Well, here we are everyone. Welcome to the mark Cast Live. Little
Horse today was at the Krack in seven to win over the Dull Stars last
night, Game three, this end the couple playoffs Round two. Very exciting
times. I think this is going to be the true test of the XFL
or of the USFL's drying power. I don't care TV ratings, attendance.
Let's see what the mark Cast does on Monday morning. Just talking to USFL.
I think that will be the true test. We have part Raffino here
and we have Evan Wilsmore. I thought was moving this week, Evan moving
back home for the summer. I said, no, I want to come
on and talk to usfls. We have Evan as well, always happy to
have him. Pat, how are you doing? And then we can talk
to Evan as well. I'm doing well. Thank you guys for having having
me, you know, especially with Andy doing his Pitbull tour right now.
Yeah, Andy, mister worldwide. Evan, how are you doing today,
sir? Yeah? Doing good. Man, A bit tired, but I'm
excited to talk football, just like we dude last week. And you know,
there's a lot to go over between the four games we had so looking
forward to it. Yeah, So just a reminder here programming note, no
normal Friday show this week. We will be live on Saturday from the Riverwalk
in San Antonio. Andy will be flying in from Japan. We have Anthony
Miller joining. I think Jason with the x Fans Show will be there.
They're doing the big Shin Dick Friday night. I do not no one corresponded
with me about what like, Hey, I'm flying in about seven o'clock San
Antonio time, so I will be party and I think after the show,
but we will do our big show on Saturday to the four local I'm calling
the Albamo today. I have about ten names on our list if you're going
to be in San Antonio, if you want to be a part of the
Alamo tour, We're doing that ten am Central and then the Big Show two
four before the kickoff game. But just USFL talk today, we will try
to do our best. Evan or Pat any thoughts on the u XFL weekend
before we get to just USFL today. I mean not so much with the
game, because I think, in my opinion, I think this championship game
can be one of the best games we've ever seen. Or one of the
worst games we've ever seen. I have no idea, and I think if
anyone was to tell you that that they knew that this was going to be
a good game, they'd be lying to you because the renegades. But I'm
pretty excited to see the signings or the camp invites that will leave the signings
in the future. Yeah, a lot of the contraction there, Evan,
I know you've been tracking out as well. You surprise so many camp invites
coming out from the XFL season before we get to you. Uh, yes,
and no. I mean a camp invite, you know, isn't the
same as a contract, right, Really, everything on or after May fifteenth
is what I'm looking forward to. It is a bit more than I expected,
but I will say, you know, everyone's deserving that opportunity, and
I've liked, you know, all the players that have gotten those camp invites
so far. There's a couple that I'm surprised, you know, haven't,
but I'm assuming maybe you know something is in the works, so they're just
gonna wait until May fifteenth at this point because we're only a week away from
that. So I am tremendously excited as Pat and I know, a lot
of USFL brass really grasp onto the USFL the NFL signing, and so I
will be very curious to see how the XFL stacks up with that. This
was an exciting weekend. I watched two of the games. Obviously, I
did not watch a lot of the Stallions game last night. I did have
it on at the bar. I did my part after cracking bar heading to
the game, but I obviously watched the Breakers and then we watched the Gamblers
as well. Pat overall thoughts on the USFL weekend here week four and no,
we finally know overlap You've got to worry about the dart in that XF
out for a week. So I had the luxury of watching all the games.
I'd say about eighty percent of all the games. Um. The quarterback
play is so weird to me right now because I do my weekly quarterback rankings
right and I'm you know, I'm sticking with MBT at number one. But
he had a good game, but even statistically lighted up as far as you
know, four touchdowns like he always does and everything like that. Um,
but overall, you know, we're starting and I was looking through the because
I tracked receiving stats as well. This has been my my next, my
next phase of my tracking, and I'm going through all the rosters and I'm
pretty impressed by a lot of the skill position players the USFL has found.
Slash has been building up because even I'm looking at the Muller's roster and I'm
like, you know, Bailey Gaither definitely not a scrub, you know NFL
experience, you know, it's a fringe practice squad guy, you know who
kind of that Week seventeen when all your receivers are hurt, has an ad
R game and you're like, oh, this guy, you know, Isaiah
Henny has kind of taken the role as this punt return you know, the
stud punt returner this year and the generals. You know, DeAndre Johnson isn't,
you know, the sexiest quarterback in the league. But when he he
a couple of his incompletions were some of the best passes I've seen him throw
in a while. And he's got a good, you know, stable of
receivers right now, and the Lonzo Moore, Cam Eccles Looper, those tight
ends, you know, Brandon Bowman and Woody Brandham aren't terrible tight ends at
all, not the most athletics. So it's good to see these skill position
players. It kind of seems like they're a little bit ahead than the defense.
And then Troy Williams, you know, he looks better and better each
week, along with Kenji Bahar. And that's the thing is I've talked about
them a lot in my rankings, is they could be the biggest risers because
they just needed experience, you know. And I don't know if then like
Williams's NFL game would translate, Well, he's putting together a good film and
he's you know, having you know, he's entertaining, and he looks better
than James Morgan out there. And that's I mean, if we're talking about
the entertainment product, not the NFL translation. You know, he's keeping me
engaged when the Mallers have the football. It's funny. I just saw just
comments and we were sharing a few of them. I think Sam and the
chat where you know, oh, I'm so glad USFL this weekend. You
can't handle the you know, the gimmicky XFL and you know XFL has the
same rollbook. You know, we've COMPI It's weird to me how this narrative
just seems to be right now, like okay, well now like I can
enjoy or this is different kind of football, it feels very similar to me.
I mean, USFL feels like the XFL was in Week four and we
are trying to get there some of these teams. Evan, do you feel
like teams are are further ahead than they should be or less ahead than they
should be here week four and now of USL. I mean, I liked
what I saw this weekend. You know, it's it's hard to say.
I mean, like Pat said, I do like the talent level personally,
I think that there is a bit more talent this year than there was last
year. And I kind of like, you know, it's been interesting to
see the development of certain players that I didn't expect, you know, to
do as well. Take Troy Williams, for example, is a really good
one. But I think, you know, they're doing all right. You
know, there's I think they set out on the USFL broadcast yesterday on one
of the games, I forget which one, but they were kind of saying,
you know, week four, week five is the point of the season
where you sort of see the cream of the crop. I guess the term
you like to use where that the good teams rise and then the bad teams
kind of follow, and you start to get a bit of separation in terms
of, you know, who might be in playoff contention and who might not
be. So right now, you've got you know, New Orleans and New
Jersey and then let's see else this Birmingham, I guess too. Those teams
are all kind of on the rise, and then you've got you know,
a couple others that are still like, we'll get to Memphis. I like
their performance, but there's down there. Michigan's got a couple of things to
figure out. I know, paddle talk about that um. And then you
know, Houston's kind of a wild card day came out and you know,
scored like forty one points or something against Philly, which was a big deal.
And then I mean, yeah, the Stars are the other team that's
just kind of like, well, you know, they definitely got some stuff
to work out. Bit of regression there. Yeah, So I made the
lead Tiger. So I made the wager I had was turning on the game
first thing on Saturday morning, I said, oh, it's Anthony Miller's Gamblers
against my stars. We'll have a big bet. You know, Anthony had
his Kenji Bahar jersey on. I said, whoever whoever loses this game is
gonna have to chug a shinerback beer and san Antonio our live show because either
way we're gonna win. Uh, stars look horrendous. I look like you
could not protect. You know, case cook is here with a paper bag.
Why have these stars regressed so much? Here? Pat Well, they
lost two key players and um Sam, Sam and I talked about this offline.
Alex, I can't alex a King Bulo went to the Washington Commanders.
He was one of their tackles. In addition to Gunner Vogel who's now in
the XFL. So those are two high quality guys. Vogels had some NFL
looks. Akin Bulow was active towards the end of the season. So you
have two of these guys who are who are lost, and it seems like
the game planning, in my opinion, is a little bit more linear.
I think when I watch case cookus play, he's getting a little bit of
happy feet because of the offensive mind having more holes in it than Swiss cheese,
and it's really disappointing. Because I thought we all thought that case Cookus
would take this next step, and we want to pooh pooh him a little
bit because you know, his numbers aren't there, but when you watch the
games, he's not having any time to actually run around and you know,
sit in the pocket and and actually make his reads and whatnot. It's a
little disappointing. The running. The rushing attack, I think they had like
what read like twenty not twenty I want to say it was like forty yards.
I know you have it on the screen right now, but Cookis has
you know, been a part of their rushing Yeah, forty four yards and
the running the ball eleven times. You have two quality NFL level running backs
back there with Dexter Williams and Matt Colburn, and obviously they might not be
you know, elite running backs in the NFL, but they're serviceable to you
know, back in roster slashing. It should be pretty good in the USFL,
and it just seems like they've become very one dimensional with mart Um not
in the passing attack, because they do have a stable of weapons with Corny
Coleman, Chris Roland and Devin Gray. Devin Gray back there, but I'm
just kind of you can't really It all starts in the trenches, and right
now they're getting dominated up there, and it's disappointing because they did lose two
quality offensive lineman last year and the center, even even the center they I
think his name is Perez, it seems like he's slow off the snap a
little bit. So I'd like to do more background than to him on my
end for you know, future shows and whatnot to see if that's his natural
position, because it just seems like he's not really popping up and engaging and
whatnot. And there were a couple plays where they didn't identify the linebackers.
It look like and the guard is just going straight to the nose or that
three that one technique and the linebackers just coming in and then you're asking,
you know, we wanted Dexter Williams, who's not a great pass protector,
to take on a linebacker who's running in with a full head of steam.
So it's disappointing because we know who case Cooks is. He has that fringe
level NFL potential and we're not seeing him take that next step the show,
like, hey, I could be an actual like I can go into an
NFL game and actually make a player too. It feels very much like and
I was just at the Cracking game last night, you know, zero zero
through the first period, right goose eggs, and then we errupt, we
go five one in the second period. It really felt like we were never
kind of felt like this game like I'm watching this game, Philly felt in
it for you. We we go, we have the Drive score at seven
to seven, and then it felt like once, you know, once Houston
started to go and they never looked back. It never felt close at all.
Harrison has a question here in the chat. One of the things we're
seeing midway through is that a lot of the new coaches are approvements over the
guys he replaced. That may be, but it feels like Bart has like
stagnated now and kind of everyone else's running circles around him. Evan, are
you just surprises that like Bart has been found out. I think Mike was
talking about that in the group chat as well, like they're just not trying
to do anything at all to to deviate from the from the plan. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, Pat talked about sort of the
one dimensional factor in a way and you know, you could definitely say that
Philadelphia is getting exposed to an extent. To me, I think the biggest
problem is the run game. You know, you can't win a game really
in any pro league if you have forty four yards rushing um. And that's
just from the Star's perspective, you know. I again, they have good
They have a lot of good talent, like Corey Coleman. I remember writing
about, you know, almost two years ago, saying, hey, you
know, look down a line like this could be a guy that comes to
the USFL. And here he is on what is supposed to be a premier
team with one of the premier quarterbacks in case Kocas. And so far they
only won one game in Week one and they barely squeezed by Memphis, who
just won their first game against Michigan this weekend. So I don't really know
what to think of him. You know, it's it's a real shame,
you know. I kind of thought they'd be quick risers because if you look
at, you know, the rest of the league. I just feel like
last year they made the championship game and that was really close with Birmingham,
and I like Bart a lot. I think he's a great coach. I
think he's great for these leagues, like he did the Spring League obviously,
and that's where you know, he did some great things with Brian Scott,
who was with the Stars last year obviously got hurt and then the whole case
Kocas era started. But um, yeah, definitely been a surprise. I
can't say the Stars won't turn it around, but they've definitely been the most
shocking team so far. And I don't mean that in a good way.
Yeah, I just I feel like Case is gonna get hurt out there again.
It is really crazy to me, Pat here, here's my think and
this might be the homer in me, but you know, is are the
worst teams worse in the XFL or the USFL because it feels like some of
these teams in the USFL, like I just it just feels like more of
a divide. I know last year it felt like that in the USFL that
come like week six, we kind of knew it. It didn't matter XFL.
You know, we talked for you at nauseam for weeks like the games
near the end, you know, mattering more because of more parody. Do
you what do you make of that, do you think that there's worst teams
in the l or the USFL. Well, when I think of the bad
teams of the XFL, I think of the Brahmas and I think of the
Guardians. And the Guardians were fun to watch because they were extremely competitive and
even though the Brahmas had some and the Brahmas had some bad games, their
defense was extremely extremely competitive and they were making plays. So they might be
down fifteen points, but then you might see Delante want A Scott or Tory
Williams make a play and then their offense stalls. So it's it's kind of
nice to watch, um, if you look at the Stars defense, because
right now it appears to me that the Stars are the most the least competitive
team to watch, And maybe you know that's incorrect, but regardless, that's
how I feel. Um, you know, teams are kind of shining away
from even throwing the ball around Channing Stribbling And I'd actually have to rewatch the
old twenty two of the film, but it kind of looks like like and
I've talked with a couple of Michigan like U of m guys, because that's
where Stribbling went. Um, you know, strip strip's got some weaknesses.
You know, sometimes he's a little too aggressive. He gets to beat a
decent amount. He's a very good zone cover corner um. But the thing
was is like he was, you know, able to make those those reads
and kind of you know, get some cheap interceptions and whatnot. He's a
big guy too, so he's physical. But it seems like we're not even
seeing that, and they're kind of just shying away from him. And because
their defensive like their front seven isn't that isn't that dynamic? You're seeing a
lot of you know, Mark Thompson averaging ten yards a carry, and the
Evan to go back on your rushing totals. When I do rushing statistics and
like evaluate those, unless it's a design quarterback run, I don't really include
that. So case Cook has had two carries for sixteen yards, you take
away that because they're off script plays. Now we're looking at nine carries for
twenty eight yards. You're not gonna win football games averaging you know, a
tick over three yards a carry. You know, this isn't the Vince Lombardi
age anymore. Evan thoughts on you know, Mark Thompson looked great for the
Gamblers, I thought he was tremendous that you know, a lot of a
lot of good positions. That are the eighty more thoughts on the Gamblers before
I move on to some of the other matchups. Yeah, I mean the
Gamblers were fantastic. You know. On the other end, I kind of
expect that to be a pretty close game where maybe Philly would have the advantage.
But you know, the Houston's really got it together. It seems like
they're finally, you know, getting in their groove after last year where they
had a really good defense, but the offense would sputter and they you know,
blew a lot of late games and it was just kind of a rough
year all around. I'm sure if Anthony were here, he could tell you
all about that. But yeah, no, I mean you look at uh,
you know, Kenji Bahar. He's come a long way and I'm very
I've been very surprised in his development too. Again, another one of these
guys that I didn't really view two highly, but you know, he had
a near perfect game yesterday. I mean he had quarterback rating and says they're
of one hundred and thirty nine and then yeah, Mark Thompson you know,
was fantastic. Um, he's really been helpful for them. And yeah,
I mean I just you know, the Gamblers look great. If they keep
that up, I don't think they'll have a problem against you know, even
some of the top talent in the USFL and some of the better teams take
like a Birmingham or a New Orleans. I know, they had that close
game with New Orleans that they weren't able to win because of the turnovers,
but that's the main thing. You know, without Bab throwing interceptions this time,
you know, his performance with two hundred thirty yards and two touchdowns actually
looked a lot better and the team was able to I mean that game,
you know, was over before it even really began in some ways. Yeah,
I mean, really the only life that Philadelphia ever had was it was
like the miss yeah handoff and they fumbled and Philadelphia was able to get the
ball back, you know, like the thirty five or something. I mean,
it just didn't seem like Philadelphia could do anything. Really disappointing. I
mean, obviously that's the team that like I root for, but it just
you just want teams to be competitive, but it just didn't feel like you
know, for the for the sparse fans that were at Michigan, it didn't
seem like that good of a show. A pat any other thoughts we could
move on. Yeah, I think the most impressive thing about Houston is,
and we talked about it in the pregame show or pre preseason show, was
they lost Micah Abernethy at the time, they lost Isaiah Zuber, who's playing
defensive back for them right now. By the way, he was a wide
receiver last year. Um Joey Ivy a good thing. Chris Odom, Donald
Payne, like they lost. I think Ike Brown was on that team as
well. Who's with the Raiders and their defense is I don't know if they're
better statistically, but you know, you're you're judged by your win loss record
than you know they they're They're at two wins they had three lash year,
so I think that says a lot of Curtis Johnson. It's also a big
deal to me that, like, I think we all can agree that case
focus is not healthy. He was definitely favoring his right right hand slash arm
yesterday, and I'm very curious to see what happens moving forward. They put
in Kevin Thompson for that fourth and twelve on side kickplay, so it was
good to see and he completed his past for eleven yards. It was obviously
short, but I think it was good to see their both backups play.
Yesterday, Bihar was out. They said he could play, They just took
him out for precautionary reasons. But I think it was good to see Terry
Wilson and Kevin Thompson playing a little bit, just you know, get that
first actual real game snap. So overall, I mean, excuse me,
the m the Gamblers our team team to watch. They were competitive last year.
It seems like they're kind of put piecing it together a little bit more
in Bahar only this is his seventh pro start, so he should only get
better. Yeah, Harrison, youre gotta remember you sell early season that week
ends Week four s Week four? I mean, was Arlington is unwatchable as
the Stars were Week four? I don't. I mean, we're going off
recency bias, so obviously we'll say, you know, we'll say no,
but we're also USFL haters, so we have to sing oh right. But
um, I mean Arlington had a lot more fluidity because of you know,
Drew Plitt and then Kyle Sloter and then you know Sloughter did give them that
spark right nine points, ten points, eleven points, So yeah, I
think he went two and one as a starter. So, I mean,
I don't know. The thing was I loved watching at Arlington defense, like
Darnell say. That was when Darnell Sanky, Uh, Darnell Sanky came from
the CFL to the running gage and he was immediate impact and whatnot, and
they had some stunts. Uh. Former I think he was a gambler.
Tomassi Lolli, you know, was playing pretty well. So I just felt
like their defense was way more watchable, Like you kind of tune out when
the running gage offense was on on the TV, but that defense was fun
to watch. We had a yeah Lewis here starting about fifteen minutes late.
Viy that catch out there, Lewis ketch out there. This was the game.
Next game on here. This is when the prompted my release the attendance
reports meme that I posted online. We had the Memphis show Boats here.
Michigan Panthers twenty ninety ten. At Michigan Panthers seemed to be the Edmonton Elex
of the CFL cannot win at home, we cannot perform while at home.
Evan any pounds for me, and then we'll go to the pack because obviously
this is a team that's nearer dear to him. But the continuing sparse attendance
at De Trait Field, Yeah fourd Field and De Trait whatever, right,
you know, right? Yeah, I mean, look, you know,
the marketing thing is is not something I'll go into, you know, deeply
here because you know, the USFL again is not in all their home markets
and it is a bit of a small turnout. But again, like you
know, for me, it's hard to track, you know, where these
teams are playing on a week to week basis between the four hubs, you
know, and considering the Canton hub doesn't technically have an Ohio team, I
think it's it's Pittsburgh in New Jersey or the home teams they are, right,
I'm not mistaken anyway, I don't know, it's kind of yeah,
it's it's kind of hard to uh to you know, track where the games
are. And I think it's probably you know, again, the team is
already in year two, but because they weren't you know, in Detroit last
year, there's you don't have that you know, continuity, um, So
I don't know what We'll see how it is. You know, maybe next
year once the word has gotten out they're like, hey, you know there's
this pro team um playing at Ford Field. But right now, I mean,
I don't know. It doesn't it doesn't surprise me. The attendance is
somewhat low. Again, we don't even know what the number is unfortunately,
so I can't sit here and you know, go off or base anything around
a certain number, which is difficult. But again just kind of you know,
eyeing it from the TV. I mean, I would like to see
a bit more people there, but I don't know. It wasn't it wasn't
terrible, Like I'll give them that. Like it's it's a step up again
from what they had last year with only the Birmingham hub. So that's the
way I look at it. You know, if you want to have a
positive takeaway is like, hey, you know we're still building right like again
this you know, that's sort of the the USFL doesn't have the advantage over
the XFL is the XFL was already in their home markets year one, and
they brought back a lot of the franchises from three years ago, so you
sort of have that fan base establishment. Again, I've talked about this before,
so I want to talk about it for too long. But you know,
in the USFL they're still working out. They went from one hub to
four hubs and then hopefully next year you have all eight teams, and who
knows next year if they're going to change you know, some of the city
around like if you know, who knows if like Pittsburgh lasts or you know,
like we'll have to see that. There's, in my opinion, a
couple of things that aren't necessarily permanent. Just going into your two we already
had the Tampa Bay Bandits become the Memphis Showboats, who were about to talk
about here in a minute. Um, so yeah, that's kind of where
I'm at with that. Like it's not it's not bad. But when you
know, when you haven't necessarily marketed yourself and um, you know, when
you're I guess still again trying to figure out all these things and people still
don't know a lot about what's going on, you can't expect, you know,
to fill up an entire well, I mean, they weren't going to
fill up Ford field obviously, but even just filling up in a couple of
sections, I will say, you know, you can talk about attendance being
important, not being important, YouTube subscribers being important, not being important.
You know I wouldn't. I wouldn't run the banner on the thing. I
wouldn't talk about liking and subscribing, if you know, if subscribers weren't important,
don't think the USFL will be running ads at NAZI come to the games.
It's great for kids. Did they really cheap face painting? We've got
the mascot. Like I think attendance is important. I think they can see
whatever they want. It's a TV product. We don't care about that.
You wouldn't be running ads all the time on Fox trying to get people out
to the games if it wasn't pat football time. Thoughts here show boats,
Todd Haley didn't kill anyone on the sidelines this time. That was exciting,
you know, finally getting their first win over the Panthers. Like I said,
we get home. What did you make of this matchup? Well,
first off, I don't know if you knew this, but did you know
Brady White went to Memphis? I might have heard about so and we talked
about a little bit last week. But praisebe that Cole Kelly has gotten full
reign of this offense. I didn't think he'd be air quote this good,
but I was pretty vocal about him being, you know, this big six
seven guy. It's hard to sack them. Breedland speaks is a massive human
being, and he had trouble getting Kelly down. It looked like to me,
because of Kelly's size, he avoided two or three sacks um when I
was watching the game. So that's your guy, man, Rather die with
him. Like I'm a little bit of a show from for Ryan Willis and
I've been I've been on record talking about that a decent amount. But you
know, it's there's been two good weeks from Cole Kelly. The offense is
moving, he's athletic as the Dickens. It's been. It's been great to
see. Um. It kind of seemed like Michigan. Michigan, you know,
didn't play their best game. I think, if you go on record
about it, um, I think Michigan is better than the show Boats.
But you know, it's any given Sunday and whatnot. I'd like to see
Carson Strong Carson Strong get the nod um. You know, Josh loved his
arm like to the outside just doesn't look strong enough, and it seems like
he really only has a lot of success when they're throwing to the seams,
but now it seems like it's been taken away. They went real run heavy
this week, the Panthers did, because the show Boats have won the worst
run defenses in the USFL. And I think that the Panthers still broke over
a hundred yards, you know, But it did seem like Reggie Corbyn was
making a lot of plays in the backfield. So you know, he did
his Garrett Brochek thing where he makes one or two guys miss in the backfield
and then he gets a six yard gain. Obviously, usually Groschek only gets
a three yard gain from it, but man like it. We saw some
good stuff from Carson Strong. He was moving the ball down the field and
then when he threw that one ball up, you know, I think it
was right before half. He threw it short where on that play you want
to throw it more to the pylon. So even if the defender does make
a play on the ball, he's not going to be able to get his
two feet in bounds and whatnot cool thing I saw about Carson Strong is that
he was moving around in the pocket a little bit more. So that's really
good for being as far as watching his knee look like he's a little bit
more mobile. Strong did run a four to eight during his pro day,
so he's a lot faster than we probably think. I know a lot of
people are shilling for Eric Barrier because of Troy Williams's success. Barrier only ran
a four seven, And you know, I talked to another guy about this,
um you know, panther shadow and he was like, well, you
know it's not straight line speed, and yeah, he's right, but like
that's you know, Troy Williams runs a four to five five, probably a
four, you know, a little bit quicker. So it kind of gets
to me, like, I don't think Eric Barrier is the answer right now.
You know, if they're two and six, yeah, if they're Barrier
in there in the last couple of games, whatever, But this team is
still competitive and they have a lot of good pieces on defense to where they
can go on a run by then if you're going off numbers and like statistics
and analytics, as long as they don't play in Michigan. They're good allegedly,
but we'll see what's going on. I think they have the Muellers this
week, so that could be a get right name and whatnot. But we'll
see what the injury port leads as well, because I think Noah Dawkins,
their linebacker, is out for a little bit, so we could see a
little bit more Terry Myrick, who's who's at excuse me, who's a lot
more athletic and you know, kind of put that spy on on Williams so
he doesn't get as elusive and as many of these off script runs. So
I'm happy for the show boats. You know, it's more about the guys.
Once again. They have a good receiving corps. Both these teams do,
so it's good. It's good to see Cole Kelly have some success because
he definitely has that Taysom Hill ye for me to where he could go translate
to an NFL camp and all he needs is the reps. I think the
Panthers need to a start winning at home. It's it's challenging. I think
Detroit is a way different market than the other three hubs for the USFL.
Right where Birmingham and it's you know, I know they love football, but
it's a little bit more like shocks from Birmingham and like I've had roy On
and the guys from Birmingham, like you know, but it's just not it's
not a major whatever. Right You're in Detroit. You've got the Tony's Scotts
of the world right out there. You know, you've got Bill Shay that's
been on my show. You know, coming out, you're you're looking at
the games, You're you know, you're comparing them to the Lions, You're
comparing them to you know, what was there in the eighties, You're comparing
to all these things. I just think it's a tougher market there. Canton's
way different, Memphis is way different. It just you know, it's it's
the biggest market of the four. I think you got the hardest kind of
you got to impress the most people there. Evan, Does that make sense
kind of what I'm saying, Oh, definitely. I mean, yeah,
if you look at the four hubs right now, it's Birmingham, Memphis,
Canton in Detroit. Like you said, Detroit is by far the biggest hub
there, and you know, it's a it's a lot let's just say this,
like a Showboats game, you know, at that Memphis stadium, even
if they don't get a lot of people in there, probably looks a lot
better than if they don't get a lot of people in the Ford field,
because Ford fields in the NFL stadi him and then the stadium they're using in
Memphis is for the University of Memphis where Bretty White played. If you didn't
know, Um, look a joke about that. But I'll just talk about
the game quickly for a minute. Um. So, like Pat said,
Cole Kelly, Um, I went on the show last week and I said
I think Cole Kelly should start for the rest of the season. And that
was only after one game, and um, he proved me right. Again.
It wasn't anything, you know, didn't blow your socks off or anything
like that in terms of the way he played. But he did a good
job, you know, and he kind of got things done, got things
moving. He had two rushing touchdowns. Um yeah. And he's just got
that big frame, right, That's what makes him different. That's why I
think NFL scouts really liked him, even though he came from a smaller school
at Southeastern Louisiana. But yeah, I mean, I mean I think,
you know, at this point, just given how things started, like you
know, you're in week four and you finally found some consistency. Like I
think Cole Kelly's the guy personally, and maybe I've got a bit of bias,
but again, he looked pretty good. Um, just going down the
list here and talk about the Panthers for a minute. Yeah, like Pat
said too, you know, with Carson Strong, it was it was good
to see him and you know, he didn't throw a touchdown this game,
but he was doing some stuff. And yeah, again with the mobility,
that's the major concern with him. You know, one wrong step, one
wrong twist, and that could be the end of his season with you know,
given how fragile that knee is and how concerning it was. During the
NFL draft process, that was the thing that turned a lot of teams away.
That was pretty much the difference between him being a third round pick and
him being undrafted was that knee. That's all it really was, you know,
at least to a lot of people and a lot of teams. But
to see him now kind of getting in his groove, Yeah, I think
he deserves a start, like, you know, a full kind of game
over Josh Love. And that's not to discredit Josh Love. I don't forget
what he did in week one that was great, But um yeah, Josh
Love, I think maybe he's kind of hit his ceiling in a way.
And I don't know if Carson Strung's hit that yet. But then the rushing
attack for the Panthers, I really liked between Stevie Scott and Reggie Corbyn.
I thought they did some nice stuff. Corbyn didn't necessarily average a ton of
yards this game, but that's okay. They were kind of just you know,
shuggling along and you know, getting what they needed when the pass game
wasn't there. And then Joe Walker of the Panthers in the receiving corps,
someone I've really liked to watch this season. I think he's come a long
way. And um, he had another great game. Another Panthers play yesterday.
How'm already forgetting this weekend? Yeah? Saturday? Right? Right?
Um yeah, it was Saturday night. I think, Yeah, now I
remember. Um No, So I like Joe Walker. He had seven catches
seventy six yards in a touchdown. He kind of seems to be the number
one option on that team from the looks of it, and then I don't
know, hoping to get a couple of big games from Isheimen this year too,
because I like him a lot. I would enjoy seeing that down the
line. Um, I think that's about it, you know. I I
was definitely surprised that Memphis won the game by nineteen points, but I knew
they had the chance to win with Kellyott quarterback. And I'm not saying that
was the difference maker in this game, because Kelly only threw for like one
hundred and fifty yards. But you kind of looked at the Panthers and like,
as good as the Panthers are and as much talent they have, like
they're still kind of ironing these things out, and it is kind of weird.
They've got the you know, can't win at homebug right now. So
if they can get over that, you know, maybe things will start looking
better for them. But we'll see, you know, there's a lot of
I mean again, Week four, like I said earlier, is kind of
where you start to see teams separate, you know, the good teams kind
of you know, getting above the bad teams, getting ahead you know,
getting ready for I mean obviously six weeks out from the playoffs still, but
you know, getting into position for that. And the Panthers I don't really
know yet, Like they're kind of that one team where it's like, okay,
I can say, you know, the Stars aren't great. You know,
unless they change some soon, things aren't going to be good for them.
Pittsburgh I didn't talk about earlier, but they you know, they've got
some things to work out. I like what they have, Like they look
better. There's still one and three Memphis still a lot of work to do.
But then Panthers at two and two, they're kind of just like right
in the middle. You know, it's like, I don't know, there's
a couple of different directions where this could go, depending on who steps up
for them. Interesting, here's this a couple of comments. Sorry about you,
Lucy. I think he's still catching up on the show. Watching this
time. We're like watching us, like watch through the show in real time.
Here today we had a question here and this is the only game we
have the the prelimb for John watch another prelimb. NBC always does well coming
and especially coming off to Derby one point five I believe was the first hour
drop to eight hundred and sixty thousand, so it'll probably average around I think
absolutely above a million, probably one one, one, one two in that
range for the NBC, which for whatever reason has always done more than Fox,
even though obviously Fox with the USL pat any thoughts on that that prelimb
rating and then we'll get to New Orleans. I mean yeah, I mean
they got to be happy with that. It's a week four game, and
granted there was the benefit of without um XFL and the Kentucky Derby leading.
But just like playing a football schedule, you play, you know, you
play who's on the schedule type thing, so you know, we can talk.
It's no different than talking about the team who has an air quote played
anyone in the seven to zero. But that was a card that was dealt
this weekend, and the USFL did a good job. And you know,
people who want to poopoo the ratings could be like, well, it's only
because of the derby and no XFL. That's not the USFL's fault. You
know, if anything, they took advantage of it. You know, we
I would rather have that conversation than if they were at like six hundred thousand.
Then you know, and it's like it's like you can't win with people.
You know, it's it's not a big deal. This is the game.
Interesting So New Orleans we had the you know, the breakers to add
the generals here in Canton. This was my two cents, just real quick
read subbox before world lost their minds back and I think it was like week
five. XFL we have the job maca row. We had the Pickaball game
on ESPN to the pickleball term which spoiler alert, drew more viewers, and
the XFLD that day, and the and the XFL had to push the start
of the you know, the the or ESPN and the push and strive the
XFL games like ESPN Plus or whatever. People lost their minds. Oh my
god. This shows absolutely how ESPN views the LADD. Yesterday I turned on
the game at noon. Here I'm watching Orioles Braves going into extra Indians.
Nobody said the damn were Oh see, because it's baseball, that's different.
Obviously, No, it's it's the same difference. It's a live sporting event.
We're pushing this off. It says nothing that NBC or whoever cares about
anything more than anything else. Pather Evan any thoughts on that, because I
was just I was incense that nobody thought and they're like, oh, it's
a totally different situation. I'm biased in baseball. I'll be one. I
care way more about baseball than I knew. Do you pick a ball?
And I think you know? No, I on like taking emotion out of
it. Read you are absolutely correct, But you know I didn't grow up
throwing the pickleball around. You know. My fondest memories with my father are
throwing the baseball around. You know what I mean. I don't care about
pickleball, you know, I you know. And I'm not even the Braves
fan. I'm a Mets fan, despite what this cardinal cardinal had on.
But I mean, I I it's I don't know. It doesn't bother me
either. Either one doesn't bother me because here's the thing. Pickleball and the
whole Pickaball League has been around for a while. Baseball has been around for
nine hundred and a half years, like spring football is now the priority to
these networks as much as we want them to be in my opinion, So
that's that's my take on it. I don't really care either way, you
know, because here's the thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna win and watch the
games. I'm curious to see how the ratings um the ratings feel about that
in the casual viewer, who's like, oh, I wanted to watch USFL
or XFL, but I'm watching pickaball. I'm gonna go get a sandwich and
then you know, you talk to the guy at the Delhi for a little
bit and then you don't watch the game. You know, the whole world.
Yeah, the whole world is that point? Yeah, but I mean,
I mean it's to me, it's I think it's going to hit the
ratings a little bit personally, but I need I need to go back to
the U the XFL ratings as well. On that, I just thought it
was funny. I just thought like, oh, well, this is fine
because it's baseball, and it's not behind because it's it's Twitter too, so
like who who Who's Who's more you know vocal about things on Twitter than you
know when we go down the fan bases, Evan, any facts on that
before we talk football? I no, you don't really don't want to get
into I mean, look, I'll just say this, You're you're definitely right
read like you know, I mean, there's well, I'll say this much
pickleball makes for a better story. Okay, baseball doesn't seem as bad because
a lot of Americans are watching baseball, and that's gonna take priority over spring
football. That's just known. Like again, like Pat said, maybe we
want, you know, them to just hut to the USFL game, but
the rest of America doesn't want that. The rest of America wants to see
the Braves beat the Orioles and the extra innings. So I was there because
I remember that that whole pickleball thing was Week seven. It was Saint Louis
at Houston. I was there. We were sitting in the press box and
we're like, oh, you know, time for the game. What's going
on, Like the players aren't coming out, you know, we haven't kicked
off yet. And then you know there's some chatter going around the press box
and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, John Mcarel pickleball.
You know, we had it up on ESPN and we were looking at that
and we were just like, yeah, like, I guess this is what's
causing the delay. So I don't know that was I was there for that.
It was fun. It was fun to experience. But I don't know,
I didn't think the one yesterday was terrible. It ended pretty quickly.
That's the difference. I mean, I don't know obviously, I don't know
like how many minutes each delay was. But like the pickleball one was pretty
significant. That one was like, you know, a good ten minutes,
you know, after the kickoff time. But anyway, yeah, yeah,
as you said, Reid, I don't really I don't really get involved on
that side of it, so I'll leave that to be fair. This was
a regional baseball game of the Atlanta Braves in the Baltimore Orioles, right,
I mean pickleball is said, that's a nation wide I mean that's a nation
wide the people John McEnroe is a historic figure and that it has anyway going
to in speaking of baseball here, I will say, could the USFL could
we implement the pitch clock here somehow? Because the first half of this game,
by god, like I came up, I took a shower, came
up, change, made a sandwich, sat down to eat. Like we're
still in the two minute warning here for the first half, Pat this.
We got to speed up these games a little bit. I know the USFL
is working with their clocks, but by god, this first half of this
game took about three hours. Yeah, to caveat on some John. First
off, Evan loved the no pho there. I was war story with the
week seven and of fun fact, John mcinroll actually went on a date with
my aunt in nineteen twenty seven or whenever that was, so you know,
he's a queen's guy, you know. So John McEnroe's got a soft place
in my heart. Um, I to keep this girlish figure that I have.
I do like push ups during the breaks and whatnot, and you know,
sometimes it's real quick, right, Sometimes it's like, you know,
I'm getting a good pump in and whatnot. You know, That's why I
was probably in better shape during the XFL season. But this one, like
I tuned out, man like towards towards that last and then and then the
second half comes and I'm like fully engaged, you know, like got a
good pump all and going and everything like that. It was weird because I
was just like, man like, you know, obviously there was a time
delay, but I was like, dude, what's what's going on? Like,
I'm tuning out right now. And then that second half, you know,
everything started clicking a little bit. West Hills put the team on his
back, you know, NBT hit. You know, Sage sat for a
couple of nice passes and whatnot. But I mean, I don't I don't
know what this time clock situation is going to be. It's I haven't felt
that way a football game a while, except that Arlington Orlando game, the
ten nine one that kind of tuned me out. But that first half was
pretty tough to get through. But the second half made up for you know,
became a lot more engaging and whatnot. And it was good for me
on the football side to see DeAndre Johnson like actually looked like a pocket quarterback.
And I love his rushing ability. I think that's great and whatnot.
But even on his incompletions, he was sitting in the pocket and he was
throwing some of the best footballs I've seen him throw up. There were two
drops that I saw him throw that like from the receiver's Randy Sadderfield was one
of them, and the ball just zipped out of his hand and I'm so
glad and this is a big thing. And I don't want to poo poo
the CFL right now because you know, very sensitive group of people. But
when everyone talked about this two quarterback system went Dakota pru Cup, I was
like, he's a slower version of DeAndre Johnson. Like, if you're going
to do a two quarterback system, used Kyle Lalletta, And I don't think
Lalletta's got enough of an upside with his arm to take DeAndre Johnson out of
the game. Luiz Perez last year a very limited guy, especially in the
outside the outside um like throwing to the outside parts of the field and whatnot.
But you know, Perez has way more experience than Johnson did at that
time. Johnson only played in the Spring League where him and Ben Holmes,
you know, battled, battled for the starting job. I think they were
with the Sea Lions. You know, Reid's cousin, brother in law over
there. Um, great Cup champion, Ben Holmes, you know he's watching
by the way, he's weird. Um. But the c Johnson kind of
get full reign of this offense and actually implement uh, you know, his
skill set and the development he's taking. Mike Riley's one of the better coaches
in this league. I don't want to put, you know, put him
on that high pedestill saying he's the best, because there are a lot of
great coaches in this in this league. But to see him take that step
forward, even if he went you know, the stat line changed to like
five or fourteen, when you actually look at the film, he does look
a lot better. Big shout out, by the way to Trey Williams.
For whatever reason, this tweet you know is getting a lot of impressions.
But Trey Williams totaled over a thousand career rushing yards between the after XFL and
the USFL, So that's pretty cool because he does also have NFL experience.
And then Darius Victor as well, pinballing his way and doing that consistent like
give me the rock, you know, three yards, three yards, three
yards, and then he breaks off of a couple of rushes of fifteen and
thirty yards and it's such a well balanced attack because look at the numbers,
they're all with it. You know, Williams had eight carries. Johnson I
think had four carries. A couple of those were actually you know, read
option plays and then Victor had nine. The Generals are starting to hit stride.
They're going to become a little bit difficult to deal with, especially if
Johnson finds consistency and is able to make those play as they have a great
receiving corps, you know, cam eCos, Alonzo Moore, an Alt League
veteran coming up on a thousand yards career in the Old League and whatnot.
And then those tight ends aren't aren't anyone the scoff at as well. Toby
Johnson looks a lot better this year than he did last year, and he's
creating a decent amount of push up and push up front. So this General
seems a lot better than I think people give him credit for. I don't
think they get over the hump um, you know, going to winning the
championship because you know, this league to me runs through the breakers and the
stallions. But overall, you know, they're proving that they could be a
you know, a playoff team once more, which is great for Mike Ridley
and his grandson who's an assistant coach apparently. Yeah, it's this was tough.
This was like the m rob game and I'm a I'm a big Michael
Robinson fan with the Seahawks. I do think this is like the weakest broadcasting
team out there. And talking about McCleod, the oh you gotta extra down,
like it's gotta be easier for him here than the Sea off like this,
some weird takes that way. But this was good, I say,
certainly turned up in the second half. Evan thoughts on that thoughts, I'm
a cloud anything General's breakers. Yeah, I mean, you know, it
wasn't a perfect day for MBT, but still got the job done. Still
had two hundred and seven nine passing yards. Looked like a veteran um.
This was a bit of a difficult game for New Orleans, and I'm not
gonna say it wasn't difficult for New Jersey either, but it really it was
twenty to seventeen. It was a really close game, a really good game.
Definitely lived up to my expectation. West Hills was a bit slower too,
but he still had two touchdowns. I mean, my god, man
like west Hills is uh, he's looking that breaks some pretty you know,
serious stats. I'm I think at least with touchdowns, if if he keeps
up this pace, you know, Pat would have a better grasp on that
than I do. But um, in terms of other things, like Sage,
Sarat has been great. Um. He I knew he was gonna be
good this season. I had a feeling, you know, definitely kept my
eye on him, but he has, you know, really exceeded my expectations.
He nearly had one hundred yards yesterday. And then we haven't really talked
anything defense yet on the show, but um, you know, Vante digs
for the Breakers looked great ye yesterday. I've had my eye on him since
last year too. I think he flashed a lot of potential last year.
Again, I'll have his numbers from twenty twenty two in front of me,
but you know, he was with the Breakers then too, and you know
I look at him now and he had a phenomenal game yesterday. So that
was one. And then from the general's perspective, I talked about DeAndre Johnson
on the show last week, so I won't get too much into him here.
But this was another game where didn't have amazing numbers, at least in
the passing game. But as Pat said, there were a couple of passes
that were dropped and I really liked what he was doing with his arm.
I think, um, you know, he's come a long way, like
he's DeAndre Johnson is a perfect example of why spring football is important for development,
especially the quarterback position, because a guy like DeAndre Johnson, you know,
came out in twenty twenty, was undrafted, then in twenty twenty one,
you know, went to the Spring League with the Sea Lions, and
then you know, last year, obviously he was in the USFL with the
Generals, but Perez was there, and Perez obviously as the upper hand with
his experience and his abilities, so this wasn't really an opportunity for him.
Now, I think DeAndre Johnson is still finished year with like seven hundred passing
yards or something. Last season, like he had a role, you know,
he had a couple of touchdowns, and again they really used that sort
of run element. And I think I said it in the last week's show
too, but I'll repeat it again. Reminds me a lot of what Houston
did in the XFL with Brandon Silvers and Cole McDonald. That was what the
Gens kind of did last year, where you have, you know, a
guy who can just you know, stand in the pocket like Perez and just
you know, throw downfield and then you kind of bring in a guy behind
that on package plays as adding a run element. But now DeAndre has full
control over the offense, and I think it's been really cool to just see
him kind of find his groove. And then the Generals have a couple of
guys too in the receiving department that have come a long way, like a
Cam eccles Looper would be a great example of that. And then yeah,
I mean just all around at Darius Victor. You know, we've talked about
him, you know, plenty of times. I mean, at this point,
he's a veteran. You know, he's I don't know how old he
is now, but he's probably up there twenty eight, twenty nine. You
know, he can still run extremely well. And Mike has said it before
because he covers the Generals. But Darius is having a great USFL. He's
having a really fun time and that's really important. You know, a guy
at his age, you know, finally finding his groove that late after you
know, bouncing around um the NFL for a bit and being in the XFL
in twenty twenty with the Guardians. You know, just happy for guys like
him, you know, it's all again we can talk about you know,
these games, right and how they play out and you know how sort of
the flow of things is and the broadcast people. Again I'm a Mike Robinson
fan. Two. But what's really important to me again in all these leagues,
not just the USFL, but like, you know, just seeing certain
players again, like the DeAndre Johnson's and like the Camael's Loopers and all that,
and even like an MBT even though he's been around for a while,
to see him kind of again have this uh like revival and I mean he's
been good for a while, but just to see him, you know,
do this on a different stage with a different set of people. It's just
all cool that the storylines will never not be cool to me. It's funny
here. Lewis asked the question in the chat, Uh, I wonder the
USFL would allowed groups of fans to own the franchise? Could you send that
Green Bay from that people pulled their money with only take a few moment fans
uh fang and show football man can't hagshom football? Get on it? Get
on it. You can own one of the guys he used to were for
me. Matt Yeah, he's part of the owner of the wild Aces.
That's now the what was it should have been starved or whatever? Paths roll
in his eyes. Uh Andy Murray checking in from from from far East.
The Professor improves of the wicked beer and energy on the stream. Welcome to
the show. Uh yeah, we just had a lot of chat chatter here
in the in the in the chat about only in a USFL franchise movie that
anything else we've We've talked so much we had to get to the last game
before we get out of here for an hour? Who knew we had to
whom? Who knew these haters had so much to say about the US Well,
I actually have to go because I have to go help Ducky drive his
walls real quick. But no, I'm here from the Long hall Um.
The cool thing that that we saw as well as West Hills obviously taking like
another facet of the impact is him in the receiving game. You know,
he had some tough runs and then towards the end kind of broke broke off
a couple more. They inflate the stat line a little bit, but you
know, West Hills putting over I think one hundred and forty all purpose yards
between that, So I think that's a great facet of the game. Something
about breakers tight ends, man, like you know, you put that breakers
uniform on and save Sharratt. He had a couple of bad drops. I
think he had three, so that took his game from like a minus one
hundred yard game to he'd obviously be over a hundred. Someone who's not they
talk about him a little bit, but I had him as my number four
or five player coming into the USFL in twenty twenty three is Jared Fernandez,
and I think he's one of the better linebackers in the league. Pass coverage
is okay, but definitely a top tackler in the league as well. And
I don't think he gets talked about enough. A little bit of MBT shade,
I feel like, and you know, people, I don't know if
you do this, but his wife is also an executive at Disney in Atlanta,
and that's why he came back to it, came back to America to
play football. But m MBT was an All Star in Canada, Like this
dude was a top two, top three passer there not according to the CFL
fans, which is wild to me. I mean, it's wild to me
that I still see comments like, oh, he wasn't even that good in
the CFL. Yeah, um here, all right, I have some copium
for you. Um as people would say, I mean, the guy also
played in the NFL for like seven years, Like yeah, it was a
practice squad guy. But like it's hard, that's that's not an easy thing
to do to be like, oh, our quarterback Scurt, Yeah, let's
bring him the twenty seven year old MBT, like because obviously he's just a
scrub. No, when when your quarterback gets hurt, that means you're putting
in your back up who's also more prone to get hurt because he's not practicing
as much. And now his you know these random yeah, no, like
they're salty john Like that's one percent true. So like you know, give
those guys like these Josh Johnson's and whatnot, like the sign the guy because
you're not you're signing him because your quarterback's hurt. You're like, Okay,
if we have to put another human being in, we have to play this
dude. So I just laughed here in the chat. Sorry, I just
Lewis is we're still on the owning the us franchise, and I think this
is my favorite comment stage ever. No, no, let me let me
die on this hill real quick. Okay, okay, okay. I do
not want anyone who watches this show to buy a USFL franchise. And the
reason being is because, and I'm not trying to pour shame people here,
it is expensive to have this and there's probably some guys who are making three
hundred brands that follow us or whatever. Bro, if I'm buying the franchise,
are gonna be selling a couple helicopters first off, And I'm paying each
one of my guys a minimum of one hundred and fifty K. And I'm
saying, you do not go to the NFL. You work for me.
This is what you're doing. I do not care, because we are going
to run circles through this league. I would bring back herschel Walker. I've
seen the guy. I've seen the guy in person recently. Guy is yoked.
Still, Okay, I'm bringing back people. I don't want anyone that
in this in the price range of what the USFL team is Bro ten million
dollars right now, cash, like dude, man, come on, like
stop, no, no, let's stop do you even run a business if
Dad's high ends in right now, we'll get over here. This is my
favorite jage. You guys still would like to know the price range to a
Fox and value these teams that and then J J K K, who I
think is the US Examel fancies probably at least negative four million. It's my
favorite one million dollars ten dollars. Last game here, Mawlers get the law
All Stallions game in Mallers. You, though I have not looked great,
this season looks better than they have in the past. Evan, any actual
conversation on the Pats had Pat's got too of these impacts in right now?
Yeah, no, I'll keep the football conversation up. I mean, I
study sports business, so everything else around the game is important. But no,
I mean, I'm happy to talk football. Let's see. I'm just
I'm pulling up the stats. So, um, you know this game.
This game was interesting again, another one that didn't exactly go the way I
thought it would. I thought the Stallions would have taken this one, um
a bit more commanding lee. Um you know, but uh, Pittsburgh again,
like Pittsburgh has shown some flashes and they haven't necessarily won a lot of
games. Yet they have one win. But like, again, Troy Williams
looked good. They had you know, less than a hundred rushing yards,
still barely, but like, um, what's the guy's name? Uh,
yeah, Troy Williams on the on the Maulers, the quarterback. You know,
he had a decent day rushing too. And then Garrett Groshek didn't do
a lot, but I think he kind of offers like a unique element to
their run game. And then yeah, I think Pat talked about it earlier.
M Bailey Gaither and Isaiah Heney for the Mallers. I both really like
Isaiah Henny in particular because I've seen him work out in person before. I
was with him, like right before he signed with the Mallers, and he
showed a lot of flashes at that time, and um, you know,
I thought, oh, you know, here's a guy that can maybe do
something. And he signed late last year with Pittsburgh I think, and you
know, again showed a couple of things but nothing serious. And then this
year he's just you know, he looks really good this year. I mean,
he looks like he's found his stride. And him and Bailey Gaither are
definitely sort of like a dynamic duo. And Trey Walker too. Didn't even
mention him, but he's all right. I think he was there last year
as well. And then you want to look at the defense again, because
we haven't talked about defense a lot other than me having my bit about Vante
Diggs and how much I liked him with the breakers. Kiava Tazino, I
think his name is he. He's been all right this year again, led
the team in tackles last night. Another maller from the Kirby Wilson era in
twenty twenty two. And then let's see what else here. I want to
talk about a Stallions for a bit. I mean Pittsburgh, I don't know,
like they had a good game. They gave the Stallions a run for
their money, but at the end of the day, this game, once
again to me, was about Birmingham and yeah, McGoo had a very slow
start, you know, through two interceptions early didn't look that great. And
then I think it was at the two minute warning before the second half it
kind of just seemed like there was a momentum shift and suddenly the Stallions kind
of wrote it out for the rest of the game, especially with that Dion
Kane returned touchdown. That was a fantastic play. I think it was ninety
one yards or something. Good for Dion Kane. And then the other guy
too is Davion Davis, who you know, I know personally, you know,
met him because he used to play for the Roughnecks. He was there
for I want to say, two games and you know, really nice guy,
you know, just fantastic. I mean, he's really come a long
way just in these couple of weeks in the USFL and I knew when he
signed with the Stallions it was a good sign. I figured he was going
to have a big role there and especially now that Marlon Williams is out,
you know, he's really starting to get in his groove and this was a
great day for him. Um. I think he had a he had a
touchdown earlier in the season probably, I think it was a week one um,
but quick shout out to Davion Man. I love that guy. And
then yeah, on defense with the Stallions, you know, Scooby Wright coming
back was a big talking point because obviously he last year, you know,
was a key piece to their defense. And I don't think he's played this
year, but he came back. Um, you know yesterday led the team
in tackles, had a tackle for lost, nothing outstanding. You know,
some of these defensive players, they haven't necessarily had like ridiculous stats, Like
so far in the USFL, we haven't had like a Trent Harris or anything
that comes out with a force that game. And that's totally okay. As
Pat said, there's a lot of guys to fly under the radar, like
Grod Fernandez on the breakers. I'm glad you brought that up earlier, by
the way, but yeah, I mean, you know a Scooby Wright coming
back was a really good look. And you know, overall, like yeah,
the game just going back to the overall sort of flow of things.
You know, Birmingham hims down a couple of guys right now, so like
a bo Scarborough they don't have and you know, obviously Marlin Williams, Jamar
Smith, those guys are out for the year. Alex McGoo kind of came
back down to earth a bit after he's had a couple of really good performances,
but they still got the job done. You know. It's one of
those things. It was the same with the Breakers, right, like they
had a close game with New Jersey, who again I figured the Generals would
give the Breakers a run for their money, and they did. But in
this case, you know, the Stallton's just kind of you know, veteran
like complete roster really showed and again Dion Kane I loved. I was so
happy to see that play because I've been pulling for Deon Kane for a while
and you know, he's I want to say it's his second return touchdown to
the year, but that one in particular at that time in the game,
you know, really helped him out because I think that was after de Troy
Williams touchdown. He had a run decently long rushing touchdown and you know,
just great to see. It was all around, you know, a really
nice win for Birmingham and you know, now at three and one, they're
right behind the Breakers there in the in the playoff running. And it would
be really interesting. I mean, you know, again fast forward however many
weeks um, but it would be really interesting to see a Stallion's Breakers playoff
game. I'm already looking forward to that because I already think it's going to
happen. But that's definitely one to have circled on the on the schedule.
Excuse me, Pat, any thoughts on this. The XFL just tweeted out
they're all x all xfls. We'll talk about that and any other thoughts on
the game. Light tweet this out. Um. I mean, as far
as I've been vocal about this, with Birmingham as they were, I think
they brought back sixty five or seventy almost almost seventy percent of their roster came
back. So when the chips are down and you are met with adversity,
the experience kind of you know, it comes to the comes to fruition.
And the only thing negative out on the sidelines I really saw was you did
see McGoo get a little bit more flustered than what I would like. And
maybe that goes to some an experience whatever, that's another conversation. But he
did regardless, is he knew he wasn't playing his best football to yesterday and
he was still able to leave the team and do what they needed to do.
The defense didn't panic. And something they brought up on the broadcast a
lot is even though the Maulers are doing a great job running up and down
the field, is when they got inside the ten, they could not finish.
And that's something that bothers me a little bit because a couple times on
first down they were within i think the five yard bod and they didn't even
try the power you know, run the power player or anything like that.
I'm not saying that Groschek with a guy in the end zone or anything,
but he's a stocky dude. They had this guy, ironically, his name
is Mason stock Either pullback, you know, they're throwing the ball off to
him. He's a big dude. Like I'd like to see them go under
center and just trying to power it in and you know, if you don't
get on first down and get cute, that's fine. But Birmingham was able
to kind of, you know, not the best game they played, not
Goo's best game through some bad He missed two or three touchdowns I saw.
And then when they were within the like they were on the seventeen, he
missed Davey on Davis, he missed Jays Sternberger. With Sternberger could have caught
that ball. It was a difficult catch, but he did get two hands
on it. And then there was that interception that Dion came what Kane beat
his the defensive back. So it was a little frustrating to see Magoo missed
those throws. If he could make those throws, he'd probably be in the
NFL. But just kind of putting the team on his back, and you
know, a collective effort from the rushing attack without most Scarborough was a quandrary
White, CJ. Marrable doing you know all collectively, I think they all
had within about forty to fifty yards each. So you put up one hundred
and forty rushing yards, you're usually going to have a good game. The
Mueller's you know, we're it comes down the experience for me man like Muller's
gonna Mueller. We know who they are. You know, they're two wins
and what fourteen games at this point. It's it's a little bit frustrating,
but they are overall as a product, way more competitive to watch. Um.
You know, Evan touched on it with Damien Davis. You know,
this guy's been a major upgrade, especially with Marlon Williams out. You know,
we I think we all thought Williams would take that next step and then
he you know, got hurt, especially with the team not having it Cyrus
Mitchell and Victor Bolden Bold Victor Bolden this year. But you know, guys
are stepping up and you know, Magoo, like you saw, I said,
didn't play his best game but still got it done with his legs.
And you know that that touch both his touchdowns were awesome and the awareness he
had by the way it was kind of ticking down to, you know,
make sure he had appropriate ball placement and tap the end zone, not trying
to dive or anything. All you have to do is tap that pylon to
get a touchdown. That says a lot about you know, his football IQ.
And you know, Magoo's easily a top three, top four pat quarterback
in this league. And you're the win football games with that, and it
comes it's gonna come down to the Breakers and uh Birmingham in the South.
On the flip side, we're seeing a lot more competitiveness from the Maulers.
You know, they're not as air quote meimable, So it's you know,
I'm pretty I'm pretty okay with the product. I'd like to see, you
know, Pittsburgh punching in the end zone get a little bit more aggressive.
But in the end, if we talked about this last year that the Stallions,
who obviously won the championship, we're gonna win by four point points against
the Bullers probably be like, Okay, that's that's that's a good football game.
It was ugly at times, but overall it was way more engaging than
than that first half of the Breakers game. Uh, the last thing here,
We'll get out of here soon. We're over an hour. I appreciate
Patton Evans time today. Uh. Actually, USVEL did all that. XVEL
just tweeted that we could probably do a whole episode about this. I'm sure
we'll talk more about it on the live show coming up this weekend for the
kick out. But the XFL did send out they're all XFL team xbl's division
champions led the league and all XFL team honorrees with seven well all eight teams
had it was at least one player on there. We have Talmu here for
quarterback, Abraham Smith, running back Deontay Burnette, Key Butler over there,
Lucky Jackson, Decor Pearson, Cody Latimer, a lot of good names on
here. Evan any just again, we could do a whole thing about this.
Maybe any initial thoughts on kind of this All XFL team list is coming
up. Yeah, I'm just taking a look at it right now because I
haven't seen it. I see Deontay Burnette made it on there from the Roughnecks,
so congratulations. Um, I guess, well they say anything about mccaron
on there, or is that or are we just assuming that that's interesting?
Maybe I don't know, maybe that means there's better things to come, or
I don't know, maybe maybe that just means, you know, they favored
Talmu. But either way, good, good for him. I guess,
jeez, you really really put me on the spot here, man. I'm
just like, no, no, you're good. I'm just like, I've
not seen anything from this. I see Deonta Anderson on their two's someone I
talked to on a pretty regular basis. I shout out to him as well.
Um Pete tom a Panu, you have no question there a lot of
these again, I'm just looking over very m Jack Halflin too. That's a
good one. Glad they got him on there from the Roughnecks. Again,
I don't know, just like graze over this. I'll have a deeper look
into it later and I'll probably put some thoughts up on Twitter. But yeah.
I mean Mike already put out his you know kind of all XFL team
and some of this seems to be aligning up with that. So the bottom
line here is, look, if I can't you know, to stay away
from the or the players for a minute, even though that's what this is
about. It's great to see them get some recognition. I mean I won't
go to you know, deeply in the specific players because like like I said,
I'm just looking at this for the first time. But um, the
bottom line is, you know, it's good to see the XFL kind of
do this, you know, offense, defense, um, special teams,
you know, because the guy the players deserve this. You know, it's
not We've talked about it before, but it's um, you know, as
much as this league is a showcase to get film and yeah, the kind
of all spring football leagues are. You know, guys want to get to
the NFL. You know, there was a lot of time and effort and
money put into this season and you know, people really had to buy in
if you wanted to win. So this is kind of the fruits of labor,
you know, being shown in the form of you know, these awards
and honors and whatever. It's really good to see the league doing that and
not just saying like, oh, you know, here were a couple of
good players from our season, you know, and these teams it's like,
well, you know, they've really put some some thought into this, as
people like might have with their UM all XFL teams really, any one of
us who's covering a specific team, UM, it's a lot of time and
money and effort. Um. So again, just good to see this in
general. Yeah, they think that's on this before we get out of here.
I mean, I mean we could talk about we could talk about the
snub at cornerback when it came to the thrower of So this goes into my
high horse about who is an MVP, right and when you know, everyone
kind of throws it to the best player on in the league. And I've
always been very vocal of I think Andrew Luck should have been the MVP for
his you know, when he actually played, because at that time the Colts
were very bad, offensive line was bad, and he is he brought the
most value to his team of any league. While I do think that Jordan
Tayamo and you got a factor earned, his rushing ability was very valuable to
the team. Abram Smith a lot of times kind of you know, shilled
the rock, and Taamu had some pretty terrible passing games for his for the
first three games of the year. That all quarterback, all XFL quarterback,
in my opinion, should have came down to de Nucci or or McCarron and
then you know, flip a coin. You know, I'm biased towards McCarron
obviously with the Saint Louis thing, but in the end, like I think
ninety percent of people would agree that the quarterback position should have down to McCarron
and McCarron and Denucci. M good to see Jakim Butler on there. You
know, I feel like Darius Shephard kind of got a snub at receiver.
When you look at his numbers, they were a lot better, and you
know, I think he was top seven in yards, in top four in
receptions, and his touchdowns. I think he had six or seven touchdowns as
well. Burnett obviously had to drop off, just like a lot of the
Houston receivers, but in the end, nothing too crazy about that tight end
looks good to me. A little bit surprised at Stephen Gonzalez he was a
good, solid player. I think he's gonna give an NFL look, but
you know, he wasn't, you know, one of the staples of the
XFL. But you know, he's definitely a solid player and he definitely deserves
recognition. I'm glad I got he got him. Jared Jones Smith was suspended
for two games, but when he played, he ranked pretty high. Obviously,
when I watched him, there's only really one game where I thought,
man, this guy, you know, change it up a little bit,
But he ranked PFF wise. I think he was their top player two or
three times. Lavert Hill statistically had a good season, but I feel like
Lucas Dennis was a lot better than he was. The best defensive back he
raided the highest. Would a like to see him get that recognition, but
ultimately, you know, I don't make that decision. A big snub for
me on the BattleHawks was Carson Wells, and while Carson Wells didn't have the
sexiest stats, they lined him up inside on the defensive line as an interior
defensive lineman. He played the mic, he played the will, he played
the sam, he played the edge. They played multiple facets of special teams,
so his versatility. To me, the lack of recognition kind of hurts
a little bit. I don't think there's much debate with the return specialist.
Shepherd had almost a grand in returning yards overall. I think he had fifteen
hundred yards. And there were so many games where they were down and you
know, or the offense wasn't moving and he, you know, puts them
on the other side of the fifty. I know there's a couple of games
he had seventy yard returns. But even you know, the short kickoffs,
you know, getting them to the midfield, even if you're getting a field
goal, you know, when you're down ten nothing, and they turned that
into a ten three. Okay, all of a sudden, there's a ball
game going on right now. So as far as the BattleHawks, Carson Wells
and Carson Wells and Lucas Dennis are my big snubs. I mean, I
don't I don't feel like bothering people with talking about how great Aj is,
you know, because I think everyone knows knows that. And according to some
people, he was the MVP of the XFL and given by the official XFL,
even though it was given by US at an XFL and news Hub and
I'm pretty sure a lot of people think von Hutchins is white as well based
off the awards. Well that's good. Today we got a little XFL talking
there, and you didn't have to charge ourselves too much with the whole USFL
show. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Like I said, reminder,
we will be live San Antonio Saturday No Friday show this week. Working
on an interview though that might be kind of cool and we'll put it in
probably when we get back from Santonio. Evan, any final thoughts from you
today, we'll toss to Pat. I will be posting all the live show
information here coming up this week. Anything else from you, M definitely gonna
have to take a closer look at those, um, you know, the
all XFL team. But again, glad we could talk about that, and
I'm looking forward to the XFL Championship um next weekend. I mean, you
know, we did this entire show about USFL, and keep in mind,
I watched all the USFL games this weekend too, Just like Pat, I
had a lot of a lot of time on my hands just kind of hanging
around, so um, yeah, I was able to do that that was
that was good. Enjoy the games, enjoy talking about him, and yeah,
I'm looking forward to you know again, we'll have a bit of USFL
XFL crossover next weekend again because we'll have one XFL game and you know,
the four USFL games, But looking forward to it again. After that it'll
be you know, full USFL and then the CFL will eventually start too.
For again that crowd, you know, people who are interested in that,
which might include myself. So I'm excited. I saw Culti fitzar The tweeted
this morning he's landed in Montreal. He's tweeting that bonesera Montreal. Very excited
for that and watching the the travels of Clety fitzar the there and then you
land Pat. Anything else for me, not much. Um, it's gonna
be a busy week for me as far as articles, doing a bunch of
battle Hawks follow up from the season USFL quarterback rankings, I'll be doing as
well, um, so check me out for that. Just do a shameless
plug, you know, follow me on Twitter by Pat Raffino and on YouTube,
Analyze and educate. Shout out to Mike glass Um, quarterback of the
Alouettes, who has just got engaged and he'll be reporting the camp former e
m you guys, So you know, Fajardo looks like to be taking the
obviously QB one staffs. But you know, Mike Lass, you know Saint
Louis Native bounced around IFL guy should have a good opportunity to make that team
as well. So once again, thank you, you know read for having
me on. You know um and you know, full full force. We
got twenty weeks of football right now, so you know, a little bit
a little bit fatigued, but you know, I'm here for it because once
the NFL shuts off comes on, I can shut off my brain and just
Washington games as a fan. Yeah, I've we would between the Stanley Cup
and the USFL, XFL everything else a lot of a lot that we're in
the sports world right now. And I am glad that we basically pressured Pat
last week on the show and that changes us with our handles. So I'm
glad that we were able to like because we did that, right, we
kind of like bullied you into changing that. So I appreciate that. Evan.
Good luck with your move home from college for the summer. Pat,
good luck with everything in your travels. Thank you everyone. Like I said,
like and subscribe. We will see you Saturday and hopefully sandy. Birmingham
looked like there might be some rain, but hopefully sandy or at that burming
unless San Antonio. Where will I be, Sana Antonio. We'll see you
guys Saturday. Thanks again, I'm n