lineman. The Hawkeyes do one thing. They take two and three star recruits,
they coach him up, and by time they depart, they have a
fundamental baseline that can really as a low baseline. Right, So the ceiling
might not be as high for a Jack Plumber, but you know what you're
getting very fundamentally sound, a polished player. And then Alex Jensen out of
South Dakota, a multiple years starter. And those two guys again, whether
they come in and compete for a starting job or provide depth, I think
it's going to serve them well. I gave the DC defenders a B and
I did have Josh Falo at a usc a tight end as one of the
undrafted free agent signings. He caught my eye at one point for the Trojans.
He was a bona fide test catching target and he did run into some
injury struggles there throughout his collegiate career. So if Josh Falo can kind of
get back on track healthwise, I think that's another again passing target for the
DC Defenders quarterbacks in the passing attack. Yeah, be curious to see where
they go and then they We're still kind of waiting this Talmu get picked up
somewhere. He kind of bounced around last year, so it'll be curious kind
of if they really need to reevaluate kind of what their core identity is or
if they can run it back. You know they bring you know, Derrick
King, right, this kind of the primary guy who're moving forward? Absolutely
correct, So moving so beat moving on here, Like we got Houston Roughnecks
coming up, the Houston Roughnecks. Yes, And I will say that Bob
Morris was locked in all week at the NFLPA Collegiate Ball He was he was
there for the duration, and he was looking for talent, and he took
a number of our guys from the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, some of them that
I was shocked, quite frankly that they're still available. Let's start off with
Lindsay Scott out of Incarnet Ward, coached by G. J. Kinney,
and I'll tell you what, five ft ten But if you look at the
frame read, he's very similar to a Kyler Murray. The arm strength is
not much less than a Kyler Murray. The scrambling ability is arguably just as
good. And if you remember Charlie Ward back in the day, he was
probably about thirty years too early for the NFL. But Lindsay Scott, to
me, is the reincarnation of Charlie Ward. I think this guy, along
with Connor Degenhart, who we talked about with Arlington, I think Lindsay Scott
is a guy who could take the league by storm. I really do another
dual threat seven year, seventh year senior read he's got a lot. I
think he accounted for seventy touchdowns passing and rushing this past season. And then
Michael Ayers out of Ashland. I am stunned that they were able to acquire
this young man. He is an NFL talent. He came out of high
school unranked defensive back, one hundred and eighty five pounds, soaking wet,
bunked up forty fifty pounds during his time in college, became a linebacker,
very good coverage skills, flies to the football, great lateral coverage. A
true athlete, this, Michael Man. This is what the xf BEL is
all about. Developmental prospects, and Michael Layers is a great one, as
is Jason Adamola at a Notre Dame tweener right, lacks the arm length,
lacks the prototypical height, but man, he started several years there for the
fighting irish showed glimpses. I think he can be productive in spurts. I'm
curious to see how they're going to use them on the inside outside. Is
he a kind of versatile defensive lineman that they move up and down the line.
I think he's going to make an impact for the Houston Roughnecks, and
that's why I gave them an A. I thought Bob Morris had the best
draft, and I like Braydon Johnson, the undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma
state whether he plays wide receiver or tight end. I think that'll be a
nice pest catching target for their offense. The interesting thing too about Lindsey Scott
is he was obviously a couple of the players picked up by both the USFL
and the XFL, so they'll be curious kind of. You know, we've
talked a lot about how these drafts are kind of like the Canadian neglist,
where you know if you come in that you know you might never set foot
in their life, be curious to see you know, you do the XFL,
and then if you get cothered it doesn't work out. I don't think
the USFL is going to say no at that point. I mean, do
you do you find it interesting that both these leagues are kind of taking competing
idea of philosophies here in terms of kind of getting these rights taken up for
teams. Well, I think it's an arms race, right whose pockets are
deep enough to last for the long haul. And as much as I want
to see both leagues be sustainable and survive, I don't know if that's going
to be the case read and hopefully it's not the case, but I think
that the XFL is really not paying attention to what the USFL is going to
do. They're going to go about their business, and I do believe XFL
has secured the greater level of talent and so therefore I believe that the demand
or the desire for the street free agent, at least their preference, is
going to remain the XFU at least that's my understanding from the community and individuals
I've spoken to. Interesting is that do you attribute that to better scouting,
better you know, directors, the player personnel kind of doing there. I
mean, what do you attribute that too? I think in the twenty twenty
three landscape, read the industry that we're in, the players that were targeting,
a lot of it is about the pizzaz the rock brings sex appeal.
They just have a more significant presence. And when you look on the TV
channel there's more than a hundred people in the stands. That counts for something.
Post COVID shots fired here. No, I'm not, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not saying I'm not. I'm not I'm not firing shots.
I'm just being honest that when I turn on the TV and there's eighty
seven people in the stands. I say that that's an issue. That's all
I mean. I think it's valid. Anything else from Roughnecks you said you
gave that, would you say great? Did we get a great for the
well? Hey, the Roughnecks I gave an Ay, Bob Marris, hats
off to you. All Right, let's go here back. We got Ricky
drafts here, we're flying through. This is good Orlando Orlando Guardians. Okay,
So Rock Martin out of Oklahoma State, he's another guy, highly productive
inside outside. What I like about brock Martin reed is he can bring pass
rush from the interior. That's a rare skill set. A lot of times
you get opportunities at the NFL level when you can do that. But I
think Brock Martin again, he's got those alligator arms. He's gonna scare off
NFL decision makers, and so he'll get an opportunity to come in and make
his presence known. Darius Joiner out of Duke another P five pedigree, can
play safety, can play corner. We'll see, you know, kind of
weird. He settles in on the defensive side and then on the offensive side.
I thought Jared Horst from Michigan State, you know, the Spartans are
another program. They have a long history of putting drafted free agent offensive linemen
in the league, and that's again because of their ability to cross train players
and then teach them the fundamental So Jared Horst out of Michigan State was the
guy that caught my attention on the offensive side. They also signed a fighting
Irish bow Bauer, the linebacker, an undrafted free agent. Orlando to me,
I felt like had one of the more disappointing rookie drafts just in terms
of impact. I think Rock Martin will make an impact, but I guess,
you know, from the skill positions. I felt like Orlando needed to
build on the skill positions. I did not see them achieve that, so
I gave them a C plus. It's interesting too. Yeah, we've had
on Buckley kind of postseason and then he was on our pregame show for the
championship game. You know itself. Admittedly, they did not do a great
job team building last year. I think he would have him first and foremost,
like you know, he had never done this and trying to bring in
Larry Lee and kind of figure all this kind of stuff out. Interesting the
day you feel like they haven't taken that next step here, even kind of
with a year and knowing like, okay, these are the things we need
to kind of focus on. It's hard, you know, when you've never
done it before. There is an adjustment period and I think you know,
you see some of the titles some of these Bob Marris worked in the NFL.
Right, Von Hutchins, I always go back to, has been scouting
these guys for the last several years. When you're not living that life and
then you come in and try to play catch up. You're competing against others
who have three, four, five, ten year head start. It's not
that it's you know, it's easy for us to sit here in our chairs
and say, oh that was great, man. They blew that opportunity.
Listen, there's more than just talent, right. It's about scheme, it's
about fit, it's about DNA right, It's about a person's attitude. Right.
Because again, you know we see this with the CFL. The biggest
lesson to be learned a guy like Brock Martin. I never met him personally.
I'm just gonna use them as an example. Oklahoma State, big time
player, All Conference, someone like that. They might have an ego,
right, they go up to the CFL, they get their ass kicked right
because they think, ah, I got it like that. But that's not
the case. There's a high level of talent in the CFL the XFL,
especially with the starting teams. Okay, where where you see the bigger separation
of quality is the depth, right, the twos and the threes. But
in terms of the starters the XFL the CFL, I think they're both very
formidable. And that's why you've got to kind of meet these men. You've
got to sit down, you got to talk with them. You gotta understand
where their head is at. You want to pick their brain and know like
what is your why why are you here and why do you want to participate
in this league? Because there are a lot of players read who feel like
are too good. And then there are a lot of players and I'm not
knocking this either it's NFL or nothing, and they have a clear vision and
I respect that. Okay, everybody is a case by case basis the hardest
thing to measure heart and head. I say it all the time, and
that's why there's a need for scouts. That's why there's a need for general
managers and that's why you know you you bat three hundred, you're doing great
well. And like you said, there needs to be you know, even
if you're only buying into the XFL for that one season or you know,
USFL, to get to that, there has to be a level of buying
and kind of like why are you here and what's your why and whether you
know whether you're going to be here for you know, three or four years,
you're going to be here for a year, like you at least got
to be committed while you're here and kind of go for it absolutely. So
at see for them. I love Trull Buckleys. I wish if they performed
on the field like they do, therefore they go. I love them coming
out of Syracuse too. I remember he was a good player coming up here
in San Antonio. Bramas, hines Worth and company. Yeah, the Brama's.
So I'll start off. Jalil Billingsley out of Texas, Okay, came
over from Alabama, lost the starting job to Lato, followed Sarkasian over to
Texas. Left the program just this past season. Okay, So there was
a lot of questions about his commitment to the game. Of what we just
talked about this right, the love for the game, the passion for the
game. And so he was another player we had at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl.
At one point, Jalil Billingsy was thought to be a top one hundred
overall NFL prospect. So here he is now, very athletic, very limber.
Okay, And now I heard he did very well in his team interviews
at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. Apparently not well enough because here he is now
he's gonna have to go prove himself. And again, teams want to see
that level of commitment. Does he come in, does he work his ass
off, does hear the starting job? Does he dominate the level of competition.
If Jalaile Billingsley checks off over those boxes, he'll be playing in the
National Football League in two years. Right, that's the journey. Okay.
I love the pick. By the way, Chris Smith at a Louisiana Lafayette.
You know, he was probably the best looking running back down at the
Tropical Ball this past season, and the Tropical Ball pulled some good players.
Chris Smith very good between the tackles, runner, capable hands out of the
backfield, I I like his ability to fit into the kind of rotation and
add a little bit of variety to that San Antonio backfield. On the defensive
side, Lorenzo McCaskill, the linebacker, was the guy who stood out to
me who I think could come in and make some noise. And then you've
got the undrafted free agents. Luke Ford out of Illinois. I saw them
list him as a wide receiver. I believe he was a tight end for
the line I so I don't know if that was a typo or they want
to try him at wide receiver. I would imagine his natural fit though,
is at tight end. And then Nazier Right, I gotta give a shout
out to my guy out of William Patterson. And that's the things that get
me excited is that whereas the NFL, you do have teams, scouts,
decision makers, who's gonna stand on the table for a guy from William Patterson.
Not too many individuals. And that's what I love to see. Guys
like Nasier right get a bona fide, legitimate opportunity. And so I gave
the Brahmas a solid beat. I appreciate this. The insights here and the
stories I think, and this is why you're a good person for this kind
of fit to come in, because it's really hard to sell this as exciting,
right, A lot of this kind of we're talking here offseas whoever.
But I think for you know, casual fans or people like me, I
don't know any of these players, and so getting the insights from you,
I think it's incredibly help and kind of rounding out people's thoughts about this.
So I really appreciate that. I think it's very helpful. That's why I
enjoy being here. Read so rams okay saying anything else on them, We'll
move here. What do we got? C dragons here? Mueller and company?
And this is obviously a team close near and dear to my heart.
So how do we do well? You'd be happy to know I gave them
a B plus? All right, So they had the third best draft in
my book, and that's because tightest Swin from Wyoming, whoa buckle up.
This young man made a very strong case to be the NFL PA Bowl MVP.
If you go back and watch this year's edition, he toted the rock
I think close to twenty times, and he really broke a lot of tackles,
busted off big runs. You talk about yards after contact, you better
wrap up Tightest Swin out of Wyoming I thought, I thought he made a
strong case for MVP of that game. Kolbe Reader out of Iowa State.
This is an instant impact guy for the Cyclones. You might remember his brother,
Troy Reader. They played together at Delaware. Kolbe Reader now is twenty
seven years old, another one of these seventh year seniors. Had a lot
of injuries along the way. But when you talk about forty one inch vert
four to five forty prototypical modern day linebacker, size does an excellent job setting
the edge against the run. Now, I think he's the prototypical weekside linebacker.
Now will Kobe Reader want to participate at twenty seven years old? Is
he about that journey trying to get to the NFL because he will have to
play another season and then he'll be a twenty eight or twenty nine year old
trying to break into the NFL. That's the fascinating backstories, right, Everybody
loves the story of an underdog. I'll tell you what Kobe Reader's story is
fascinating. And then how about Sam Burt and Malcolm Lee and that Kansas Hawk
program to turnaround that they enjoyed, and that's because of these two young men
on the defensive side, and so they tapped into some of that Jayhawk's success.
Hopefully that breeds off on the rest of the team. And then in
terms of the free agent that is going to be intriguing. How about the
Nicosy Perry at a Florida Atlantic. He's just a big body quarterback, can
sling it around very consistent. But there was enough flashes there right that shows
the tantalizing upside. And so I don't think Nicosy Perry is a guy that's
going to come in and replace Ben Denucci. But I do think he's a
guy that you want to have around because the right coach might say, hey,
I can work with that. Give me a year to just groom him,
teach him the verbiage of the offense, tweak some of those mechanics,
get the upper body and sync with the lower body, and then suddenly you
might have a player here. And that's that's where the quarterbacks liking Nakocy Perry,
who have enjoyed success at the collegiate level, they need those reps.
I say, it all the time. Nothing replaces in game bullets. You
cannot teach experience, and so yeah, I thought there was a great balance
by the way on both stacking the offense and defensive side of the ball for
the Seattle Sea Dragons. Well, the other thing you said was bringing in
this Nikosi Perry. You know, I don't know how long Ben d Nucci's
leashes here with the Broncos, right, and if that is going to pan
out for everything he wants, I don't. I don't know if Danici is
about that life of coming back and doing the XFL again. I think this
is like, you know, I mean, we kind of we did this
and it was fun, and now I don't I don't see him making a
second return here, So I don't know if Montes is the answer. I
think they had Harrison Frost as well, so you know, no one else
really saw. I think Montez got one snap or something in the game.
So you know, we certainly need to figure out something there with Seattle without
a d go in here. Whether we got St. Louis next, Yeah,
the BattleHawks. So we got a couple of guys here that stuck out
to me. You know, I am fascinated that this Nico Bolden at a
Kent State did not get picked up by the NFL. Now, he was
dealing with the hand injury. We had him out at the NFL PA Collegiate
Bowl as well. But talking to Nico, looking up at this man six
foot four right, two hundred and twenty pounds, kind of that Cam Chancelloresque
type of safety. Okay, go look at the production through the roof,
dangerous with the ball in his hands. Now, I do think the medical
did not check out well, which is why he was still available. But
man, this might arguably be the best player chosen in the draft overall.
Nico Bolden at a Kent State Matthew Jester, I gotta show love you guys,
may or may not know on based here in New Jersey, but again
out of Princeton, right, something tells me read that maybe that Princeton degree
could be put to better use and earned more money than in the XFL.
But again, where's his head at? Does he just love the game so
much that he wants to play, So that'll be a storyline that we pay
attention to. And then they drafted a tight end. They signed a tight
end, and I like both of them for their on field talents. At
least Kamore Gamble out of UCF kind of had a streak career and then he
was drafted. Kamari Averitt was signed, and I think this was probably the
most controversial signing or selection because if you don't know the story of Kamari Averitt
out of Bethune Cookman, former P five pedigree off the field incident has been
well documented. I'm not going to discuss it here. It can very easily
be found. I'm gonna stick to his on field talent. Maurice Jones Drew
told me that he might be the best player in attendance at the NFL PA
Bowl. Maurice Jones Drew loved this man. We sat back watched to make
plays all week long. Big time pass catcher, six five, two hundred
and forty pounds, runs like a deer. The man obviously has some talent.
Anthony Becked took a chance. Anthony Becked rolled the dice and so I
am going to be fascinated to see what comes of it. And then Don
Peterson at a Nevada another free agent signing. I want to mention lacks the
true size maybe to play in the NFL, six foot three hundred pounder maybe
doesn't check off the boxes from a measurable standpoint, but again got after the
quarterback there, made a bunch of plays. And that is somebody where,
you know, if he wants to have a professional football career in an ultimate
league. Don Peterson, you know, that's the kind of guy that maybe
it hangs around for a couple of seasons. Unlike abandoned the Nucci who you
mentioned, But overall I liked what Um Saint Louis did. I gave the
Battle Hawks again a solid beat. Oh it's good, like you said,
with some of these, you know, Camari, it's you knowest league of
opportunities here if they want to do that. And we've seen other players,
you know, Kavanti Chirpin and people get you know, kind of work through
and get their way in. And John Oakman was another good example in the
CFL. Uh So Cema the last one here go back to the draft.
We got the Vipers here obviously with um, you know Woodson being gone,
I think Joey kind of did a lot of the you know whatever for them
right now kind of in the interim. So what did you make because they're
a little bit of a different situation here without the head coach. Yeah,
Joey Clint Kal's I respect greatly. Again, this is just one man's opinion.
I gave them a D as a dog, I gave them the worst
grade. It's okay, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. I just
didn't see a lot of players that stood out to me personally right. And
it doesn't mean that they didn't draft quality caliber players. It means that we
talked about this in the beginning of the segment. Every organization has different strategies,
and maybe they tried to find guys that said, hey, I don't
think they're going to be in the NFL, but they fit in our system
pretty well, and I think that's kind of the approach they took. Now,
Robert Mitchell at an NC Central's a good looking offensive lineman from the HBCU
ranks, and I like that pick. I think he's a guy that's going
to come in and compete for a starting job. A lot of the other
players they chose, I had to go back and do some research on them,
and I'm still learning and finding out about them. So either they did
a tremendous job or a very poor job, and that's to be determined.
You know. On the undrafted free agent side, the BYU defensive lineman Lorenzo
Faut too. He comes from a football family, so again, guys that
love the game, Guys that came up with that football pedigree. And so
those were like two guys that really stood out for me on the biggest Vipers
in terms of impact. I don't see it, but I hope I'm wrong.
And so they graded out with the worst draft, but hey, everybody
has an opinion and we know what we make of those read Well, that's
good. I appreciate that. You know, they Vegas has a lot of
heavy lifting, both on the field and off the field. They're coming into
the season, so you would certainly like to see them not handicapped it too
much. That was good. D any other thoughts on this? And I
know we have some other rick news here we're going to talk about, But
you have anything else from the draft or the assignings? No, you know,
I just wish that there was more. I do believe that there is
a thirst for live coverage. I give much props to you and the Mark
cast for hosting a live show or as close to live coverage that you guys
could possibly provide. But I just have taking my industry related hat off right,
and just from a fan of the league, because I am. I'm
a big fan of the league. I expect and want more. That's me
speaking as a fan. Like there's a draft, sign me up, I
want I want to know about it. I want to know what's going down.
I want to hear about these players. I think that your statement of
saying, man, I love the backstories, like that's how you create a
following, that's how you relate the fans to the players. And I think
that the fact that we didn't have the backstories, or we didn't have the
reaction from the coaches, or we didn't have live player interviews talking about how
they felt about the whole experience. I go back to the wood analogy that
the tree really fall because nobody was there to see it, and so to
me, I just I want to see more. I get it. It's
not something that set up four but a phone call to the kid over here,
we could have made it happen. Come on, buckle up. But
overall, listen, I like what the XFL is doing, and I just
hope that they are able to sustain. We saw them burned through five hundred
million in a matter of months. The fact that they only lost sixty million,
I thought was a job well done. Call me crazy, but I
did not expect them to make money this year. No, I mean,
well, that whole story has just been frustrating, you know, with all
that coming out. But now I know it's I think that it just there's
an expectation when you call it a draft, that there's something that's going to
be done. We're like I said, if they were just going to drop
the names like they did with this, I wouldn't call it, you know,
I wouldn't call it that, or I wouldn't promote, you know,
because they're promoting it. Hey, we're signing all these players today and all
the teams are tweeting out this all last week. Why would it just done
what you did this week and just drop the list and go here we got
these guys. You're not going to make a deal about it, you know
when I talk with the league and it just said like we know we need
like we know, like we're next time, next time, and you know
it's a next time until there's not a next time. And if you don't
have enough interest in a lot of this stuff. That's kind of my thing
is at some point I want, you know, USFL, if you could
combine both of them, not merging, but just the philosophies of things.
Where the USFL made a really big deal of their college draft and I don't
think it really was a big deal, but they live tweeting and they had
all this kind of stuff and if you, yeah, if you could marry
that with the XFL, and I, yeah, I have issues with that,
but that's for another day. So you have other exciting stuff for whether
we have going on. I saw it when I was trying to find you
to talk about the draft. I said, what the heck is ricks twitter
handle? What do we have going on? We're changing things around here,
so what's going on? Yeah, so you know read, Uh, it's
an exciting time for me personally coming on board. Um, gonna make this
announcement here. I haven't stayed in anything publicly, but you know, I
appreciate the platform. I do believe the Mark Cast is really the authoritative voice
for alternate football. So I appreciate the fandom and the following, and we're
gonna make a little bit of news here and just get it out there that
I am joining the International Football Alliance as their executive vice president and director of
International Relations. What the heck does that mean? Rick? Let me explain
before I do. I want to be clear because I know a lot of
well respected individuals in the football community and industry that I've already told me that
I'm crazy. I hear you, I understand, and I get it.
So with that being said, I want the listening audience at home to understand
that this is not just the launch of a new football league. It is
the growth of American pro football internationally around the globe. And the league mission
and my personal mission is going to be to grow professional American football around the
world. And we are based in Mexico. We're a Mexican based league with
American pro football rules. Will have three teams in Texas, three teams in
Mexico. In fact, we just announced a team, the first ever team
relocating from Mexico to Dallas, the Pioneers, and we have independent ownerships.
But we're not coming in and saying, hey, we're bringing American pro football
to the Mexican fan base. No, we are going to grow and develop
the game from a youth level. We're going to develop youth programs and every
city we're in we're going to establish flag football leagues, women leagues, and
it's to grow the game, not just the league, the game of football
internationally. And that's our hope, that's our expectations. If you look at
the logistics of where each team is strategically placed, they can all be shuttled
on buses, okay. And so that will be the first season we will
have independent ownerships. We will be based in each cities. There will be
no hub. We want to connect with the community and establish ourselves in the
markets. We're going to kick off in June twenty twenty four. And there's
more. We'll have a rookie draft in December. There's going to be eight
combines before then. The first one will be held July twenty ninth in San
Diego. There will be several in Mexico. We're coming to the northeast,
the southeast, the midwest, the west coast, and we're gonna find the
talent and they're going to be eligible for our draft, and they're not going
to be just eligible for the International Football Alliance. We are working with strategic
partnerships and relationships with other international leagues around the globe. There is a broadcast
deal in place. I can't announce that yet, but I've been very impressed
and blown away with the leadership and ownership groups, and I'm excited. Well,
now you get to you know, you got to put your money where
your mouth is here where it's been like, yeah, we spent here and
you know we're critiquing whatever. Now you're getting diving head into this. What
inspired this or brought this on for you to get involved? Well, they
called me and pursued me aggressively. I feel like that the past twenty plus
years, I've been kind of grooming for this job, for this role because
here at the NFL Draft Bible, I've been boots on the ground read for
the last two decades of living this life and providing players with opportunities. And
now I get a chance to do it for the entire world. I feel
like the future of American pro football is in my hands. That's how I
look at it, and that's what I'm excited to do. I feel like
this is the next challenge for me. I was so excited to learn that
American Pro football is now the second most watched sport in Mexico behind soccer.
It has surpassed baseball. So there's a thirst for this in North America and
there is a huge thirst around the world. And we are going to empower
other countries to be sustainable, educate and teach them how to develop their leagues.
And we're gonna work with other leagues. We're not in competition. We're
gonna work in association. And the salaries, I know is going to be
the first question. It's going to be very comparable to what you're seeing in
these alternate spring leagues. Well, this is exciting. I'm glad that we
can kind of help be a part of this. You know, you have
a home here. Anytime you want to say anything or do anything, so
I appreciate it. Anything else about this or anything else before we get out
of here the back, you know, I do have a couple of things,
you know, ri c at IFA dot football for any inquiries, a
couple of housekeeping notes. So in order to be eligible for the December an
All Girl Draft, you have to compete in one of the eight combines.
We will immediately have a supplemental draft held in January and then the free agency
signing will happen in February leading up to the June kickoff. Okay, there
is some confusion there amongst a John Jenkins combine that players were told they were
going to be in the if A draft pool. The league office is currently
investigating the whole situation and any player who participated in that event, we will
be reaching out to you to clarify your status. Okay, but you will
have the opportunity to be eligible for the if A draft and if you choose
to come and compete in one of these other IFA affiliated camps or combines,
if you did participate in the John Jenkins camp, we will waive your fee
so that you can come and work out in front of the if A decision
makers such as how Mummy, such as Mark Lazano, Sancha as Noel Mazzoni
and individuals such as that magnitude. So we're looking forward to it. Stay
on the lookout. Yes, my Twitter handle will now serve as everything if
A. Buckle up. The floodgates are about to open, and I appreciate
you read providing the platform right here on the Mark Cast to get that news
out there. Well, Rick, I appreciate it. Like I said,
the wealth of knowledge here, so you know whatever you're involved in, and
I certainly appreciate it and that we'll get you back on. But thank you
so much, like I said, for doing the time and prep and kind
of having all this ready to go. It means a lot, So thank
you sounds great. Well, normally we go live every week. It's very
rare now that we actually prerecord this, but I'm sure we'll She'll get into
the same Shenani against it. We have Pat Raphino here, Pat, how
are you doing? I'm doing well, man. I just got done practicing
my long snapping. Probably do about twenty reps today just in case I calls,
So be ready, Yeah, be ready for the call. Well,
we've had so you know, Pat and I've been doing our Monday recaps or
Tuesday recaps USFL. Now, the USFL haters that we are have assembled our
own all all USFL team here for the mark cast. Pat, how's the
article up? I will publish it on Friday with the article are you with
the video here? And then we're going to take umbridge with the USFL list
as well. So any preface stuff before we get into this. Really Um,
I saw a couple like obviously, Mike did a Mike did his own
article. Um Luke Miller from Newsroom did an article. M a meme was
made by the network guys. So I mean, I mean, I appreciate
anyone who takes the time to physically write all this stuff down rather than you
know whatever. And I'm not trying to throw shade, but regardless, there
are a lot of people who are putting out so their stuff on Twitter and
their platforms as well. So I think it's you know, I think it's
pretty cool, you know that a lot of people are in the community.
I think I think there was only one other person I saw outside of news
Hub to do an all XFL article All the XFL. And I apologize that
I was watching that I didn't do do one, because you know, we
were kind of rolling pretty hard in the USFL season and believe it or not,
like I do have like a real gledge, but yeah, but I
but yeah, I felt like we needed to do to do it, you
know, we have I had a little bit of time, so I had
no problem doing it well. And the cool thing about the all USFL team
kind of thing is you're able to you know, I mean magoo and stuff.
I mean, some guys are gonna get accolades regardless, but it's good
to kind of put a spotlight on some of the positions and maybe don't get
as much bizazz or some of the players aren't, you know, kind of
going the whole way down picking quarterback, you know, positions all the way
down, special teams and all of that stuff. So first off, at
USFLU what is it now? The USFL dot com? I could never remember
their actual thing. Uh, this was different than you know, the R.
J. Young I think had his like stand out halfway through the season
with no offensive lineman or whatever. This is a little bit more full fledge
here. I don't know who exactly with the USFL put this together, but
but what stands out to you about the all USFL um the offensive lineman and
I believe Kyrie Woods was not on it. Um. Offensive line is the
hardest position to evaluate, right and I'm pulling it up on my computer right
now. So there are two guys that stood out to me, Marquis Lucas
and I believe Kirk Kelly. Both of them did not get all USFL honors.
They were the highest some you know Ben Cooper and Mark excuse me,
Mike made a very good thing about this. Is like Ben Cooper did ninety
percent of the work for a lot of guys, you know what I mean.
Like, obviously there's some football pizzazz in there that you need to figure
out. But in the end, like you know, the grade is the
grade for a reason and ninety percent of the time, like it is accurate
and whatnot, and it does coincide with how air quote the popular vote of
a lot of this comes down. So to see to see, uh,
excuse me, Kirk Kelly and Marquis Lucas not getting any recognition was a little
bit disappointing to me. Into U Kyrie Woods as well, So I don't
think he was selected either at the safety position. I think he was the
highest graded player in during PFF. But now that's saying that's end all be
all. I think that'd be extremely irresponsible. But that's my opinion. I'm
really glad. I felt like this gentleman Adam Rodriguez got snubbed last year.
I think he was second in the league in sacks. Seeing him get the
award this year pretty solid in my case, or in my opinion, and
then I mean so and well, we'll kind of deviate off some of this
a little bit, but I went with Ryan Navarro for my long snapper,
and I know who cares about long snappering right outside of me, but there
is a you know, cult like community that does. And the way I
did it was as many snaps as you could have, like the like the
punting thing. You know, you could take the statistics how you want,
inside the twenties, hang time, this that longust plant yardage um. For
me with like the special team's position, it always comes down the volume.
So like if you went, you know, ninety three for one hundred,
you know, obviously that's an even number ninety three percent, But like when
you obviously up the volume, you're gonna shine yourself for more miss kicks or
like, okay, you had seven misses, but they were all from fifty
five and out. You know, That's it's kind of like Sebastian Janikowski.
They would try to field goals with him from sixty plus and it's like he
had five miss field goals and in a year and it's like, yeah,
they're all over fifty though, Versus a guy who kind of took the cheap
route and you know it was hitting forty forty forty forty any other big science
I felt like Boogie wasn't on here, any other kind of big notable snubs
that you saw a kind of outcry today from the Twitter series. Yeah,
I mean, like you really couldn't go wrong in my opinion, with John
Atkins, Toby Johnson, Boogie Roberts. There's only two spots, so it's
kind of just like who's your guy type of thing, you know what I
mean, And it's like who who did you like the most? It kind
of goes like I would flip points on all three of those guys, and
that's pretty much what I did, including the Pittsburgh Muller's defensive tackle Isaac I
can't say his last name, it starts with an S, but I mean
he was another guy that was up there as well. I mean like it
kind of in my opinion, it kind of gets a little goofy goofy with
that, like sometimes just it's too close, you kind of wonder wonder what
was the deciding factor? And that intrigues me more because if you know,
as long as any and four of those guys were like they're all gonna feel
snubbed obviously the ones you didn't make it, but regardless, like at that
point, I feel like it's more of a fan bias than an actual,
like analytical perspective of like, oh, you know, Boo, you didn't
make it or this guy didn't make it, and it's like, I mean,
they all played really well throughout the whole year, and at some point
that the light of demarcation gets, like I put Boogie as my defensive tackle,
but I just felt like he meant more to the team than Toby,
you know, and like other people could call me wrong and Toby would call
me wrong and that's fine, but you know, it is an opinion based
rating for some of these less sexy positions. No Matt Mangel as well,
a friend of the show on here. I mean, I guess no surprise,
right, I mean, like Magoo and everything. Somebody whom running back
MARYA, Mark Thompson, West Hills, I mean, some of them,
I think you're a little bit more cut, you cut and dry who you're
going to have on there. What was the issues with Mark Thompson tweeting that
he wished he played quarterbacks he could get the MVP because they haven't US hasn't
right announced their MVP yet, but it's presumably Magoo. It is Mark Thompson
trying to make the position the case that he should be MVP. I mean
he has an opportunity to, and I mean Kavante Turfin won it last year
through playing in multiple facets of the game, whether rushing the ball, catching
the ball, and returning kicks and punts. Right, So it's like,
we're not in that NFL sphere where essentially the m is the best quarterback right
now. And we've talked about this a couple of times where when Andrew Luck
played, he was the most valuable player because of what they did without him.
Right, So it's like, do TJ pleasure to me? Devalues Mark
Thompson as the MVP a little bit because of how great TJ was the first
two weeks when Mark was out, Alex Magoo came in and granted, he
put up some great stats and everything like that, he put up some great
stats, it was really impressive and whatnot, but he came in as the
backup and to see what he did to that team, like the drop off
between him and Jamar Smith like non existence if anything. They accelerated on that
accelerated a little bit. So then you take and I might be talking in
circles here that same logic with TJ. Pleasure to Mark Thompson, Like if
Mark Thompson's gone, they have another running back in there, they might be
doing the same thing. Where as far as Magoo's gone, it's not happening
with Jalen Morton. And we've we've seen Kyle Silier. You know, I
think he improves a little bit, you know, because I think this team
is better than the Breakers from last year. But regardless, like you know,
Soldiers soldiers been Bank was banged up in the UH in the XFL,
he was banged up all last year, Like we kind of know who he
is at this point. Anything else from this one will get to your list
over on the Mark Cast. Anything else from the Usabella list, I mean
justin Hall, I get it. Um, I don't really like the only
two receivers, but I mean I only put one running back in mind,
so I mean pick and choose. I did give a fullback shout out online.
Um, you know it's it's a position and the NFL does it,
so why not us, Like you know, it's it's my opinion. You
know, I can't. I can't fault any of these guys. Man,
Like, you know, we don't know what the actual analytics of the voting
committee committee are. So until we do know, then we're kind of in
that rock and a hard place as far as like who's who and whatnot?
If that makes sense. So we have this up mine here in draft mode
right now, the Mark cast. I don't want to go through all USFL
team. Hopefully I have this formatted correctly. We can edit anything to hear
and published when we go left, what do you have? Where do you
want to start here? I mean, we'll go. We'll go. You
know, if who if if if not McGoo, then who. I'm willing
to hear the argument. I don't hear anything, you know what I mean.
I feel like everyone's pretty on board with that. Mark Thompson's a pretty
easy easy pick for me. Um, you know, West Hills kind of
fell off a lot and there was more offensive weapons around him. When we
talk about value at the position, Thompson was the most valuable running back,
you know what I mean? And he is I believe he is the second
second place in the MVP case. And then uh, I mean throwing whoever
you want for a position for hell EJ. Perry for all I care,
right, but then you go into I gave Mason Stocky the full he was
my next He was my next one. A lot of teams obviously don't use
the traditional fullback. He did a lot of you know, receptions out of
backfield working as an HVAC. The only person close to him is a friend
of my show, Clint Sigg, who when he was out there, he
was lining up in the backfield a lot. You saw some JJ Wilson and
Daniel Helm did some stuff, but in reality was Mason Stocky was the most
traditional true fullback, and I do think that deserves a lot of accolades and
recognition. So if Mason's watching this, you know, just let people know
like people care about your existence, you know what I mean, and that
we see you doing the hard work. So I felt that was nice to
know. Receiving receiving Corps Devin Gray, big shout out to him over five
hundred yards kind of got a little bit under shadowed with Corey Coleman there unanimous
pick. Corey Coleman, I feel like is everyone's guy. Joe Walker had
a really good season for the Panthers through Um, you know, very versable
guy. Uh played on some spec teams and whatnot. Over five hundred yards,
led that Michigan team and receiving UM the next one, dave On Davis.
Really with the absence of Victor Bolden and UM Marlon Williams getting hurt,
really came the guy over there, you know, became him and Magoo outside
of Sternberger. You know, those guys combined for over a thousand yards and
I think to twelve of magoose touchdowns. I don't think enough people talked about
him and after his want I don't know if the word struggles is appropriate from
the roughnecks of the XFL. Really great to see him, you know,
become a top five receiver in this league. I didn't do honorable mentions because
you know, there's so many guys you can give credit to, but the
Breakers receivers, Trey Quinn, all those guys, you know, those third
and four spots can be start becoming your favorite, your favorite by you know
who's your favorite guy. The thing is about Devin Gray I wanted to throw
in there is that he was their holder as well for the majority of the
season. So the fact that he kind of did a double duty and with
the injuries that they had, and then essentially you know Terry Wright coming all
older later, that guy did a lot of great work and worked really hard
to be able to put be put in a position to you know, help
this team almost make a playoff run. Moving down the tight end. I
put Jay Sternberger set the all time the new modern record for receiving touchdowns.
Real cute there, but also the fact that it was really him and davey
On Davis with like a random guy doing some good stuff or CJ. Marrable
having a good game. Sternberger had his drops and whatnot, but we didn't
see as much of a tailoff as we did with Sage sarat who just burst
out of the gate offensive line. Real fun position. For me, I
got a little lazy with it. I went with PFF for Kirk Kelly and
Marcus lucas Is and excuse me, Shamarius Gilmore, where some of the top
rated offensive linemen for PF. That makes the job a little bit easier.
And then when I started looking at this right you know, some of the
things I didn't agree with, So that's when I decided to put Terry Pool
in there, because Terry Poole, you really saw that Muller's offense stabilize and
get consistent. When you do these PF scores, if you give up the
sack, it's the player that you were blocking. So with Troy Williams,
with him running around and whatnot and doing all this goofy stuff, you might
have your defensive player give up the sack. Well, guys been running around
the backfield for nine seconds. Someone's gonna get lucky, you know, and
trip this guy up. Terry Pool, older guy was released from the Generals,
playing the XFL the afn't. I know he's with NFL teams, but
I don't know if he's played in an NFL game. Regardless, he's like
thirty one thirty two years old. Really loved what he did throughout the whole
USFL seasons. And then there's a leadership presence as well. Noah Johnson.
Big thing about I liked about him was how terrible that Michigan Panther's offensive line
last year was. And while they weren't great, once again, the stabilizing
force he brought to this team was outstanding. And really it was essentially what
kind of helped them get to the playoffs, and then the leadership he showed
along with Ryan Nelson and Bordarius Ham in that final game with a rookie quarterback
is something that you don't obvious to get on the stat sheet. That's good.
A lot of good work here going through any I guess surprises in terms
of the number of players from teams. I mean, it looks like it's
pretty well distributed. It's always funny a team like the Malers ends up getting
a bunch of Hey, you know they're in the playoffs. Yeah, I
mean last year they sent the most guys to the NFL. I believe,
I think they hit seven or eight inhime was Yeah, it was them,
and like the Gamblers both like some of the worst teams ended up having most
of the guys. It's always weird how that it just doesn't equate. I
don't know if you blame coaching or whatever at that point of why I couldn't
figure it out. Yeah, I mean, at that point it's just you
know, I mean the Gambler's defense last year, we've talked about a lot
like studs upon studs upon studs, you know, moving down to defense here,
what you got so got into my defense. Breeland speaks pretty easy boys
Boogie John Atkins, you know John Atkins. I felt I was really glad
he got the air quote official all USFL ranking. He's been a consistent disruptor.
I've talked about him on the show a bunch of times. He had
the Player of the Week nominee. But something about Boogie Roberts' game this year,
while he's been such a face of this league, he came into the
season way leaner, way stronger, firing off the ball, and to see
his fundamentals didn't look like last year he was kind of just clogging holes.
This year he was moving people. It's actually using more technique, and a
lot of people don't realize he's I don't want to say he had a year
off from football, but wasn't actively on you know, the waiver wires and
everything like that from twenty one to twenty two. So now you see him
come back, um, and you know, probably was training a little bit
harder this time. So we're getting there to the point where it's like this
guy really took not that he didn't take it seriously before, but he stepped
it up a little bit and then you saw the overall success of Tavino and
Ruben Foster and that you know, those those are stats you don't always see
with a defensive lineman, is you know, clogging taking two blocks so your
linebackers can make all those tackles. Um you know, Adam Rodriguez underrated player.
You know, last year he got snubbed. This year, you know
from both of many many sources, he was you know, honored, and
then Hercules Modafafa talked about it a lot. I felt like every time I
was watching him, he was he was making a play in the backfield or
something like that, or disrupting player, disrupting plays in the backfield. It
was really great to see, especially on that on that Stars game where he
was moved from the right side to the left side and got the game winning
sack. Moving on down here, whether we got Frank and everyone else here
with the linebackers, I mean, I don't think many people are gonna argue
with Frank and in Tavino pretty easy, pretty easy picks. Top two tackler,
does he know, top two tacklers in the league, does he know
had a lot of of of interceptions, turnovers, you know, game changing
plays, get into one defensive Player of the Year or of the week or
four times this year. Um digs playmaking type. Guy really came on late
strong in the season. Really liked a lot what he did, and he
had a great last two weeks, which is really kind of what gave me
a little bit of a recency bias for the guy as well. Moving on
down here, he's easy choice for me. Lavonte Taylor. While sometimes he
kind of played I don't want to use the word lacks days ago, but
sometimes coverage kind of lacks and he got really the benefit of the doubt from
from like you know, a bad ball or nothing. Overall, I don't
think he gave up any touchdowns throughout the year. Sometimes it seemed like they
didn't even look to his side of the field and whatnot. Really just you
know, overall, solid, solid player played the you know, made a
lot of great pass deflections. I think he was saying they were missing like
six pass deflections from him as well. Though he didn't get any interceptions,
he definitely felt like sometimes half the field was taken away. Brian Allen overall
PROS pros, solid, solid person up in the run, another leader on
that team. I felt that he you know, was an additional stabilizing force
and an underrated signing. I think last year he played with the Saints for
a little bit after leaving the Stallions in twenty two. Real great player in
my opinion, older guy. I think he's had a utah and just a
great stabilizing force, long body, taller corner, real athletic dude. While
his statute might not always be the most appealing, every time I saw that
guy looked like he had you know, when they're running. I felt like
a lot of times when I saw a big play and Brian Allen was on
the field, he was taking away his option and that's something that stood up
for me. Mark Gilbert for interceptions, another great, great asset to that
Muller's team. And then kind of a little bit easy on the free safety
port Kyrie Woods highest greaty player on PFF made my job a little bit easy
to go into that selection. And then showing Mwani playing that center field coming
up in the box, I think, in my opinion on the Panthers,
Kaid Nakula played a similar role and I think he did better than him.
However, Nikola didn't have as many reps, so I had to give it
this Lwani for the second year in a row. Well, there you go.
Look at there a moving down special teams. I though we got mangling
here. Glad to see Lizaguilar on here. Some of you know, some
of these are a little bit more obvious. Derek Dillon is level with the
show boats. Not here on special teams. I mean we talked about a
little bit Navarro. I think l led the league in reps for most like
snaps between the punts, field goals and extra points. I think he led
it by like six I did the math for all of it, so it
took me that It took me a minute to do it, so that I
kind of gave him that because I don't think I saw a bad snap for
him. Grant they had a block, but sometimes, you know, sometimes
blocks on the snapper's fault. Mangel a lot of reps. I think he
had the second most punts in the league's real up there in yardage. Friend
of the show as well. A little bit of a bias towards that and
a lot of these. Yeah, I mean Mangel. Mangel and Miller were
my two guys, and I flipped the point. I have to go with
I have to go, and you know, I'm doing a little bit shilling
as well, hoping to have him on my show at some point. Um,
aguilar, you know I was gonna put Kessman, believe it or not
because of the twenty one made field goals, but something about putting the team
on He put the team on his back for about three weeks. You know,
they didn't score any touchdowns for three weeks, and um, you know
ninety I think he had ninety five points, which was the most for the
kickers one and then two was second in the league. It didn't get much
easier for that. Not much I can say about Derek Dillon. Um,
I feel like he was personally robbed. Led the league in all purpose yards,
two big return touchdowns. Um, you know, split time at returner
as well, and still managed to have almost seven hundred or over seven hundred
return yards, I believe. But you know, they opted to go with,
uh, they opted to go who they go with? Excuse me,
um, I think they went with Josh Simmons. Yeah, I mean I
didn't go punt returner. I just kind of went, uh, you know,
just general return specialist. Um I da Henny. I think personally was
a good choice if you're going to break it down the two, um,
you know, but you know, Josh Simmons had some great returns, but
I felt like Deon Kane was above Josh shimm in my opinion. But he
also was out for a couple of games and whatnot as well, I believe.
So, I mean, someone's always getting robbed, right, And then
they went with a specialist, Vinnie Papolli. So Papolli make a lot of
a lot of special teams tackles on kickoffs. You know, they said a
couple of times after he scored a touchdown, he'd be making the tackle and
kickoff. Good for him, he's invincible. Maybe it was a maybe it
was a thing for his father. You know, that's great. I know,
it's it's crazy. Liked the thing to turn around at that with some
of these players are going to do a double duty out there. Is is
pretty crazy. And that's and we talk about that in nauseum, right,
Like I don't need Vinnie Papolli to put up six hundred yards in the usf
BEL to prove to me as an NFL player. I need Vinnie Polli to
average seven yards of return will probably a little bit higher twelve yards of return
and make tackles on you know, for example, a guy like Joshua Cribbs,
who's not on the NFL anymore obviously, but a guy like that,
you know, That's what I mean. Well, I think you've done good
work here. We'll talk a little playoffs here before we get out of here.
Anything else from your list US and LS list, anything else on this
not really And you know, I hope you know and who who are we?
Right, We're just a couple of Bernis doing this, But I mean,
I just hope you know, some of these guys don't get caught up
in these awards, you know, like we you know, Tyler Huntley went
to the Pro Bowl last year over some other quarterbacks like two touchdowns, you
know what I mean, like Taylor hunt Will you know, different division or
conference, but you get what I mean, Like hopefully you know, I've
seen some people tweet out the other the other outlets, and you know,
while we might not always be as friendly every day, it is good to
be recognized. And I'm glad that there's so many different facets facets to this
and whatnot that like someone out there can feel that someone who has no allegiance
to them in a way was recognized, you know, and that makes people
feel good. And I mean, you got a pretty decent following on Twitter
and whatnot, and you know, depending on the day, my tweets get
you know, retweeted by Mike Floorio. So I mean, just part of
it's it's less about us and putting a content out there believing about not that
and I want to come off as like a participation trophy guy, but more
for these guys to know that people people care, that they're putting their body
and the lives on the line to entertain us and have them reached their goal.
So I'm glad I could do that and that my list was different than
the usffos because I did this before they came out. Well, I think
it's good. I think it's valuable. I think you know, like I
we joke every Monday or TZ in here, we get a lot of grief
for all of the USFL stuff and hate in the league eleven the league with
every like you know haven't gone through and watched all the games, like you
haven't broken down and analyzed all of them. That we have every Monday or
Tuesday. It's good. I think it's a good stamp. I think it's
a good kind of showcase of your work and this kind of attention the entire
season and kind of be able to, you know, put a bow on
it and say these are people that stood out to you and this is why.
And I think it's good. Like I said, I see a lot
of people talk online. They don't produce content at all, and so I,
you know, whether it's you or the newsroom guys or whoever, like
putting out the content, like actually putting the workout. I think speaks volumes
versus like, oh, I tweeted something funny like it's at that neat Yeah,
And I mean that's that's the goal is, you know, we might
make one or two guys days feel better. So we did our big just
before we get out of here, we did our playoff kind of preview a
little bit on the Tuesday's thing. Any any updated thoughts on either the you
know, the sound division with the Breakers and then the statues or with the
Mullers and was it Mullers and Panthers in the North? Um? Not right
now? I mean we're still waiting on more information, you know. I
mean, I don't have depth charts. I know, the Stallions brought in
Ryan Pope was the most recent recent signing and whatnot. Injury reports haven't come
out. So it's a little bit hard to be like, oh, you
know, because how many times do you feel like X players doing X thing
and then you know, like, yeah, this guy had a great game
and you find out on Monday he had a torn he had a torn hamstring.
Well Homey ain't playing anymore, you know what I mean. So it's
like I can't you know, it's a little bit hard for me to deviate
off my path of where we've had, you know, a lot of this
stuff going on originally, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's just weird,
Like I was thinking about this too, because we've obviously lamented you know,
the communications and everything and certain hubs being better than others and you know,
providing players and whatnot. You know, half the teams are gone now
right, you know that aren't in the playoffs and then this all move on.
It's just weird. I mean, we saw the Radians this week down
you know we can I guess touch on that, but you know, we
kind of we've said the similar things every week on here with the decline radiings,
but it does feel like this kind of just a wet fart then evaporated
into the distance here. I mean, we'll see, like we'll see what
the weekend ratings are, but I don't know. I just felt like going
through the XFL season, having the league, you know, continually helping,
you know, all the different content from creators we know, with like interviews
and content, and this is what we're doing. Like the USFL, it
just it feels like it's just such on its own island. I know they
gives to faun and them, you know players from time to time. We've
certainly had guys on earlier in the season when I was a little bit more
motivated to keep following up, but I don't know, it feels like they
just then they're just going to kind of move on here. It doesn't feel
like we've lived through this the same way we do with the XFL. That's
probably my Homer and me, but it does feel like we were a little
bit more invested, like all together and that kind of moving on here.
I mean, we had and I'm sure some people are doing it, you
know, like you know, some of the local outlets. I've seen some
stuff, but I you know, I covered the battalaws weekly zoomed, you
know what I mean. And maybe and maybe that's like the trajection for next
year something that I'm not trying to like, you know, there's there might
be one person wearing a lot of hats. I mean, I know there's
one, like you know, he's doing a lot of different things. So
sometimes things just kind of are like, Okay, I need to knock out
my big checklist, you know, and whatnot. So I feel like,
sometimes you know, things are just a lot's going on, and you know,
there's I don't want to say that. I don't want to like poo
poo us or like any media outlet or even like they're quote more established ones.
It's just like there's a lot going on and I got to move all
this stuff around and we have to do this and we have to do that,
and it's like, you know, we don't have time to do zooms
with everyone, you know, once a week and whatnot, and like I
think, and it's kind of hard. It's not hard, it's not easy,
but I feel like at some point you become in a routine once the
season starts and whatnot. I know, Memphis did a good job with like
open media practices and Whatnotum, you know, but I'm not in Memphis.
You're not in Memphis, so it's a little hard to do stuff like that,
you know. So I give that Memphis Sullivan branding out there a lot
of credit because I was getting those emails all the time and they were doing
a lot of stuff. Detroit had that transition of like who was who was
doing their stuff as well. I mean, Heather's done a lot of good
stuffs as well. But I think I think right now, it's just I
would not be surprised in the future if we went from zero to sixty because
I feel like people are hearing what we're saying and not when I say we,
I mean like everyone, you know what I mean. And I feel
like how these leagues they all worked hair court work together, but how they
you know, take bits and pieces and whatnot. Like everyone's going to probably
see what works for them, what doesn't work for them, and whatnot,
and I think from there we could see a lot of growth. And I'm
hoping like for us, we're a little bit more involved of next year and
whatnot. But both you and I are not in those markets that kind of
like is where I'm just kind of like, well, would it be different
if I was in Birmingham, if I was in Canton because Paul Woods was
down there. They gave Paul Woods, and Paul Woods is way different than
you or I, but like they gave Paul Woods pretty much free reign from
what I saw when he was doing his McLoud stuff. But you know that
might be just because of the history between him and McLeod, you know what
I mean. It might have been a clause in the contract and whatnot.
Well I think yeah, I mean I think too. It was like because
that was a little bit more preseason, right, I don't you know,
I am not in any you know, we weren't in Arlington, but I
was provided people from the XFL all the time, right that we're in Arlington.
Like my thing is, it's the XFL goes. It's all of the
CFLs better because they have more you know, hands dealing with a lot of
this with their teams. But it's this whole like, Okay, we're out
of season, we're not worried about this or like we don't have you know,
we don't have time for this like it's out of season, and then
once it's in season, it's like we're so busy, like we don't have
time for this. It's like, so, when are you going to have
time for this because you don't have time preseason and you don't have time in
season USFL. I think once the season. I think those first couple those
training camps, like that's when I got on, like Brandon Aubrey and I
had Oh, that's when case cooks and stuff like that was all preseason.
It's like once the season starts, like, well, we don't have time
for this anymore. Like no, that's when that's when people wanted to do
this. That's when people are interested in this. Yeah, I mean I
have no idea. I'd like to I'd like to be down in Memphis next
year and a little bit more and you know, depending on where I'm at
with like my businesses and whatnot, like because I offered to, you know,
go to Detroit and do like my own stuff and like you know,
out of pocket. Just things in line up and it is what it is,
you know, just send people agetting back to me. You know,
everyone's busy. I get it. So I'm curious to see I only think
it like Memphis. I use this perfect example because they were doing like the
open practices from media. Like I'm really curious to see if like I go
down the Memphis and I spend a good month there, right, excuse me?
Like what's you know, spending my own money, my own time,
my own resources, excuse me? And seeing what happens down there, Like
how not that I'm gonna be a trendsetter or anything, but like could that
lead to more openness and whatnot? And I mean you've seen my studio,
you know what I mean in Saint Louis. And if I bring that down
to them and I'm doing all my stuff, and it's like could they get
people who are way bigger than me, that are way more notable than me?
And like whether you know? Because in my opinion, you're one.
You're one. Like a guy that doesn't get talked about enough. Is Josh
Butler on the Panthers students a social media superstar? You know what I mean?
Like Julian Allen social media superstar. They kind of did it with chaste
the more it's not very good at all. You know, he's kind of
a meme. But like that's something that like I thought they could have used
those platforms a little bit to kind of push things out, you know,
And it's kind of like what the XFL did with Destroying and that I don't
know if you knew he had five million subscribers on YouTube and it just seemed
like he kind of was just doing it to do it. And I saw
him, like I saw him in Saint Louis on the sideline, and he
was just kind of being there, you know. It seemed like it was
more disinterested, like when the camera wasn't on him. So I'm very curious
to see. Like I feel like if you get one or two of these
dudes who actually like cares about football and like not the way Destroying does and
whatnot, and you get them to like put them on the podcast, you
know or something like that, like what what does that do for a lot
of this stuff? You know? Like and that's kind of like one of
my goals is like, you know, obviously big enough, so I can't
alight some of these guys would be the user exbo and like get more people
into this and whatnot, and like, I don't know, I feel like
I feel like it's going to come. You know, working with the league.
Hopefully we get to that point and then more people kind of reach out
of the reach in. And you know, I was a little disappointed.
I don't follow Josh Butler on these like tiktoks or anything like that, but
you know, it would have been cool to see some of that. Yeah,
well, I think we'll continue this. We'll I have a post here
on next week following the playoffs, and then we'll obviously talk post championship game
as well, so more time for this. But I think today this is
a good stopping point. I appreciate the work for the l USFL team.
Like I said, we'll have that on the website and the links and all
that stuff, and obviously all the work all season covering this and doing the
recaps and sus it's very much appreciated. Pat Yeah, no, and read
I'm honored to do it. You know, like I was on someone else's
show last night and oh it was just well, this has been what twenty
almost this will be I think week nineteen going in the week twenty, and
you know, if you don't count the preseason and whatnot, and well,
it's been exhausting and you know a lot of guys like us who do both
leagues or you know, on fumes and whatnot. It's been an amazing experience
and I'm really glad that I've been able to, you know, be in
your community and so many other other other people's community, both on the mainstream
and you know, in the freelance. In the freelance as well. Yeah.
I like these the XFL only podcasts to take the Okay season finale,
we're coming back next year. I go, Okay, you know that's that's
interesting. So now none of that here. Everybody back here every week.
Paraphina, thanks so much again. Well, this is a gentleman that we've
had on before and then I think it's like a Twitter thing. I think
once you respond to someone sweet, I've seen all your tweets last week.
I so we need to get Derrek Taylor back on here. It's been a
couple of times. How are you doing, sir? Everything is pretty good.
Uh. When when the team you're calling games for wins games you contribute
nothing to them, but they win you just the warm glow envelops you and
everybody's happy to talk to you. It's it makes my job pretty easy.
Yeah, so we're friendly now. Because obviously BC's playing winn a Peg.
This will air after that, so right now we're friends because BC, that's
America's CFL team, is like all them general thoughts on winn a Peg.
I mean, we'll kind of do a rundown here, but I mean it
feels like they haven't lost the staff. They just kicked the snot out of
this. To Scatcher the rough Riders, Michael Ball was like, wow,
it's still like we can still feel okay about this. I'm like, can
we really? I mean, they look really good this year. Yeah.
Their offense is as advertised. I thought it would be the best offense in
the league. To me, it's certainly the best receiving core in the CFL,
and it comes with the best quarterback in the CFL. I don't know
that I expected forty plus points in each of the first two games, Like
they're a practice talking about, yeah, we could be better, blah blah
blah, and I just do the math and think, if you keep putting
up forty burgers, you're gonna set the season record for points. Right.
Sure, it's early, but if you think you can get better and you'll
start having fifties on the board, that The record I think for points is
six hundred ninety eight. They're gonna blow pass that. So it's been pretty
great. Two guys have two touchdowns, everybody else has one. They're spreading
it around. It's it's what I thought it might be at its peak.
But it's happening in weeks one and two, which is very unusual because the
last year I felt like when they pay like started slower and there were just
they seemed to be more concerned last year going in versus and then obviously he
didn't really you know, they went all the way anyway, but it seemed
like they weren't coming here hot. Yeah, oh yeah. Last year it
was two slogs against Ottawa. It was a low scoring game in Week one,
and then some weather was a factor in Week two, but that was
low scoring as well. And honestly, it was a lot of the same
personnel right there. There was Greg yellingson and we didn't necessarily know what Dalton
shown was at that time because he was just starting his career. The offensive
line was virtually the same, the quarterback was the same. But yeah,
they are a mile ahead of where they were to start to start the twenty
twenty two seas. Should should rough Rider fans feel good in their loss?
Here? It was like what twenty seven forty five? I just I was.
I watched that game, and I know Termper Harris looked good. It
really didn't feel close to me. I know, the score was closer and
then they didn't go for it and you know I settled for the field goal
and kind of all that seven. Should Siscatchewan wheur Frier fans feel good?
I think they should. If Jane and Grant doesn't make the return of a
lifetime, that's a three point game and Winnipeg has the ball on its own
twenty yard line, and I think if you're Saskatchewan, you would feel pretty
good about that. Hey, our defense. Winnipeg's offense is doing well against
our defense, but our defense can show up. Right. Their offense was
roughly two point seven times better than I thought it was going to be because
they don't have their three best receivers. There's no Keyan Shaeffer Baker, there's
no Braden Lennius, there's no Durell Walker, and all of a sudden,
oh, here's Samuel Evelis. Okay, here's three touchdowns from Samuel Levelis and
Harris through one of the it's gonna be one of the top ten pas asses
from a quarterback in the CFL this season. He dropped one just over top
of Dietrich Nicol's shoulder too. I gotta go back and see who the receiver
was. But we're in the booth, going how that? How does that
ball get there? Because it gets like this far over top of Dietrich Nicol's
shoulder, who hadn't turned yet. And I thought, Harris is on and
and if he is on, he's the second best quarterback in the CFL.
And that's a great place to start for an offense that I was. I
was super impressed with offense. According to Kelly Jeffrey, I don't really know
much about him. He wasn't their first choice, but he had it going.
Is he is Harris that big of an upgrade over Cody or is it
just that maybe we've gotten a better team around him, because I, you
know, Cody and I kind of feuded and now we're friends and Cody and
I, you know, he's a friend of the podcast, so I want
to I want to support my boy here in Montreal. Yeah, I'm I'm
one of I feel like I'm one of the few people who's still on Team
Fajardo. I I still think Cody is an accurate passer. I think what
he can do with his legs is a real added, developed, real added
dimension to his game. I'm still on Team Fajardo. I think it's it's
an upgrade in a way. I think they absolutely needed of Harris can just
command everything and the ball could be out fast if he needs it to be
right. That was his m O and parts of his career was you can't
get to me. We have a two percent sack grate because you can't get
to me in time. I think he just adds something different. And Fajardo
was injured last year. Let's not let's not pretend that Fajardo didn't have a
have some injuries he was dealing with last year. I I I'm still on
Team Fajardo. I just think that a change just had to happen. But
while it's Harris, it's also Jason Moss is out and Kelly Jeffrey is in
right. Offensive coordinator changes as well, and they'd hope to add some offensive
line things. It's a lot has changed apart from Fajardo as well. Was
that the greatest top three. I think John Hodge called the top three kickoff
return in them all time, it's or pome return without you. I I
struggled to think of ones. There are ones that are more important, right,
So we kind of have to take the context of the game out of
it. Because Jeneryon returned one in the West Final, and he returned one
for a touchdown in the Gray Cup. Those are bigger, right, because
it's in the Gray Cup, and oh my gosh, they now lead the
Toronto Argos. But I mean, if you just take all if you take
the context of the game out of it, skill for skill, it's it's
got to be top three old time. And I don't know what would be
ahead of it because he makes the first guy miss and then he goes,
well, I gotta cut back now, and and just when you watch it
again, there their Special Teams coach Paul Boudreau said, that's as close to
a guy doing it by himself as maybe I've ever seen. You go yeah,
because when he cuts back, people can't hold their blocks or they're gonna
get called for a penalty. So you gotta let him go. And any
stiff arms this guy and then he stiff arms that guy and then he stiff
arms he turned the corner and cut back, and it was it was incredible.
When I listened back to the call I made at the time, I
was impressed with making the first guy miss and then all he cuts back.
Okay, this could go really bad or this might be something, but then
just the NonStop guy's fallen off. I'm like Bo Jackson and tech Mobile back
in the day, right, that's just fallen off them. It was.
It was incredible and to add in the challenge element and it essentially, to
me, it almost ended that game that that play stood because all of a
sudden, it's a ten point game and you've just been decimated by one of
the greatest plays that we'll see, probably the greatest player we're going to see
all year. That even though they're still nineteen weeks to go oh yeah,
like you say, it was cool that they went and they go, no,
we've review, like we've gone through and we've you know, we've checked
all of this and then all you know, because it is such a game
changing play at that point that they kind of got to go back through.
In terms of, like I said, we a Winnipeg BASTI playing. I
think the original tweet I saw that got us on this was the horrendous Elks
performance here, you know, at BC shout out. I was very happy
to see that, right, and I wanted so a couple of things.
First off, do you how bad are the Elks? I guess right now,
right now? Really bad? Apart from the Gino Lewis one hundred two
yard reception in week one, what do they have? Two hundred yards passing
at fifty percent rate? And the run game, which I think a lot
of us thought was going to be really good because Kevin Brown looks like he
can really hammer dudes and run that ball. Hasn't you know, hasn't picked
up the slack. There was a point late in that game where TSN flashed
the graphic where Gino Lewis had one target and one catch for something like nine
yards only three hundred and twenty grand and you've thrown the ball one time?
Ye yikes, And it's I'm I'm not a Taylor Cornelius guy. I haven't
been for a long time. I think he's just got a fundamental flaw that's
just unrecoverable at this point. But there's so much else around him, and
Stephen McAdoo, for all the flack he takes, has had success in the
Canadian Football League. His offense might not be super intricate and super complicated and
full of fakes and cool pre snap motions and stuff, but the they can
get it done with Stephen McAdoo offense. So it's it's less than It's much
less than I expected. Even though I don't think Taylor Cornelius is particularly good,
I really did expect more, and being shut out, like being shut
out for the first time in forty six, forty seven years, is interesting.
I put a lot of that on Chris Jones and who he's picked to
be a kicker, because if you can't there at least two, if not
three circumstances where every other team in the CFL would be trying a fifty fifty
one fifty two yard field goal, and he runs out Jake Julian to punt
because I'm guessing he doesn't trust Faithful as his kicker. You can't you can't
do that. You you absolutely can't do that. You can't play field position
and hope that Julian can can maneuver every punt perfectly or else you're gonna turn
you know, we drove to their forty five and we punted for a single,
and now it's at the forty. You're not gonna win that way,
So just get get some points. If you have to go to get Mark
Leggio if Hamilton released him, get a kicker, get a kicker and put
your global somewhere else. Well, I just don't get There was a couple
of tweets and the one, you know, Taylor Cornelius. You know we've
seen like twenty six or whatever games now, like we've seen enough of this,
like we kind of know. I just don't, you know, Chris
Jones, you know, we're obviously new where to cover in the CFL brought
in and everyone says, oh, it takes some time, and you know,
give him a couple like at what point does he is he on the
hot seater? Is he kind of more should be more under scrutiny here.
Yeah, it's it's got to be coming because it's it was interesting to watch
certain folks believe in Taylor Cornelius or believe that Cornelius can get a you know,
the shot, and they've kind of moved the goalposts on. Well,
it's not your two where a guy develops, it's your three, well,
and usually it's your two that we talk about this stuff. But I can
I can understand because I know smart football people who are huge Cornelius fans still
you Cornelius fans, because he has this incredible ability for his size to run
and navigate the pocket and scramble, and his arm is in radibly strong.
He probably I mean, it's probably the strongest arm in the Canadian Football League,
just not real accurate, which is kind of an important part of that.
And then it comes back to Chris Jones committed all this money to Cornelius
for next year as well. If I'm not mistaken, and I've been working
from this premise that I don't know that I think Chris Jones is a great
general manager. He's obviously able to coach guys up and get get his guys,
and guys fall in love with him for whatever reasons are of what he
is behind the scenes. But I just look at moves that he made when
he was the GM and sask and the head coach. I never got the
impression that he cared much about his offense like he had Zach Collaris, And
I never got the impression he cared too much about his offense, and I
thought that might be changing when they go and get Gino Lewis and Stephen Dunbar
and Kyron Moore to add to Manny Arsenal and their Canadian talent. But then
they'll they'll have done weird things that I don't understand, Like Dylan Mitchell popped
last season. Well, Dylan Mitchell's already been resigned. Dylan Mitchell was on
the first year of a rookie contract, already resigned. You're not taking the
two plus one that you have with him, the you can get him on
a minimum salary for a time, and you decided to resign him. Lady
Kevin Brown didn't start till late in this season. He's already been resigned.
And I don't I don't understand if they were afraid those guys were gonna leave
for the USFL or the XFL, which would be their only concerns because the
NFL is always an option for everybody at the end of the season. So
I'm back to I don't know if I think Chris Jones is great at this
whole GM thing, and maybe someone else should should take that over because there's
just a lot of a lot of a lot of decisions that maybe it's my
own ignorance. I just don't get well, I think it was I can't
remember if it was Hodge. Someone was on here talking that that was why
Cornelius got that big contract when he did. As I guess, there were
calls from the XFL or whatever, which you because obviously he was with the
Vibrus about his last year. When they signed Cornelius and then he came out
and threw it was like the end zone interception there that the you know,
the Elks lost to get at home, Like the week that he signed the
contracts, you're like, can we can we get that money back? And
just it seems weird. Yeah, to focus so much money around Cornelius and
not really have a quarterback there they could do, but that was kind of
what they did last year. It was like, I mean, I don't
know. It feels like sometimes in the CFL, like well we can pay
a lot for this receiver that will elevate the quarterback, and I don't know
if that really is how it works out. Well, they had so many
weapons right when we were contemplating, well, how does it look as we're
forecasting the season, say in March or April. You look at this Elks
receiving corps. It's it contends with the Bombers for what's the best one,
Like Gina Lewis is a stud. Stephen Dunbar you have to move his position,
but he's a stud. Dylan Mitchell absolutely popped last year and he was
in a lot of guys top fifty list as we voted for the CFL Top
fifty. And Kyron Moore is a guy who who can be a weapon in
multiple ways. Manny Arsenal's that reliable veteran. There's so much love for Gavi
Cobb from the University of Manitoba, who was injured last season. They're not
without Canadian talent in Forbes, Mon Blow and Danny Vandervoort who had a couple
of touchdowns in a game I called and caught me totally off guard. They
are not without talent and this receiving corps, and they've got Canadian offensive linemen
that teams would like, you know, would probably like Mark Cordy, maybe
not the price they pay him, but they would like Mark Cordy to be
there. One of their interior offensive Linemen. It's just yeah, when you
everything they've done makes sense for if you believe Cornelius can be great, right,
everything absolutely makes sense. If you're working for the basis that Cornelius can
be a great quarterback, signing him to that deal makes great sense because pretend
he was top level, you'd be saving one hundred and fifty two hundred grand
over what a top level quarterback should get paid. I just don't get it,
because I've never thought I'm at the point where I don't think Cornelius is
salvageable in the Canadian Football League because of the problems that I've discussed in a
bunch of places. I just I see all the things that is proponentcy,
but I don't see the thing I need to see, which is the consistent
ability to hit receivers who are even fractionally open in the right spot to get
them touchdowns. Gino Lewis Week one open in the end zone. It but
just put a foot in front of him, but it's a foot behind him
into the fender, and then they don't can run second and down. They
have to kick a field goal, and you just can't leave that on the
table at this level. In terms of quarterbacks. You know, Vernon here
my boy in BC, and I thought that, you know, the first
week he felt good, they said, he, oh he played good here.
Last week, I wasn't as in brass ride. I mean, twenty
two. You know, twenty zero is in the miraculous score. I mean,
I think that Brenda was very happy to get that one touchdown. I
saw him kind of thanking God for that. But you know, obviously Winn
a big defense and all that's going to be a tough struggle this week.
But overall, how has he done this year? Kind of now that it's
it's his house, it's his team, I think he's been okay to your
point, twenty two nothing like. That's five field goals, right, five
field goals. I feel like every time the offense comes out the field and
the field goal team comes on, they're like, this is a loss.
We should be getting seven, but we're having We're having to settle for three.
That's just me putting words in their mouths. They want to be scoring
touchdowns, right, and in games against better opponents, you're gonna have to
score touchdowns. I was thinking about the matchup they had with the with the
Bombers, Well, the Bombers are putting up forty a game that's going to
be roughly fourteen field goals. You'll need to get the forty and beat them
forty two forty one, right, Like it's it's so hard to get there
with field goals, so you've got to be able to put it in the
end zone. Their Week one opponent was Calgary. Calgary did not look anything
like Calgary that we've been used to for fifteen years, ten years, whatever
it is. So it was fine, and the game against Edmonton was okay.
The numbers or three hundred yards, I get it. I'm not overwhelmed
with Vernon so far, and I'm and I the funny thing, tell me
this strikes you as funny. People are talking about Vernon's gonna break out.
I have this feeling like Vernon is always the breakout guy. And then I
think he's thirty and I saw him play in the old Taylor Field in Saskatchewan,
which was twenty fourteen, like he's been around a long time. He
kind of he is what he is, and it's it's certainly workable. But
to think he's gonna take a Josh Allen year two to year three leap from
the Buffalo Bills. The guys, he's thirty's he's been around a long time.
When you've thrown more than a thousand passes, we kind of we get
it. We kind of should understand what you are well. And my problem
is, you know, even if if BC sits at two all season here
in the West, you're still going back to Winnipeg here and getting your ass
kre like he did last year. I mean, like, you know,
like we kind of know what this is. Anything can happen. I mean
I kind of hate anything can happen. But the Bomber's first first week game,
they gave up three touchdowns on a block punt, a essentially oh Calars
fumble that ends up in the end zone, and a fumble on a return
that essentially ends up in the end zone though it took one extra offensive play.
If you get to that game, you're you're in a good spot.
And I mean, Winnipeg's offense is flying. Winnipeg's defense is not, in
my mind flying. And it was a spot we looked at in the offseason
and went every year they another team just chips away a piece of this Winnipeg
defense. Right Stephen Richardson went to BC after twenty one, and Casey Sales
got very nice money to go to Hamilton in twenty two. And you know,
okay, well that's those are two big presences in that defensive interior.
And okay, well, now this is they're going to run out a young
defensive backfield. You know, the back six is quite young. Though it
has some very strong spots, it's quite young. And the salary cap nature
of the sport, you're paying no all this money for collaris and Kenny Lawler
and these guys. You know, it takes. If you're going to pay
big money in some spots, you have to go you know, thinner in
some other spots. And we're at the I think we're at the point where
the Winnipeg defense of twenty twenty one, that's that's not your twenty twenty three
defense by any stretch. Those guys were world beaters and now it's they're gonna
have to outscore like the offense is gonna have to outscore some performances by their
defense. In my mind, in terms of I'm kind of looking here at
this schedule, in terms of the other teams Hamilton right now, it seems
to be kind of in a free fall ride and Bow and we didn't look
good. And I had said, I think Bows, you know, maybe
passed his prime. And I didn't live through all the Bow. You know,
everything I've known about the CFL is like he's competing with Jake Mayer and
then Jake Mayor takes over. But how big of a deal is it?
Bo's out, Matthew Shields is playing, and then you know, just in
general, they didn't look good with Bow. Yeah, they weren't. In
some spots, they weren't too far from looking good. In the game against
Winnipeg and week number one, they had receivers Chris Godwin or Godwin and Tim
White running in behind Winnipeg defensive backs and Bow would just miss them. And
you go, that's that's close. And then if you're on Hamilton side,
you go, ah, why can't you? Ah? It would have been
so right here. It's it's one of those things that happens. I think
I'm perhaps most excited for Hamilton's because in what we've seen of Matthew Schiltz,
the guy who will take over this week, he's exciting and he he has
some promise, right. I think I've I've personally been foiled by guys who
have kind of a Matthew Shilts skill set in past years. Um, but
Shilts, to me, throws the ball better than anybody I can kind of
think OF's. He's the scrambler, he's the he was the second quarterback in
some plays last season and they'd throw him a swing pass and he'd try to
get up field stuff like that. But I think he's a better pastor than
some of the guys that that I can think of running quarterbacks from from America
who would come up here. So I'm really excited to see how it works
with Schiltz and then how it works with Schiltz once defensive coordinators get a look
at him and what Hamilton does with him, because it's a it's a different
skill set than bo does. So it'll take Tommy Condell, you know,
he'll have to change some stuff up. But I'm really I'm honestly, I'm
holding out a lot of hope for Matthew Schiltz because I think there's I think
there's something there and it could be harnessed, So it could be. This
could be for as long as Bow's out. This could be a positive move
for the Hamilton Tiger Cats. Well, that's the thing is, you know
what if Matthew Schiltz comes in, then just lights the world on fire,
and then you're like, oh, you know what do we I mean I
was looking when they said the three down had the injury report, like Bo's
getting a ton of money. I mean, it's just crazy to think,
like you have all this tied up in him and to not to still not
be performing well coming in you know how it's been the first couple weeks.
Yeah, it's I think of him as the perennial bounce back guy, or
we'll give him credit for bounce back because Bo hasn't been bow since twenty eighteen,
so nineteen. I think the broken leg was in nineteen shoulder twenty one,
twenty two. I went into this season thinking, oh, Hamilton's gonna
be pretty good because there's a chance that Bo gets back to it and then
I whatever whatever's going on, if it's if it's the shoulder, if it's
if it's something else, it just it hasn't been there through two games so
far, and it's it's going to be a while now with the injury.
So yeah, but I just feel like he's when guys who have hit those
heights right, MLP level, Great Cup, MVP level. I always feel
like, okay, they can get back there, barring something having changed dramatically.
When Calars was at his lowest point, I in my heart knew Calars
could be backrop again because I'd seen him in fifteen be phenomenal, phenomenal,
So I always believed in that, and part of me is still stuck with
that with Bo. But then you go, there's there's there's some injury things
that are that are affecting him. I feel like, whether it hurts at
the moment, it's it just looks like it's really it's affecting the way he's
able to play. How impressive was Chad Kelly here with the Argonauts as sway
Kelly is and how everyone gets to call him, I think he was fine.
Like that first quarter I thought was okay, well look at this happen,
and he scores three touchdowns, but two were quarterback sneaks, so I
kind of don't care about those. The scramble was fantastic right where it was
it Ja Garrett Davis. He kind of faked out and gets into the end
zone and went, okay, this looks this looks fine. The numbers look
fine from week number one, and they want at home. So I really
want Chad Kelly to be good because we're not overwhelmed with great quarterbacks and the
CFL right now. So I would love it if he was eighty percent of
Nathan Rourke. That'd be phenomenal for the CFL. At week one was fine.
I think I'm I'm gonna want to see more go on when the receiving
course fully healthy, we'll get a chance to see more. But yeah,
to me, it was I just know what I've seen, and I'm like,
yeah, okay, that's that's good. Let's let's build from there.
And Toronto may may have something, but I can't be one hundred percent sure.
Is that the easiest money in the world. Bet Toronto over Edmonton this
weekend? I just Edmonton's gotta figure something out, right, Um, yeah,
it's it's gotta be what the line must be like seven or seven a
half. It's but pushing pushing out. Amilton's gotta find some points because somebody,
someone's getting fired, losing their job, and if if they don't start
writing this thing right, they're back at home where they haven't won since eighteen
fifty six. I think it is the actual I don't know, it's been
a while, but I really would like Edmonton to be good because the league's
the league's more fun. If Chris Jones led teams are good, and if
Gena Lewis is clowning defensive backs and if if you know, there'd be a
lot of swag in that defense. If they were up fifteen late in the
game and Luchez Purifoy got a pass knockdown, there'd be a lot of swag
in that and to me, that makes the game a lot more fun.
Last couple of questions here, we'll get you out of here. I appreciate
your time all the way. You know, got the bye week, and
you know mozz only I guess when he comes back. They've looked terrible with
I mean, they've just I don't know. If Missoli comes in there and
kind of rebounds that, what have you made him? Out the way here?
I'm surprised that it has gone this way through two games and Massoli,
here's a lot of problems. When they come back, you know, here's
your defined number one quarterback and let's go. We can do some stuff.
I think in the current ecosystem or the current grouping of Canadian quarterbacks. I
end up ranking Massoli quite high. But then to me, he's a guy
with a very with a high ceiling and a low floor because he can he
can take the twenty one Great Cup, come into that game in relief when
Dane Evans gets hurt, and take Winnipeg to overtime, the last drive to
force overtime into the win in that game. Incredible, Like Massoli was awesome
in that game, and he'd been pulled in the East Final the game before
you go. Okay, So high ceiling and low floor as well. But
that's I mean, I had preseason wagers that he was going to lead the
league in passing. I think he's in that offense is going to fire up
some numbers when it gets going. I'm I'm surprised because I remember Nick Arbuckle's
first start was a game Calgary against sask in my first year there, and
Arbuckle looked fantastic. So for him to transition from that, it's been a
long road from nineteen to twenty twenty three, with a lot of stops along
the way. It just hasn't come for him the way Honestly, I thought
it would that if they want to go to Tyree Adams. I get it,
Like I totally understand, but yeah, you have to be you have
to believe that Massoli can cure a lot of what ails them, but they're
not without problems in other spots as well. Yeah, Arbuckle, I just
he's kind of duty at this point. I mean, he's just not I
feel bad, and he really is trying to play his hard out there,
you know, trying to make moves, but it's just not working out like
that. Because the last team I want to come, want to hit on
Calgary. You know they're win here. Not an impressive game, you know
the Calgary Ottawa Thursday night Fest? Was it last weekend or last week So
Calgary with Mayor and all of that, Like are they are? They re
downding here? What do you make of them? I'm I there's quarterbacks.
I'm in on and I'll be in on forever. There's quarterbacks we've talked about.
I'm out on and I'll be out on forever. Jake Mayer's I don't
know, it's kind of Jake Mayor and that offense. I'm kind of sliding
toward out on because I just I find Calgary really at least it's painful to
watch. Like, okay, a five yard stick route, let's bubble screening
out to this side stick route. It's the hitch screen. Oh, somebody
throw the ball down the field to Maleek Henry. Someone fires some balls down
that trail of dukes. Looks like he's tall. Hammers something down field.
Get some deep crossers, give me something to grab onto instead of okay,
over here, it's like it's like watching just a chess match, but not
that not that entertaining queen's gambit type chest, but like an actual chess match
where it's thirty minutes between moves and Spasky just go. It's I find it
really rough to watch. It's the shortest passing offense in the CFL, and
it just I don't know. And this is part of what I don't know
is bo loved to move the ball down the field in Calgary, and Jake
does. When he first came in, was this We kind of felt like
he was this gun slinger. Right, Oh, he got picked off.
He doesn't care. He's hammered it downfield, deep middle again, let's go
gunslinger. And this is just the opposite of gunslinger. This is Trevor Harris
on you know, like four downers before the game, right, Let's okay,
we're controlled and we're getting it out super slow. So I don't know
how. I don't know how that's all going to play out. And I
don't know if they do that because they believe it's the best way to go,
or they believe that's what Jake Mayor can can offer them. So I'm
I'm on the continuum. I'm leaning towards howd on Mayor, but he is
still accurate with the high completion percentage, which is about to expected. So
yeah, I don't know. And Calgary's offseason was weird and that twenty something
players got away, like not thirty year olds, twenty somethings who were super
valuable got away in free agency. So what's what's happening behind that. I
have a lot of questions about Calgary and they yeah one and one, and
they were not super impressive to me in either game. So I'm waiting to
see, you know, week three and maybe through week six will have a
better idea at least I will. Well, yeah, that's like you know
BC here and two and though, but you know, stamps didn't look good
week one and then Elx we've talked about it nausea him, so we'll see.
But yeah, I like may Or. I don't know if it's like
too much pressure now and you know, the safety blankets gone with bo and
it's kind of all your thing. And he he seemed was it against was
it far Han? Was he interviewing them on the sidelines like halftime he was
very rude to far Hands, like, well, we gotta figure this out.
I don't you know, don't don't be rude to far Han there.
So, Derek, I appreciate it. I wish you bad luck when the
Blue Bombers tomorrow, I guess the VC Lions, But otherwise I really appreciate
it. In your busy schedule and everything, so it means a lot you're
taking the time to come on now. I appreciate you having me. I
love talking about the CFL, so I appreciate that that you do too.
Awesome. Thanks a huge, special thanks to all of our guests for coming
on this week. Like I said, Derek Taylor, voice of the Blue
Bombers, taking time out busy week and getting ready to call that game.
I really appreciate him making the time in his schedule, Pat Rafino coming on
earlier in the week to accommodate my work schedule. Certainly appreciate all the work
that Pat has done all season with his USFL recaps and doing our show and
doing the stuff for you know, Mark over at the Hub and everything else,
and then putting together the all USFL list. I thought that was really
cool that Pat felt inspired to do that, and I think that that's great
to kind of give a spotlight to a lot of these players that maybe wouldn't
get the recognition otherwise. In the huge special thanks to Rick Saratella coming on
Big Football News with Rick with the IFA and everything going on with that.
I told Rick offline, I am a welcome vessel for anything that Rick wants
to talk about. In that way, I appreciate him being a friend of
the show and the connections and knowledge that he has. So good luck to
Rick and everyone over with the international football lines should be exciting. That will
do it for me today. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode that like you
subscribe, like you say, give us up to thirty five hundred subscribers,
and I hope you guys will have a good and safe weekend. Take her h