Well, there's nothing like getting the tweet here about half hour before all this,
Hey, like we're you know, we're gonna pull us and stuff.
We're gonna live tweet now. If anyone from XFL ever hears this today,
tomorrow, five years from now, just let us know. Hey, we're
gonna start tweeting the stuff. At ten. We can get prepared. We
have people standing by. Luckily, Greg Parks can hop on here. We've
got Pats hopping on Craig coach Craig Sports as well. Here in a little
bit, Greg, how are you doing today? As the XFL twitter feed
just posted, I'm ready to roll. I'm feverishly scribbling on my notepad to
try to keep track of picks and things like that as we're going on.
So if it looks like I'm paying attention, I promise I am. I'm
just also taking notes off here to the side. Yeah. So we're here,
Greg, So we've done. We did the dispersal draft. Today is
a super draft. If you following along, please like and subscribe. We
split the conferences. We were able to draft, you know, protect and
get all those players last time. John Bogel and I did that. John
Vogelist know the end today without internet, So that is why he is not
hopping on here today today. Now you can draft outside of your conference,
so we'll be filling out the teams. Certain teams have more spots to fill,
So we'll kind of figure out how long this will go today and then
I think free agency starts tomorrow, I believe Mike Mitchell said. So people
get really excited about the draft, but it is cool. But then I
mean, this will be a full bangs deal here coming up after themorrow.
Do you like how everything's gone so far? That's a very broad question in
terms of this draft process. How are we feeling about all this? It's
it was very difficult, I think to figure out a fair system, a
system that would be fair to the players, a system that would be fair
to the teams. And when you take a step back and look at the
process that is ongoing right now, it looks very convoluted. It's like,
how did they even come up with this? But you know, I think
in terms of trying the best to make it fair, I don't know what
they could have done better or differently to make it a more fair system than
the one they came up with. It is complicated. It is convoluted.
I have, you know, people close to players reaching out to me saying,
hey, it's so and so eligible for this draft and so and so.
You know, so even the players aren't still't seem to be really sure
the eligibility for this, And you know, that's a failure of communication more
than anything else, I think. Yeah, and it's hard, Like I
know because John Vogan I went live last week because see you know, of
course last time we we did the thing on Friday, and then we announced
everything on Monday. So then today and I was talking with XFL and like,
well, no, we're gonna We're gonna post them Monday. I'm like,
okay, Well I was expecting the dump later today because we had people
on our stream last Monday finding out, oh I'm a protected player. I'm
not. But here we are today. We're live street you live tweeting,
which I guess is a little better. I have it up on here.
We have Kde latimerre chatting in here in the chat. Here we go.
So that's exciting. Yeah, it's just it's weird. Communication from the beginning
of all of this hasn't been phenomenal. I understand we have a lot of
moving pieces, and it's a very shortened time frame here to kind of get
all this done. Is that how you feel like, just with with all
the moving pieces, we're kind of getting by exactly, And you're You're right,
the ramp up time is very short, which is why I was kind
of hoping they would delay until twenty twenty five, play both seasons in twenty
twenty four, and then delay until twenty twenty five. But I also understand
Fox Sports and Redbird Capital not wanting to lose tens of millions more money in
the process just to get to twenty twenty five. So I understand that from
a financial point of view. But you know, you have two leagues that,
as similar as they are, are very distinctly different in some ways,
whether it's the contract structures, whether it's the team, a roster, construction,
and things like that, and you kind of have to meld them into
one into a very short amount of time. And I think that's why we've
seen some of the issues crop up that we've seen. Yeah, I wonder
if if you're better off, like we've talked about, then I know you
were on and we've had many hypotheticals of yeah, do you each play this
season knowing that, hey, we're going to crown these champions and move forward
from there. Because some of this it feels a little tight. I mean,
fans are still excited to hear you know, we got one hundred and
seventeen people watching with about twenty. I don't feel too bad about that.
But I don't know. To me, I would like, this feels like
a mix, right, like we're live tweeting now, kind of like the
USFL did. I don't know, It's kind of like we're trying to marry
these two very oil and vinegar here. We're trying to marry these two philosophies
together, and it seems like you're getting a little bit of an overlap.
It doesn't always feel right. Yeah, and again, you know, I
think the people in the Football Operations Department are doing the best they can because,
as we you know, talked about, there is a little bit of
an oil and water to this where it's not just an easy mix. And
so, you know, again, I think that's why we're seeing some of
the issues that we're saying. I was gonna ask, so I have said,
and I've actually I've said it many times that I'm still asked on here,
I could read like, who's your team now? And the Sea Dragons,
and I'm famously a Washington Commander's fan. Some people are like, oh,
clearly you're going to be a DC Defenders fan, which I could never
be with, you know, all the back the long lineage of rivalry that
we've had with the Sea Dragons and the DC Defenders. I've opted to go
with the Brahmas. Follow my boy aj Smith over there with Wade Phillips and
God Will Brandon Silver's in the world who I know is tracking some of our
work. Have you picked a new team now that the Orlando Guardians are gone?
Well, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that the Orlando Guardians were my
team locally. I was closest to them geographically, but I didn't really have
a rooting interest in them. I guess I'm taking this more of a you
know, fifty thousand foot view, where I'm I'm not cheering for any team
in particular. I'm just kind of covering the league as a whole, and
it's a lot trust me, it's a lot better that way. You don't
have your heart set on anything, and you don't allow your heart to break,
just like the Jaguars did for me in the NFL, and so it's
you know, I'm certainly rooting for the league to succeed, to be a
place where players can come and play and put their work on tape and advance
to the NFL and short of that, be able to make a living playing
football at this level. So I'm rooting for the league to succeed. But
I don't say I have a rooting interest in any particular team. I've just
and I've got the thing reef. I'm refreshing in the background, So I
will tell you guys when we have everything coming in here. I know coach
Craig is hopping on in the minute, and then Patt as well. Are
you feeling more or less bullish than maybe you did a month or two ago
with kind of how everything is laid out now now that we've gotten obviously we've
done deep dives in the cities and all that, But how are you feeling
just overall here? Welfare check not that much different, to be honest with
you, I think the main complaint I had about XFL twenty twenty three is
that they didn't do enough work in the cities. They didn't do enough work
locally. We saw that reflected in the attendance. We saw that reflected somewhat
in you know, in the TV ratings. But this was their opportunity to
kind of fix that. And because everything was on hold with the merger talks,
and granted there were some events held in the cities, but I didn't
think they could go as gung ho in the cities advertising as they might have
have they not been working so hard on getting this merger together and getting the
plan together. So, you know, I think if I had a disappointment,
and if I had some reservations about the upcoming season, it's that I
don't think they've still done enough work in these cities to really establish the brand
as something that people should want to come out and support. Yeah, how
are you liking the messaging here of we've had the commercial a lot of airplay.
Yesterday I had my tweet I was very proud of they were playing a
lot of UFL commercials during the Dallas Cowboys game. I said, that's good.
So the Dallas Cowboys fans will know how to find Dak Prescott playing next
year. They'll be able to track him down. What do you make because
we're seeing the light again. That feels like USFL. Right, We've got
our Hey, this eight year Hollywood Football League and kind of all that stuff.
How are you feeling with the messaging coming out of like two leagues coming
into one and this will be the best thing ever. You know, I'm
fine with it so far. I think that it certainly beats the alternative,
which is not how a lot of advertising. You know, I'd rather them
saturate the market with advertising than do the opposite. It remains to be seen
how effective it is. I think getting out there that this is a combination
of the XFL and the USFL is important. Having those talking heads talk about
how important Spring league is and how good these leagues are. You know,
there are millions of people who tune in to watch the Colin Cowards of the
world that don't tune in to see the XFL or USFL, So I think
using them as an authority on these leagues might reach some fans who might otherwise
not either hear about this league or sample the league at all. Yeah,
I'll know this, like you know, we'll do. And obviously, like
John Logo has been great coming on and doing the stream and we're doing this
today, like all know this. You know, we'll pop off like another
five or ten subscribers, you know, over the weekend. If people you
know and I don't know that you are they rolling ads or people like hey,
okay, let's check that stuff out. Like I said, make sure
you know you're subscribed on here. Great comes down a lot and we do
a lot of this kind of stuff. I was going to do it later
today, but obviously this is fun now. Still refreshing on here, people
checking in bedsco battle Hawks. I don't know any other general thoughts before we
get into all this anything. I mean, I haven't had you on in
a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's been a while, and there's been
a lot of you know, work done. I think, you know,
I think that a lot of the graphics we've seen used on social media and
things like that have been an upgrade from an XFL standpoint. I do see
a lot of FOX. I do see a lot of USFL influence on that,
which I think is a plus. So you know, they're doing things
as best they can right now. I don't want to give them too high
of a passing grade for this just because it's kind of all coming together at
the same time, and we're expecting schedule release hopefully soon. I'll knock on
wood for that. They did say middle of January was the target date I
think Russ Brandon mentioned, so hopefully that comes sooner rather than later. They
can get started selling individual game tickets. They can get started selling season tickets
in Houston. They haven't even announced as the stadium. I think Rice Stadium
is rumored to be where that Roughnecks are going to play, but nothing officially
has been announced, so they can't sell even you know, they can sell
season ticket deposits, but they can't sell actual season tickets until they announced the
stadium, which they haven't done yet. So every day that goes by that
they don't do that is another missed opportunity another day. And you know,
this is the same conversation read we had with the XFL last year with the
Vegas stadium situation being the hole up. So hopefully it doesn't drag on the
same way that Vegas did last year. Yeah, I know you said the
rest Brandon had talked the schedule coming out. I think we're gonna give the
rules this week as well. Feels like this is kind of the first week
of a lot of things coming out. You've gone through New Year's and the
holidays and all that. That's kind of why I laughed when the initial like,
oh, we're doing all these drafts, you know, end of December,
and I'm like, we're not. We're not doing the supplemental draft,
you know, the Thursday before Christmas or whatever. Kind of those rooms were
like, this makes more sense. And it was hard to do the draft
without even announcing the league, you know, I mean, that would have
been kind of strange too. That's what I'm saying. Have you gotten feedback
from people in terms of like this new Like, I don't know, it
has not if people were new that I followed the X Fellow or whatever,
you know, talking about always is Seattle not in. But it hasn't really
spurred a lot of conversations. If you had a lot of conversations with people
as this cultivated new new ideas that people want to talk to you about.
In terms of all this, like in terms of the casual watcher, not
really. It's I don't think it's broken through yet. I think as we
go on with the NFL postseason and the commercials hit more and more. I
think there may be more of a conversation about that, but it really hasn't
sunk in yet. You know, the one thing about the ads in the
time of the season that the league is gonna kick off, it's a it's
a new development for XFL fans who, in all three iterations, the league
kicked off the week after the Super Bowl. And I do wonder what effect
this avalanche of television ads is going to have when yes, you're advertising,
but now you're gonna wait until March. It's not all this advertising and then
boom, the league starts right after the Super Bowl. It's you're having all
this advertising in January, and then what kind of lull if any will there
be until March thirtieth. Are we going to continuation of these ads throughout Fox,
throughout ESPN programming or are they going to kind of pull back? And
so I am interested to see what the advertising looks like outside of the NFL.
And once the season ends in February and we have, you know,
a month and a half until the UFL season begins, what is that advertising
going to look like. Are they going to continue with this or will they
pull back a little bit more? Well, and I've seen. Oh I
hear. Sorry, we have all of our friends. Even I was too
I was too busy, sorry, guys, paths here and too busy,
kind of going back and forth here trying to make sure we have everything up
to date. My last time and then we'll touch Craig and Pat here Greg,
because you know, we talked about that yesterday where they were airing the
ad during the Dallas Cowboys game, and you know, Anthony Miller, we
were talking to the chat and he goes, oh, you know, it's
great seeing all these ads. I'm like, yeah, but like you said,
it's such the USFL thing, like we're going to air the Super Bowl
ad and hey, we'll see you in two and a half months. I
mean, I know, even NBC has gotten a lot of grief for airing
their Olympics commercials, and it's like, Okay, I understand you're doing the
Olympics in July, but I don't know how much that resonates through everything.
Pat, how are you doing here today? Hangs for hopping on here?
Pat, how have you? How has everything been treating you with how all
this is rolled out? I mean, I'm just kind of riding the wave
like everyone else. You know, there's always been a belligerent amount of speculation
with this whole process, and you know reading I know, you called me
out on it, and I think you're absolutely right, you know, like
than I do. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that, you know,
like sometimes you got to be a little bit home like, you know,
in this process. But there's been so much speculation that at this point,
man, like I'm just hate to sound edgy, but I'm kind of
just along for the ride. I don't really care if that. Players talk
to me, coaches talk to me, you know, asking what I know,
me asking what they know, and you know, eventually everyone gets on
the same playing ground, level ground at some point. And you know,
right now, just January fifteenth, we got and I was doing the math
real quick, about one hundred and thirty eight players about to find employment.
And you know, sidebar on this, a lot of these coaches on these
other teams are starting to find employment as well, with you know, the
most recent one Chris Dishman going to Texas Southern to the Vegas Pipers. So
very curious about that. I'm more excited in my opinion, by the way,
the kind of a sidebar what's happening with some coaching staffs because there was
a lot of double dipping some of these coaches. I'm curious to see if
they're going to allow that now that jobs are being you know a little bit
more stringent. So I'm very curious to see what the panel has to hear
about has to say about that. Yeah, Craig, what do you make
of all this? Like in terms of just you did our part of whatever
the heck they called it the college draft or the rookie draft that USFL did
the college I think the XVEL did in the rookie draft had you on back
then? What have you made of all this? And what does the resignation
of emerge UFL league for you? So it's been really interesting to see the
process so far, and kind of the biggest frustration I think for a lot
of us too, is the lack of updates to like the average person,
you know, even like even today, like oh, we're gonna be live
tweeting this all of a sudden, you know, and you find out the
day of it's like, well, even if you just told us last Friday,
that would have been at least a little bit nicer. You might have
gave you a little bit more interest from the you know, from the average
person, even the casual fan at that point in time. But there's just
so much that hasn't been shared. And I know they're working on you know,
they're trying to make this happen this year. They're working on a lot
of deadlines. But you could have had a little bit better structure to some
of what I feel like too at the same time, But I think it's
gonna be very interesting to see what happens, you know, from the last
draft, from this draft today, and then I think I believe they said
free agency is gonna start tomorrow too, and you're going to see a lot
of turnover on these rosters too. I think when I was looking through like
some of the rosters, I'm like, some of these teams got like six,
you know, five six good running backs. I'm like, a lot
of these guys aren't going to be in the same place come March, like
really easily. Yeah, Greg, what do you think about kind of the
consolidation. And we've talked with like the rest Brandons of the world here and
everyone enjoining Darryl Johnson everything up above, But some of these teams, I
mean, you're really being able to cherry pick some of the highest talent from
you know, and now we're getting to where we can go outside of our
own league. I mean, do you expect the quality of play here they
increase going into this season? I would hope. So if not something terrible
happened, Yeah, I certainly would that it is you know, if you
want to look at it like this, sort of like an all star team
of XFL and USFL players is what we're putting together here, and so the
quality of play should be high. Remember, there was a lot of especially
with the XFL in terms of kickoffs, in terms of some of the other
rule changes, there was a lot of you know, getting used to those
new rules. There was a process, and I think that sort of dragged
down the quality of play early on. Remember that they were not they didn't
have any preseason games because the weather in Texas struck at the time that they
were supposed to hold up you know, preseason games last training camp, so
they didn't even really get to have any kind of full dress rehearsal for these
games. So I think by now, whatever rules they go with, whether
it's a combination of USFL and XFL or whatever the case may be. I
think the players are going to be a lot more used to these rules,
and I think that's going to help the quality of play as well. Yeah,
Pat, we were talking expecting rules coming out potentially this week. What
do you I mean to me, I there's not that many big rules.
I mean, I know, if you want to be a homer for what
it is, what do you think they do for the rules? I mean,
if you're gonna truly be the league of opportunity and intersections and everything,
I think make the NFL rules as as we can. I know we can
debate on whether player safety and all that stuff, but if you're trying to
pitch the Cavante Turpin, the Brandon Aubrey like all that goofy stuff, you
have to keep it, in my opinion, as close to the NFL as
possible. And you know, I tweeted something out recently about kickoffs, and
you know a couple players made their own posts about it and whatnot. But
you take out the NFL style kickoff, you like a lot of these guys
aren't going. You know, Frank Ginda, who's been tearing up the USFL
for the last two seasons. And I make this comment about the running backs
and receivers, and it's part of the reason why Cam Phillips from twenty twenty
is not an The NFL is I don't need these guys to be my linebacker
one or my linebacker two. I need them the cover punts. I need
them to run down the field on kickoff. I need those metrics. So
if they want to go to the XFL style kickoff, that's fine and dandy
and everything like that, but you're negating a lot of these looks to now
to the udfas and maybe a Canadian, a Canadian football player versus the XFL
guy, because now I'm like, I don't need my linebacker one, I
need my linebacker two. I need a guy who can run down the field
make plays. Now, Pip that if we do go to, you know,
an XFL style kickoff in the NFL, then yeah, that's that's the
metric I think you have to go by. In my opinion, I do
think to jump in there. I think that makes some good points. I
do think there is sort of this push pull right because you want to give
NFL teams as much of an NFL look to these players as you can,
because your goal as a league is to get these players into the NFL.
And as Pat said, you know, if you're going to do the XFL
kickoff, that is very different from the NFL kickoff. And if you're an
NFL Special teams coach trying to find those guys that are gonna run down kicks
and run down punts, you don't really get a great sense of how they
might do based on the XFL kickoff. But I also think that you have
a very finite number of people who are willing to tune in to watch players
who are not as good as NFL players play the exact same style game,
right, So you have to offer something different, whether that's from the broadcast
point of view, whether it's you know, talking to coaches at half which
even now NFL teams do talk to coaches in between the quarters, right,
you know, or talking to players on the sideline during the game, or
being able to hear the coach to quarterback communication, or whatever broadcast innovation they
can come up with. But that also is the rules. And I think
the XFL kickoff it doesn't sound like it's going to carry over to the UFL,
which I'm disappointed in because if you have something a rule in particular,
that is so well regarded that people who don't even watch the UFL are commenting
on and how effective it is, and you're losing that. I think you're
losing some of the intrigue that you want to use to draw fans who might
not otherwise watch, you know, this alternative league football. But if you
offer them different rules, if you offer them something different from the NFL,
that still makes sense. It still looks football, and it's still intriguing.
I think you may pick up some viewers who say, you know, I'm
hearing about this new rule, it's kind of interesting to me. Let me
check it out. Craig thoughts on that, and then I have a couple
of comments we'll get too. Yeah. I think the point that Pam makes
makes a lot of sense too, because like a lot of these guys,
if you're trying to get on the back end of their roster, you have
to be able to do multiple things at the same time. So I think,
you know, even if you just keep the kickoff like the same as
the NFL, you can still do like your point after conversions, you know,
do the one two and keep it interesting. There and have that be
kind of your differentiation point too, because you can't really not from the extra
point to that. For Oppert, I think that'd be like maybe that's the
kind of the give and the take of the situation. Pat, you go
for it. Two things. We have our first selection, Jared, I
don't. I don't see it. Where is that the showboats Twitter? So
oh well, of course, so we don't put it on the XFL Twitter.
It's actually actually Quentin Dormandy was the first pick by san Antonio. San
Antonio had the first pick, Memphis had the second. Quinton Dormandy went to
san Antonio number one. But it's not on the x FOLK Twitter, right
right, it's on the team twitter accounts. This is this is lovely.
Thank you guys so much. All right, let me do this here.
Here we go, all right, so and keep us posting the chat as
well. I'm trying to frantically kind of research on this heat. So here
we go. Good for good for Quentin, I think, paired up with
aj Smith, he'll do he'll be very serviceable. They're probably going to get
rid of Matthew Ka who was their QB three. Impossibly Kurt bank Kirk as
well. But going back to the rules and everything like that, do we
know who do we know what position group has been the most successful outside as
specialists in the in these leagues like transitioning to the NFL specialists, I mean
that it's defensive linemen. It's Lebrian Ray, McHale, London, Austin player
Austin. I'm sounding like, you know, breaking uh, you know.
Look, I said, Khalil Davis, Lebrian Ray, Jeremiah Farms last year,
Dominique Davis. It's mostly defensive linemen that are transitioning the best too to
the NFL. Outside of the specialists. Specialists are in their own group.
A lot of these guys are all in the same clip. They all bring
together as the kickers, the hunters and everything like that. But I think
that might say something as well. Going in just final point, I'm sorry
and you're great, but read I think we talked about this during the regular
draft. The XFL Twitter account has undering eighty thousand followers or something like that.
I talked, I talked to Larson offline. I was like, this
kid got a million point five impressions, a million point five he's got three
thousand followers, three hundred and eighty thousand followers from the XFL main account.
The amount of lost opportunity that these guys lost with these non picks to just
get this reach out, to get it retweeted, like Central Michigan could retweet
the Quinn Dormandy thing and all that stuff. I feel like they lost figuratively
and the way Twitter's you know, financial stuff works granded, they don't have
the blue check mark. They lost figuratively a lot of money by not doing
that. I want to talk more quarterbacks later. We do have our second
pick, Like we said, the show Boats, I think we'll give this
all on you know, I think they gotta figure this out. We're getting
this all together on here. It is interesting just his pat points out this
is on XFL at twenty twenty three, the Twitter account on there, it's
not on the you know, it's not co sponsored with the USFL one.
I think it's also weird we still don't have like a UFL Twitter account.
Greg Memphis show Boats taking Jared Thomas here thoughts on that. Yeah, it's
funny because the XFL doesn't exist anymore neither just twenty twenty three, and yet
it's being retweeted by the XFL twenty twenty three Twitter accounts. So I think
that's a good microcosm of the league at this point. You know, when
I looked at the Memphis show Boats roster and I kind of analyzed their dispersal
draft, I had offensive line as one of their big remaining needs, and
they addressed it pretty handily with Jared Thomas from the New Orleans Breakers. He's
a center, so that's a really important position along the offensive line. And
so yeah, good pick. I think in terms of patting any founts on
this, I want to go back to the quarterback conversation you're here in any
fouts on Jared, I mean they only had and Greg, Please correct me
if I'm wrong. They only had Jordan mccraig, who is a long time
uh he's a long time spring league, arena league guy. A couple of
stints in the NFL got hurt last year. Obviously, the flip connection of
of you know, of the Showboats to the Breakers, pick makes sense.
Sure up that offensive line like case cook is the lack of a better word,
cook. And what's you know? I think, man, when you
cut down all the talent from all these leagues and take them from sixteen to
eight. This is I'm hoping this is going to be an ultra competitive league.
But I mean sometimes it's not about the exod of those It's about the
Jimmy's and the Joe's once they hit the field. So but we had a
some way am I am I? Oc here? Am I? Am?
I? Is that? Am? I? Should? Should? That?
Just be right? Is that correct? Offensive center? Offensive center? Okay,
don't you know we just have c on there? Yeah? Well I
don't like see I usually put if I'm doing like my abbreviations and my breakdowns,
I'll do og. But then I'll always ride out center. Okay,
who in mine? I'm just just at you know, I mean, I
had a question here and I want to circle back to the dormany thing from
your listener, Max talk and you're how concerned are you all about the league
reportedly considering paying the quarterbacks for the same as the other players worried that some
of the quarterbacks. Obviously we saw Quentin so he's not concerned about that.
But Greg, are you you know, we had a you know, the
the Vipers and kind of all that paying for some of those quarterbacks. I
think part of it was more like games played versus whatever. But thoughts on
less uh less money going to the quarterbacks here this year and kind of getting
that talent. Yeah, I think that's It hasn't necessarily borne itself out yet.
Now, if Jordan Tamu doesn't re up with the defenders because he doesn't
like the contract structure, then you know, we have an example to point
to as to someone who said no to the league because of that. Right
now, it's all kind of speculation, and we're seeing some pretty good quarterbacks
stick around with the league. So I'm not really in panic mode yet,
but I do think that's the That's another thing that's sort of a push pull
for this league, right They want to have the best players, They need
the best quality of play to attract fans, and yet they may not be
as willing to pay more four quarterbacks or four key players. We saw the
XFL do that in twenty twenty three with quarterbacks. We saw the XFL do
that in twenty twenty They were willing to go above and beyond the normal pay
rate for some of the star players to bring in, and the same thing
with assistant coaches. You know, we don't know what effect it has because
we haven't seen the coaching staffs released yet. But you know, one of
the ways that you can get these players into the NFL is not only to
put game tape on film for NFL teams to look at, but it's also
to have good coaching or the best coaching outside the NFL that you can get.
And if you're on only making these coaches sort of seasonal employees, there
is a risk that you're not going to attract some of the best coaches.
Some of the better coaches are just going to say no to that, whether
it's the lower pay, and we saw Hines Ward walk away from a lower
pay for a second year, and so you know, I think that's the
tough part is, yes, you want the best coaches, and yes you
want the best players, but you're also not going to go above and beyond
for pay for players. You're going to limit the work for coaches to seasonal
which probably limits their pay in some ways. So I understand the financial realities
of the Spring League, and the reason that these two leagues combined was because
of those financial realities, but you know, they're going to have to accept
the limitations of it with the players and coaches if it comes to that because
of the pay. Hey, Pat, were you surprised that hines Ward didn't
come back? Where? I didn't get your thoughts on that of you,
because to me, that's a pretty He was a pretty focal point of kind
of the selling of XFL last year. Right if hey look at these either
we're giving these opportunities for these coaches and what did you make of him not
coming back? I mean, it just not to be edgy, But it
depends on what this signs Ward really want. Does he want to be because
he's in Greg, Greg and Greg please correct me if I'm wrong. I
know he had ties to the AAF. I know he had ties to another
league that ended. I don't know if it was the Ricky Williams League,
the Freedom League that Ricky Williams make a thing and whatnot. So he has
ties to spring football, but in alternative league football. But he also has
ties to you know, Fau was an assistant receiving coach to the Jets.
To me, I don't know, I'd have to sit down in top with
him, and I know that's kind of a cop out thing to say,
but it's like, what do you want? Man? Like, do you
want to be this type of dude who's in it for the bag, because
I looked up how much money he made and he made thirty eight million dollars
in the NFL, stopped playing in twenty twelve and whatnot, which, yes,
it is a lot of money for most people and whatnot. But when
you're living at certain expenses and taxes and paying out agents and whatnot like that,
that air quote bag goes away a little bit quicker. So if Hines
is for the brand and for development and whatnot, you know, I don't
see why he doesn't take the six hundred thousand dollars dollar salary because I'm sure
he's doing other stuff. But you know, I kind of thought Heines is
going to be this Anthony Beck type guy where he does his media stuff,
he's for the development, And while it's obviously a full time job, it
really isn't you know. You really only have to care about seven months out
of the year, you know, And as long as I know, wins
and losses mattered. But as long as you're like a good team guy,
I feel like they'll keep you around in these leagues off tap. But you
know, if you're fun, if you're fun, to be around. I
don't see them getting rid of you, you know, unless you're a complete,
you know, lack of a better word, douche nozzle. We have
our next back here. I will go to Craig on this. Ezra Gray
going to the Roughnecks running back on there from Alabama. Any thoughts on that.
He's a guy that's bounced around a little bit now, so he had
some flashes last year in Memphis. It's kind of an interesting pick. I
think this early too, because when you think of the Houston team, you
think that they got some decent depth at running back already. You know,
you got Mark Thompson there. I think Pledger is back somebody else I'm forgetting
off the top of my head, but I'm like, that's probably not the
biggest area need for their team. And taking a little bit early in my
opinion. But yeah, I was pulled up and I probably should have done
this before because I was trying to remember with the Dormandy stuff like okay,
because I got it, rec that's kind of my quarterback then rather Jack Cone
and we had Benkruz on there. But yeah, with the rough Necks that
we have everyone's favorite Mark Thompson I got the roster up on here, but
yeah, certainly, and then this early the other one. Pat thoughts on
that path on as a coming on, I mean, I mean he he
did come on a little bit. There were some injuries between Alex Collins and
Jawan Washington I believe got hurt as well, and then they also had Justin
Stockton there, so he did really come on in the end of the season
last year. I mean, when you have Mark Thompson there, despite his
antics on the social media, he still has proven to be an extremely effective
running back, So running back to me isn't the need. But you know,
with I mean, it's kind of a gluttony of riches. You know,
you might be able to pick this guy up, hold him and then
trade him to the ship to another team and just kind of manipulate that.
Like maybe that might be going too deep into it, but that's how I
feel about certain picks. Great for your thoughts on this, and then I'll
pop up with him. We have our next draft pick coming on. But
thoughts on the running back and then we can talk about dray Von as well.
Yeah, I agree. I was surprised they went running back there with
Ezra Gray actually the first pick of a team that did not protect a player,
So Houston picking Ezra Gray from the Memphis show Boats. So the first
two picks were from teams that no longer exist. The Roughnecks taking the first
player from a team that is still in existence, but who did not protect
that player in last week's draft. Gotcha. And then we have a couple
more picks there. See now that he's kind of the slow and then kind
of the avalanche comes on here Saint Louis Ballhawks tating the safety here. Let
me get that tab pulled up here. Dravon as Henry from West Virginia,
anyone that pad you want to chat on your Ballahawks there? Yeah, So
Saint Louis completely revamped their whole secondary. Not only did they lose Lavert Hill,
Nate Meters who just got released from the practice squad. Elijah Hamilton went
to the NFL. They didn't retain him. They completely got rid of like
Chris Cooper. I think Mike Hampton's gone as well. So a lot of
turnover here, West Virginia guy who went to Yeah, we got two more
picks here. Just to get keep in mind, this is good. I'm
just in surprise, they're coming in so quick now. West Virginia guy Anthony
Beck type. Anthony Beck played with the New York Guardians and also was with
I think he was with the Jets or the Giants at one point as well.
Two years in the USFL with the Generals, Fringe all USFL type guy,
very very positive in my opinion, and once again go of riches.
Right now we have here the first one. Then we have a big name,
so the Panthers are picking up Nate Brooks here coming in, and then
we also have Jalen McClendon going to the DC Defenders on here, So we'll
get Craigs thoughts first on either one of those, and then we can go
back to Greg on that. Yeah, so I think we'll ask you,
Henry, that's a good get just for battle Ax because you know, like
Pat said, there Evamp and a lot of your secondary the last Luca Dennis
too last year who's been on the Falcons practice squad for a little bit too,
So they just kind of need some depth on the back end at the
very least. And I think good guy to add early on. I think
Jayalen mccleinnon makes a lot of sense for DC because they don't really know if
Teama's coming back, you're a king may or may not come back at this
point in time. So he's a guy that will at least fit their scheme
pretty well. He's a guy that's had some experience in these spring leagues too,
so he's going to be an interesting piece, especially because they really don't
have that much of the quarterback room right now. And then who's the other
one again? Oh harol, let me get we have Nate Brooks. Figure,
I know, I got too many tabs going because now it's sempling back
on Nate Brook's going to the Panthers, and then Jalen McClinton obviously, and
Brooks is obviously guy that's played a little bit around now. And you know,
Panthers could use a little bit of their secondary help to you know,
they had Josh Butler last year. He's been on the Cowboys practice squad all
year. So anytime you're at it at least early on, for me,
like anytime you're adding to either like your secondary, your offensive line, your
defensive line, that's those would be kind of the areas that i'd focus on
the most, just depending on based on the team though, Obviously some teams
have different needs, but those would be the three areas that I would try
to get the most step in, at least early on these drafts. So
pop it up on here and we'll get Greg's thoughts. See now they're all
coming there. We see here very so right, So talking you got mc
clennon here, and then Jared Scott go into the Renegades, right, that
wasn't a repeat from before, right, and I'm just trying to keep track,
and then Laura nell Coleman going to the Stallions on here, Greg any
thoughts on those three. Arlington did not protect any tight ends and they didn't
draft any in the first dispersal draft, so they came into this with zero
tight ends. And we know how important a role tight ends play in the
offense that they ran last year. Sale Canelo was a big part of it.
He was released in the offseason to sign with the Minnesota Vikings, so
tight end was going to be high on their list of needs. Here they
take Jared Scott number one, so he's probably going to play a big role
for them, and then the McLendon pick. In between the first dispersal Draft
and today, there's been a lot of buzz connecting McClendon to the defenders.
A lot of people kind of putting two and two together when they look at
the specific system run by Fred Heist in DC, what quarterbacks are out there
who could fit into that system. Certainly DeAndre Francois, who is the only
quarterback on their roster coming into today, seemed like more of a replacement for
Derek King than for TEAMU, So they were still kind of looking for a
starting quarterback. Jalen McClendon. I guess the question is did he show enough
in the limited games he had with Vegas last year to be a replacement for
Jordan Taamu if it comes to that. Certainly, taking a quarterback first overall
in this draft, first round rather in this draft certainly makes you think they're
hedging against the idea of Taamu coming back. So, yeah, it's it's
gonna be interesting the competition and to see if this is really it as far
as top level quarterbacks DC ads or if they look to add somebody else in
free agency or somewhere else in this draft. Yeah, Pat, that's a
good question for you, Like, do you yeah, there was there enough
with some of these guys to pick up or would you look outside the box
and obviously, like the free agency is going to begin tomorrow, so they
could we just get this and kind of do whatever anyway, But thoughts on
you know, like someone like mc clendon that maybe didn't have as much playtime
during the season, Well if you look, McClendon got better and better as
a team goes. This is a guy with limited starts in his collegiate experience.
I think he had only three pass attempts at the Wildcats in twenty twenty,
So I personally don't know if Jaylen McClendon could be or is that guy
for lack of a better term, but I do know that he deserves an
opportunity based off his sample size. Last year, Rod Woodson spoke extremely high
of him in a limited role granted behind Brett Hunley, behind Luis Perez,
and finally getting his ability to play the most football he's actually played since high
school. So a guy like that deserves a shot. Fred Kist is going
to take care of this young man and put him in a system. Really
hoping they get rid of DeAndre Francois. I'm about over the Francois experiment.
Didn't like him in the spring League fan control football is its own thing.
And then all the rumors about what he did to Quinn Dormandy'd like to see,
you know, maybe they bring back another guy to fill out that QB
room. But yeah, very similar skill set and you know a lot of
upside from McLendon and DC craig. I let you take you're a pig.
You can you talk about Laurenelle here or anything with Francois? Are you over
Frans saw wherever you want to go? U? I think I've been over
Francois since he left Florida State. But that's a whole neary story for a
different day. And like even with the mcclennon thing too, it's like at
the like you're kind of hedging that one of King or Tiamu comes back.
And then at the very least he's a holid backup that's played a little bit
in the style of the league. Yeah, I mean, I really think
McClendon would be the perfect backup for the defenders. I'm not ready to say
he's gonna start, like I just I'm not there yet. From what I
saw last year with him in Vegas, I do agree with Pat I think
he did improve. There were still times at the end of the year where
he was just throwing past his way over guys heads. The passes were not
close. So that consistency and maybe that comes with playing time, but that
consistency needs to be refined a lot. And you know, maybe if they
work with him in training camp, because I do think he is a good
fit for what d C does on offense. But you know, if this
is really all they do in in the uh in this part of the offseason,
they add Francois, they add McClendon, maybe they add a camp arm
or a third quarterback somewhere. I'm not really sold on on their chances then
uh yeah, Pat thoughts on Taomu and all of that return or not return,
and I and the Max is talking to the Chad about the Yere Kingdom
and there's just a lot of questions with d C. I think they did
any of the other quarterback room right now. When when to touch on King
when he got that full time offensive assistant QB coach position, This man was
not this man was not coming back. I coach at the nai A level.
I am a part times restricted earning coach. I do a lot of
work. I can only imagine being in a group of five, a group
of five team. So while it's edgy and cute, if you actually understand
what it takes to be a football coach, that man was not coming back.
And it's awesome. He's got a paycheck from the XFL, he's got
a paycheck from the NFL, spend you know, doing his Lamar Jackson impression,
all that goopy stuff. But that man was not coming back. Tayamu.
There's two trains of thoughts on Tayamu. I've heard some things that it's
not my opinion to say about and it has nothing to do with character,
nothing to do with attitude. I've heard some things about Tayamu the reason why
he's not on an NFL practice squad right now. But at the same time,
going back to him, is he kind of hitting that glass ceiling of
like this is not working out. I need to go figure out something else
in my life. Because while it's awesome to go get hit by fringe NFL
players for seventy thousand dollars a year, that might get old after a while.
So that's something he might be thinking about in what his opinions are on
that I'd love to see him on a selfish aspect because I think, you
know, it's awesome and he's thrown for almost five thousand yards and all those
silly statistics. I always keep track of that nobody cares about they care,
they care, certain people care. A lot starts with the ends then and
uh but yeah, in the end, I'm very cute, you know.
I think that's the conversation he's having. Maybe we get a Kurt ben Kirk
cameo from TAOMU. It's like three weeks in, you know, three weeks
in. Okay, I'm missing this one last rodeo. Let's go bro.
Yeah, Greg, do you expect Ben Kirk back? I know he was
kind of on the list, but now we're getting all like with the San
Antonio that was always a weird fit and how he was on and then he
wanted to leave and then they brought him in and obviously he got hurt.
But a lot of issue there is that juice worth the squeeze getting Ben Kirk
back on. I mean, I was certainly surprised that he was drafted,
which seems to indicate that he signed a letter of intent, which again was
surprising, you know, for someone who last year, by the sounds of
it, one of the main reasons he didn't report to Houston was he didn't
want to live in Arlington for a month and a half and go through training
camp there. And so you know, once the season started and he got
an opportunity, he felt more comfortable coming to play. So, I mean,
if he's signing the letter of intent, now that's that's the same situation
he's going to find himself in this year. And for a guy who is
as active on social media as any player in the XFL or USFL, I
don't believe, unless I missed it, that he said anything about being drafted
or whether or not he's coming back, which is why we're having this conversation
right now. So it is kind of strange that he's gone silent on that.
He certainly hasn't refuted the idea that he's coming back by virtue of being
drafted. So, you know, unless we hear otherwise, I would assume
he's signed the letter of intent and he's coming to camp. Maybe he doesn't
know. I mean some of the players are coming on last week like oh,
I'm protected, Like maybe yeah, as much as he's on social media,
I would find that hard to believe. Hey, but I just yeah,
here we have Robert Quittin and Bankert said he's retired on Twitter, so
uh, you know, I I don't, but I just hated how he
handled all of that last year where it was like, I don't know,
they've they've played that I'm a part of this league and it's like, well
you're okay, you're part of We'll see a lot of times. I am
proud, though. I'm happy for Ben Kurt and the agreement packers. That
was trying to throw my life watching the Dallas Cowboys get robbed last night,
So as w washing commanderstand, I can be happy about that. Craig,
any thoughts any of this we might be done with, like the first round
of this right we're kind of circling back through here. It might be dead
time for a few minutes, or any thoughts on any of the pick so
far? Oh so can you bring them back up a little bit? Yeah,
I will let me get this on here. We got Larnell and the
last one we had was Larnell Coleman going to the start. We've got some
second round picks coming in now. Like Coleman's the guy, like I think
is the type of guy you want to draft like early in these you know
you're getting that offensive line depth. He's a guy that does have some projectable
upside. He I think he was undrafted free agent initially by the Dolphins,
spending a little bit of time with practice squad, you know. So he's
a guy that this league's gonna be good for and he could develop into,
you know, one of the better tackles in this league overall. Too.
At the same time, Greg, where are you seeing these picks? Is
it going by the teams again? Yep, it's going through the team Lovely,
We're six picks into the second round. As far as I can tell,
Well, where what am I looking at here? They told me the
fall XFL twenty twenty three. What team should that? What's an exciting pick
I should pull up? Well, we got our first specialist take in.
Punter Matthew White, who played with the Breakers last year, is going to
Memphis. So you know that's where that's where my attention is shown. Okay,
let me see here. Max says, I can search UFL draft and
get Okay, latest here we go. All right, share this Michigan Panthers.
Second round. We've got well Will Adams here safety going to the Panthers,
Chris Rowan going to the DC Defenders from the Stars. We'll circle back
through here. Oh, here's Mark im following down the bull side. This
is what I get on this. Why can't we just put them on the
XVl count Greg thoughts on this? And here we go Matthew White. Let's
get some thoughts here, Greg. I'll get this figure that here. Well,
Matthew White finished middle of the pack and punting with the USFL last year
with the Breakers. He comes over with everybody else coming over from New Orleans
to Memphis, so they've got that going for them. A couple of other
interesting picks here. We had Trey Bots going in the first pick of the
second round of the Brahmas from the Philadelphia Stars, so that's gonna build up
the interior. They're missing a couple of interior. Defensive lineman. Matthew go
Tell signed a contract futures contract with the Seattle Seahawks, so they're gonna need
some bodies in the middle of that defense. The Roughnecks took Glenn Logan,
who was a Roughneck last year. Now he's now he's a Gambler slash Roughneck,
so he's gonna be wearing the same jersey this year, same same team
nickname, but he comes over from Houston to Houston, so that's a complicated
situation. Chris Garrett, who I believe was a former draft pick of the
Los Angeles Rams, is a Saint Louis Battlehawk, So again, you know,
the BattleHawks have one of the strongest rosters on paper, certainly adding to
it by picking a former NFL draft pick Will Adams, who played a big
role for the Vegas Vipers on their defense last year, now a Michigan Panther,
and you mentioned Chris Rowland, so I think as far as I can
tell, we're as caught up in the second round as we can to go.
This is again, if there's anyone from any like, you can't say
the follow along on the XFL account and then post them all out on the
team like I think the XFL account is like retweeting them or posting them,
but they're behind, so you're seeing them first on the team accounts and then
like later on the XFL account, which is a little anyway. So we're
doing the best we can that here. I pat thoughts on any of these,
not on any of these guys, But DeAndre Torri just opted to sign
with the the Toronto Argunaunce of the CFL, so he I think he becomes
like the sixth dude I've seen over the past two weeks to opt the sign
with the CFL, and that does include h MBT obviously. But yeah,
so, I mean I've talked about it. I think I wrote an article
about it not too long ago. Guys kind of looking at the writing on
the wall saying, hey, man, you know, get ready to learn
French. My dude, Craig thoughts on any of these. I'm getting another
stream up here, so we can pull up some of these. I can
scrub back down here. Elijah Holder here, going to the any of these
you want to comment on. Calvin Jackson, Washington State, going to the
renigains here. Some of these are really throwing me off because it's like the
team graphics but the players team like it's been a real hard time with this.
What do you think Chris Rowland, you know, glad to see him,
you know, I think, man, the Stars were weird because they
had so many injuries. I can't even call this guy like their white receiver
two or watch receiver five. But Chris Rowland is definitely a guy who deserves
to be, you know, still in the rotation in this in this league.
And you know, I don't know what the glunt nay of riches that
all these teams have granted. Correct me if I'm wrong. Once again,
Lucky Jackson and Chris Player are both gone from their receiving rooms. His life
a little bit easier. But Chris Rowland's definitely not scrub whatsoever. And he's
got a brother in the draft pool as well, so it'd be interesting to
see if they do a homie hookup with one of the back end rosters.
Craig, what do you think here? I think Roland's a good pick for
them too, because kind of if you looked at the wide receivers they have,
they're like those bigger body ones, so they kind of need like somebody
to up bread just down kind of in the slot too. This year,
I was trying to who is the one they got? Who is it that
they added? They added Preston Williams. I think it was that used to
play with the Dolphins. He's had like a whole bunch of the field issues
over his years. So they got him, They got Brandon Smith, they
brought back, they got a lot of bigger bodies, so kind of get
a guy in the slot makes some sense. I was trying to look up
Kevin Jackson too, because I remember him in Washington State. But I was
like, was he the guy that was on last chance YouTube this college?
He was? Yeah, he was an l o I guy. Didn't play
in the league. I don't know remember what team he signed with, but
he was an l o I guy. And obviously, you know, anytime
you're a last chance you guy, you got a little bit of a following
and whatnot. So I mean, it's cool. Yeah, let me see,
I'm trying to remember his story. But like, he's the guy that
does have a little bit of speed though, so he could be a deep
threat for a team. He was tearing it up on last Chance You and
I mean, J man, don't sleep on it. I goes, So
we got the third round. Now on here, Greg, I'm following Greg's
lead here, Christian McFarlane, here go into the Memphis showboates here coming from
the is that the What the heck? Greg? What did we make up
this? We're getting more at least Aguilar coming in here fast and furious.
Now whether we make here, Greg, Yeah, I just want to go
back to Kelvin Jackson. He was a he was an l O I signing
of the Sea Dragons. Surry. Sorry, there's my guy. Literally fun.
Sorry to cut you off. Greg. I'm literally going to Vegas for
work last week. Who do I see in the airport? BJ Wilson,
you know where are you going? He's like, I'm going to Edmonton.
I go, no ship. He goes, no, no, no,
no, I'm not signing up there. I'm like, you know, the
boys, the boys got to stay home. So Mark Lillibridge hooking the hooking,
hooking up the Saint Louis guy. It's my guy. Uh all right,
Greg, go for it. Yeah, just trying to catch out the
roughnecks. They needed a kicker. They bring in Louis Aguilar. So you
know, we're seeing specialists got more highly than they normally would, just because
teams are sort of filling those spots. A lot of teams did not protect
or did not draft specialists last week, so they're sort of in the mode
of looking for specialists here, perhaps adding some in free agency. So even
though it seems like high draft picks for these specialists, not too surprised when
there are some good ones still out there. We'll go back Patty the other
thoughts on all this. Sorry, I had to let my girlfriend DJ God
signed because she calls so BJ's a D two product. Was the first player
in Quincy University history to get signed an NFL contract or a professional contract whatsoever.
L I Guy by the Roughnecks did an interview with him. Awesome guy
won. Awesome family too rolled in the same circle. So it's also cool
to see because rumored obviously Mark wila Bridge is with the is with the Brahmas
now taking care of some of his guys, so we'll see and uh,
you know, personal note, my uh, my girlfriend's a big Wade Philips
guy, not because of anything he's done on the field, but because she
says he looks adorable and she calls him Dan, so you know there's a
and anytime they show his wife on the on the field, she gets a
little bit emotional and she's always like doing farmer farmer Dan impressions. Well,
whale boys, we didn't uh we didn't get that victory today, But go
home and hug your loved ones and uh let him know that. You know,
it's just a game and we're gonna we're gonna come out on top on
this. Okay, we've lost Pat, We've officially lost Uh Greg, how
are thinking to hold that pier? That thoughts something that says I keep I'm
trying to refresh on another stream to not get it too but like this is
just so weird here anyway, thoughts these latest guys coming in. We have
a new way Defenders here, I'll talk. Yeah, we have t J
Barnes who goes in the third round of the Defenders. He's an interesting,
uh interesting situation because a lot was made of his retirement after the Renegades won
the championship. I think there's a story on XFL dot com about TJ Barnes
going out on top as a champion. We heard a lot during the broadcast
about the lengths that he went to to get in shape to come in to
be a force in the middle of that Arlington defense. So I don't think
anyone was surprised then when Arlington did not protect him as part of their forty
two last week, and then TJ. Barnes goes on social media and is
like, Okay, which team is going to get me? And we're like,
wait, what, I thought you were retired? Man. So you
know you figured that if he was available, and that if he was going
to go full bore toward twenty twenty four, that some team was going to
pick him, and some team was going to pick him with a high draft
pick, and the sorry the Defenders end up coming in in a third round
and taking him. I did have defensive line as a key need for the
Defenders. They lost a few defensive tackles to retirement this offseason, so that
was a position that they needed to fill and they got a good one in
TJ. Barnes. I got some more picks here, I'll scroll through.
Then we have coming to here, Eric blue Jay going to the Michigan Panthers,
and then Trey Bots going to the San Antonio Brahmas. Pal toss to
you don't do much about trade trade botts uh C s C s C State
PLAYBLO D two product going down to Ojebai He I believe was a signing by
Michigan at one point during the off season, So they bring him back.
Complete revamp in my opinion for the Panthers on the offensive line, which is
for the last two years something that I felt like they needed to to supplement.
So continuing to get the rich get Richer type thing. You know,
a former you know, a group of five guys and whatnot coming out of
Wyoming. Pretty curious to see what he's got going on. But I mean
they picked up a lot of these, you know, Schmart, I think
you know, they didn't pick up Gilmore. They picked up Drew Himmelman,
who completely changed that offensive line in Philly when he joined. So curious to
see where he goes, especially because I believe they have ushdun Lap at the
other uh at the other tackle Pennsylvan right now. H Yeah, And then
we have here some more coming in here and this year Greer going to and
if I say any of these wrong, just slap me in the head.
Arlington Renegades, and then Jalen Morton going to the Birmingham Stallions. We'll toss
back to Craig here and then obviously Matt white Wards. Now we're getting the
xfl one retweeted and all this stuff. So Craig, any thoughts on this?
Yeah, I was gonna say the other one I seen from Saint Louis
now as they picked up Cameron Kelly, the defensive back from San Antonio.
So that's a that's a pretty good guy to get in. Helps out build
out some of the secondary depth too. I'm trying to pull that up on
here. Keep going here though. Yeah, I was just saying Morton,
as you said, he went back to Birmingham. Uh right, Yeah,
was there QB two when Slowter got there. So he rounds out their room
with Smith Martinez and now and now more than I think Morton played a couple
of snaps. I don't think he threw a pass. Originally he was signed
by the Gamblers and then traded for montel Co's Art who's had thefl and whatnot.
So I mean familiar with the system depth pick if Jalen Moore playing,
there's some bigger issues there in my opinion. I think he ran the ball
once last year for like six yards or something like that. And you have
like a couple of snaps that when Google got backed out of the game for
a couple of seconds, but that was about it. Yeah. Do do
we get like Glenn Logan already here with the Reughnecks that was in the second
round. Now we're circling back through on here. Okay, Pat, we'll
toss back to you here. Any bouts in any of these coming down once
again with the BattleHawks with their secondary. Like I said, they completely revamped
and whatnot, revamped and whatnot. Sorry, a lot of these picks are
coming out, so you know, I have notes and all jacked up.
Glenn Rogan staying in Houston with the Gamblers, I mean Houston picks. When
you pick up Chris Odin, who could run a three technique and play the
edge, plus guys down there, I mean, it's gonna We're gonna say
this term a lot richer getting richer. That's really what's happening. Greg thoughts
on any of this stuff, and I certainly I share what Pat was saying
about kind of some of these teams that bukened up here. Yeah, third
round is when we're seeing some teams pick some of their own players who they
did not protect among the forty two. We saw Michigan with Eric Woji.
We saw Arlington with Nasir Greer, who is an offseason signing by them,
in the Stallions with Jalen Morton. So not in the first two rounds doesn't
look like. But the third round we start seeing teams picking from their own
list of unprotected players among the non forty two. So that's just interesting to
see at the timing that that comes down. Yeah, it's interesting kind of
how I don't know the roster aerobics that kind of go into that of like,
well, what ones do we need to protect? Now? Which ones
do we need to pull greg Any any surprise signings here, anything, as
we're kind of getting into the weeds. None that jump off non, None
that jump off the page to me, I don't think, you know,
I thought maybe there'd be more offensive linemen. One of the things that we
saw in the XFL Supplemental Draft last year was a lot of teams when these
USFL players became available, XFL teams started really stocking up on offensive linemen because,
as we know, offensive linemen are very hard to find. Talented offensive
lineman for these spring leagues are very hard to find, yet they play such
an important role in the games, keeping the quarterbacks up right, opening running
lanes for the running backs. So I did think maybe we'd see a little
bit more movement along the offensive line with picks so far. But again,
you know, when you're combining the best of the best. Maybe you're not
reaching as much for offensive lineman as you would otherwise. Yeah, Ethan here
said, let's see, I'm here. I'm trying to figure out, like
okay, so like why this is just my life right now? Because I'm
sure she ufls go, well, why didn't this because they they have this
because they tweeted UF drafts, So now we have we're trying to track,
we're trying to attract the players during they're not even using the proper hashtag.
So I really appreciate that XFL social for making that worthwhile. Pat will circle
back to you. You know, it's really, it's really it wanted to
point out with Chris Garrett that you have him on the screen D two product
getting drafted, won the Super Bowl and has appeared in an NFL game,
So very stoked. I mean that, you know, Saint Louis has a
lot of key pieces returning on the front seven, so you know, if
Chris Claiborne comes back along with along with Donnie Abraham running the show, very
curious to see how he kind of fits into that because they did have a
lot of pieces like Carson Wells, who is very versatile, Travis Speeney.
And also now they brought back or they signed Peter Toeman Penno, who was
the defensive player of the Year last year. So, man, I'm gonna
sound like this broken record, but the rich are getting richer anytime. You
got, you know, a guy who got a couple of coffee in the
NFL and won the Super Bowl ring he had been doing something right at the
time, right, Yeah, So Craig Any, so we touched on some
of these. Chris Garrett here going to the battle Hawks. I'm just making
sure he've touched. Norman Price here going to the Roughnecks. To anyone you
want to comment on, Yeah, a couple two here. So I see
Max Roberts going to Memphis now, he played with Vegas last year. He's
a guy liked a lot coming out of Boston College but never really got his
chance in the NFL, honestly, but he's been a decent pass fresher.
He's going to be at least a good rotational player for them. And then
I saw the Brownos got Chris Steele, who's cornerback out of USC. So
he's at least, you know, played a high level in college bounced around
a couple of practice squads here and there, so could definitely help out their
depth as well. Greg going into the draft today, where there are teams
that you were more worried about than others, and then we've talked about the
quarterback issues with DC, but was there anyone that you were maybe a little
bit more worried about from a quarterback standpoint, from a team building Yeah,
from an overall roster, not really. I think again, when you're taking
you're really getting the best of the best. So even if I do have
some concerns maybe about positionally from team to team, there are other positions on
that team that may be kind of strong. So it's really really too early
to say about any concerns. I think after today we'll get a better picture
of what those rosters look like, and certainly in the coming weeks after free
agency. And you know, free agency is kind of a mystery. It
was one of those things buried in the press release when they were talking about
this upcoming draft, the Super Dispersal Draft, and they said, you know
it's almost like, oh, by the way, free agency also starts on
Tuesday, and it's like, Okay, what form is that going to take
it sounds like the players who were not drafted here, as well as anyone
who did not play for the USFL or XFL in twenty twenty three, will
be eligible for that free agency period. So you're talking about players who did
not sign futures contracts on practice squads at the end of the year. Anthony
Beck was begging them on social media to not sign futures contracts and instead come
to the UFL, so those players would be available in free agency. So
we don't know what how the announcements are going to go, whether teams are
going to announce them as they happen, or if it's just going to be
a press release like the XFLO would do. In terms of signings, or
how active these teams are going to be, it's all going to depend or
a lot of it's going to depend on how many picks they make today.
There were some teams who could pick as many as twenty twenty two players in
this draft, some only thirteen. So how many picks are they going to
use on this draft? How many open roster spots are they going to have
after today to add free agents for training camp while not having to release anyone
from their drafted list, So that's going to be something interesting to track to.
Uh yeah, if anything, then they'll probably post those on the USFL
account, like you'll probably that'll be where he can find all those. That's
all the free agencies stuff that we have some more signings here coming in now
of course is and now the Xlos were do Cole here going to the Panthers.
I know that's the team you followed here, gid Okay, God help
me here that comment on this. Well, Adams here going to the Panthers.
Panthers really stocking that pier. Yeah, Cole Adams returns. He spent
the last two seasons there. Was signed in the middle of the season of
twenty twenty two one two one two. All you all Defensive Player of the
Week award or Special Teams Player of the Week awards with him. I'm a
pretty big fan of him. You know, that's a move to me they
have. That's a move to me where they kind of just did a little
bit of like roster manipulation, like hey man, we're gonna bring you back
type thing. So consistent player play at Syracuse had a stint in the AAF
for about five minutes and then lost his job to to Donnie Higgeman, who
has not been protected either. Virginia the defense back. They picked up Virginia
State guy, HBCU guy was a guy that you kind of want to circle
to see if, like maybe Reggie Barlow was going to pick up, but
obviously they didn't. And then you know, a lot of people love Cheety.
He got picked up by the San Antonio guy. I think San Antonio
had some of the worst offensive line play that really halted the defenders. That
excuse me the development of Jack Cone, which I didn't think Jack Cone was
a world beater, but that offensive line didn't do him any favors. They
had guys like kay Avish here pretty much coming out of retirement and you know,
man the fort a lot of inconsistencies on the tackle there. So definitely
a guy with some experience, some depth play, and he's got a good
social media presence. He's written some books and whatnot as well, so you
know, keeps his brand alive, keeps a couple more retweets and follows for
the kids. So good for him. Like Greg said, I feel that
the most turnover we're gonna have is always going to be on the offensive line.
In these leagues, because if the NFL can't get them right, what
makes them think the UFL is gonna get it right? Greg, We have
a couple more here coming in a circle back got Pier, We got these
all this, and there BJ Bellow here going to the Arleant Renegades, and
then that trub Bonds here from from the Mallers here going to the Stallions.
Always weird to see these kind of you know, like the Stallions, we
got the Mallers color is kind of weird out here. Any other thoughts and
any of these guys coming down, Yeah, I mean you look at San
Antonio's first four picks. They've picked two from Houston, which would be expected.
Wade Phillips bringing over BJ Wilson and Chris Steele, who were two offseason
signings LI signings, So they're coming over with the coaching staff and with the
DPP mark a little bridge to San Antonio. Michigan has kept two of its
own players in the last two picks, Eric Obaja and Cole Murphy. And
you know, a couple as bad as and I agree Tonio's offensive line was
was in rough shape, a lot of it due to injuries. But to
San Antonio offensive linemen being taken in this round in Norman Price for the Roughnecks
and Gid for the defenders. So just an interesting note there, and another
San Antonio Brama Torrell Bonds going to Birmingham. Yeah, and Bonds had a
couple of tea in the NFL. His spring football experience goes all the way
back to the AF the leave he was with the Express, so he's had
a couple of a cup of tea in the NFL. I don't know if
he's still that type of player, but you know, definitely not a bad
guy to keep in your des pat. A couple others here just while we
have you, Lee Morris here going to the show, buttz I'm kind of
looking here past my screen here, and then Elijah Holder with the Stallions,
and then de Ruy and Parker here San Antonio Bramas as we're talking here,
more reinforcements for the on line here even in the social media. Yeah,
I mean the offensive line, we can hammer that. That could be an
their talking point. We talk in circles, you know, we got to
get better. So you you bring in, you bring in my man bj
bj Fringe NFL guy would be in the NFL. Right now, if he
did not play with the if he did not get hurt when he was with
Carolina, uh probably would have got drafted, but didn't participate in a lot
of workouts. BJ could probably you know this, this guy is massive,
He's more athletic. He could dunk a basketball. A scene's it. So
we could see that Lee Morris once again, you have that showboat breakers connection.
They're gonna bring in a guy who they're comfortable with. You know that,
Flip knows that we could do the offense with. And Morris kind of
came on, you know, as a third option when Stage Sharrot kind of
cooled down as well, pushing up to Elijah Holder, another spring league guy
played with the Gamblers, and then I believe he played. He played with
the game, and I feel like he played in the XFL last year as
well. I had a couple of tea in the NFL at one point.
The old guys with NFL experience all guys with Spring league experience, and let's
see what happens happens with them. BattleHawks also picked up John Dacca as well.
Here let me see if I can get that pulled up on here.
Any thoughts on that if I can. Oh, here, the last one
I guess I have is a slogan closseman. That's the last one that shows
up on the UFL one long snapper. I mean, I hate to be
that guy, but there's so many long snappers. Will cut these in the
NFL. They'll cut a couple, a couple, a couple snaps, and
they'll find someone who just got cut from a practice squad or you know from
last year. These these specialist coaches have a lot of these contacts in the
phone ready to go. There's only thirty two in the NFL, and now
there's only there's only forty in the United States. So get good, or
get get busy living, or getting get busy snapping, or get busy,
uh selling car insurance. My dude, We'll go back to Craig last One
here, Donnis Boone here going offensive tackle to the DC defenders, any comments
any of the guys that have come down. Yeah, So I think once
again we're kind of getting back into that offensive line run where we're just getting
because like at the end of the day, you want as much depth that
offensive line as you can get, and you want to get your best group
of five guys. You want to get your best group of backups there too.
I don't know if they actually have they actually announced like how big the
roster says are going to be this year, Yeah, seventy five and then
drop down here going into the actual season, right, I was more like
considered like after, you know, like once we get in season, like
are they going to add a couple spots just because you know you're cutting down
the two leagues into one so you can get a couple extra guyst opportunity too?
Was it forty two and eight? Pad is at the final numbers on
that like it was like forty it was forty two and it was forty three
or forty two with the QB three. Yeah, fifty on the roster,
fifty on the active roster, fifty one for the EXOD. I like to
see them get like a couple spots up if they could, But that's you
know, that might be just a little bit nippicking at this point in time.
But the more chances you get, the more opportunities you can have for
you guys. But like at the end of the day, you're going to
bring in seventy five guys, You're going to cycle through probably the last thirty
of them at some point in time too. So just getting all these guys
in there seeing who can do what. Especially, you know, you got
some of these veterans in. You don't know what's shaped there. And by
the time you get to the season, you know, we like to think
everybody's working out in the best shape of their life too. But some of
these guys are older. So bringing them in and you know, at least
if they go into camp, they go into camp with some old guys,
some young guys. Let the best guy went out, and you know,
at the very least, you know, even if you got some old guys
there and they just don't have it anymore and they're working with some of the
younger guys, they might be able to teach them something. At the same
time too, well it's fresh, like you said, it's even with these
rosters and stuff. And oh yeah, it'd be nice for them to expand
all this. I mean we had talked about, you know, salaries and
not be an increase like where there's now. I mean Greg knows this and
Vince McMahon when the AF went away, and it's like, well, I
don't need to pay the XFL players anymore, like there's no competition here.
So I you would like to see them bring in more numbers for all this,
but I don't, you know, I don't see that. Greg.
What do you make of roster sizes and kind of have the reworking tier going
the end of the season. I think it's fine. You know, NFL
has fifty three man rosters. They've got sixteen man practice squads. I certainly
wouldn't have a roster size bigger than that of the NFL. And again,
everything that we talk about in terms of rules, in terms of roster structure,
in terms of coaches, all has to be looked at through the lens
of financials because that is what we're doing here. That is what these team
That's why these two leagues have come together, right, So you know,
I think there's an argument to have more players just because you need more depth
for these leagues. You can't be bringing someone off the street who hasn't played
in a while in mid season and expect them to perform at a high level.
It's why XFL twenty twenty had the I forget what they called it there,
but Team nine, yeah, had that where they you know, they
were able to keep a basically almost a full roster of players in shape and
training, so that if someone went down for the Arlington Renegades, they could
sign one of those players who was already in shape and they they didn't have
to choose from someone who had not been training or it was not in shape.
So you know, there is that argument as well. I'm not sure
if that is worth the financial burden that it would put on the league,
But you know, I think the roster size I'm pretty okay with. We'll
have to see how it plays out this year to see whether they need to
fix that for year two. Pat for you here, we have a question
at talking and I'll keep an eye on the picture as they come in.
BattleHawks not selecting the KIV makes me think they're confident in getting aj back or
at least they have someone in free agency in mind that. What do you
think the BattleHawks are going to do here? Quarterback wise? Right? The
ag is with the Bengals. Right with the Bengals, I'm not sure on
this contract situation. He was promoted to the active roster. He'll be a
free agent when in March when free agencies. Yeah, so he'll be an
unrestricted free agent. I'm not one hundred percent sure on how the NFL and
XFL like he just signed with a team now because he wasn't signed to a
futures deal. Obviously he's not a practice squad player. But in my opinion,
this comes down to what AJ mccaron wants to do. I've been very
vocal about this. He made over six hundred thousand dollars this year. He
got to play a little bit, so he scratched that NFL which did halfway
decent, and I believe he had a touchdown get called back in his first
game, with three or four in his last game, you know, for
like nineteen nineteen yards or something like that. So I'm very curious to see
it's gonna come down to him. The door is open. Coach Beck has
been very high on Tiano. Tiano did okay when he came in. He's
a lot more athletic, decent, arm strength, you know, a ut
martin guy with some CFL experience, as well as someone who covers the BattleHawks
and is going to drive forty five minutes to these games to cover the team.
There's a lot of good quarterbacks out there that that aren't in this draft
pool, So I'd like to see maybe a similar type AJ McCarron type signing.
On the flip side. AJ's doing bar rescue or the Bar Olympics right
now in Vegas. I didn't see see him out there last week, but
you know, I'd love to see Aja come back. I mean, it's
good for our city, it's good for the league. But at the same
time, like what does he have the proof? You know, like what
does he want to do? Remember the big thing with AJ is in twenty
twenty two, he didn't do anything in twenty twenty two. He was recovering
from his ACL tear and then comes and plays football. So he's got a
little bit of that motivation to get back. He came in, he became
good team guy. Jake Browning was also a practice squad guy that got elevated.
No extension there, so he's an unrestricted free agent. Browning played pretty
well. Does he get a lot more money to go do a Jared Sidham
thing in Vegas or something like that or another team? I don't know.
All of a sudden, you don't have Jake Browning, who's your QB two?
Do you go back and go get Brandon Allen, Well, I know
that AJ's better than Brandon Allen's. I'd rather keep AJ. Here's a two
year, four million dollar deal. My dude, go hang out with Joe
burrow a getting somewhere. Picks in here, greg Any thoughts on the AJ,
and they we can roll through some of these picks. Yeah. I
mean, if the best case scenario for the BattleHawks is AJ mccarren decides that
he wants to return to the UFL and the BattleHawks and he has no interest
in signing a contract with an NFL team for twenty twenty four, but you
have to remember that's that's going to be March fifteenth ish, so you're talking
two weeks away from the XFL season or the UFL season beginning. So that's
a really tight window for him to come in. And I mean, it's
probably gonna be the same playbook because I think Anthony Beck said that Bruce Gregkowski
is returning his offensive coordinator, So it may be best case scenario, but
it's still gonna be two weeks and you're still gonna be coming in toward the
end of camp when you've had other quarterbacks there working with these players, a
lot of new players by the way, you know, because of the merge
of the USFL and XFL Battlehawk's adding a lot of offensive players who maybe weren't
there last year. So you know, even in the best case scenario,
it's going to be a tight squeeze to get in on time and to earn
that starting spot. And as we end round five, Juan Minigo going to
the Renning Gades, I believe he was an offseason signing of them. I
want to point out that the last two picks by the Panthers were specialists,
and they protected a kicker in Jake Bates from Arkansas. They drafted Brock Miller,
a punter from New Jersey. They now have two kickers and two punters
on their offser So read earlier in the show, you asked me who's gonna
be my favorite team? Now it might be the Panthers because they are stocking
up on specialists. Well, I you know, because then I mean might
as well, and then you kind of get your pick of the litter here,
especially the guys that have been part of it before. Pat any thoughts
on that that is socking up here on the special teams, not not really,
I mean, I mean I wouldn't have done it, but Jake,
you know. But you know, Mike Nolan's coached way more games in the
NFL than I have. Big thing to note is Jake Bates has never kicked
a field goal at the collegiate level. He's been a kickoff specialist for years.
I don't know if Brock Miller can do kickoffs. I assume he can.
He's got a hell of a leg. They just pick up Kyle Kramer,
who was with them as well from twenty twenty after they released Michael Carazosa.
So very curious to see on that BattleHawks pick up a guard by the
way, Abdual beacham some USFL experience there he was with Orlando. I mean,
I think he's a mid tier guard. You know, he's pretty active
on social media, so they might come at me about it. But there's
my man, bj But you know, that's a lot of goofy stuff going
on. In my opinion, I think the problem is they're getting shot gun
to us and like all different types of waves. So I'm like trying,
I'm having a hard time keeping up. I just went everyone coming down.
Yeah, coach Greg, get you pounds on any of this stuff here?
Coming in. I think KD is the latest year, and then we're kind
of rolling up. Yeah, that's not the KD canon one. And it's
just like he just keeps floating around for forever. It seems like I believe
it was like the first iteration or you know, the XFL twenty twenty,
he was like supposed to play in that and then just like never showed up
and he just kind of bounced around for a while. I'm just he's like
one of those guys. I'm like, I'm just kind of sick of this
guy. At this point in time. He had, you know, I
had a couple of decent games last year for Orlando where he got deep on
a couple of touchdowns and whatnot. But you know, nothing against the guy
personally. It's just like, eh, kind of sticking yea this point,
anything here, show botes anyone else's I kind of roll back up here,
Salasi here BJ. We got BJ before I hear Gene call him in here
going to the roughnecks wide receiver. Not really anything on that. I mean,
I mean in the Gambler's offense, I felt that there Pooka can't let's
talk about him. Pocka will there you go. Let's Pooka Williams was with
the BattleHawks for about thirty eight minutes, originally drafted by DC last year.
Big thing about Pooka there was a legal issue that came up recently as well.
You know, a guy that really everyone thought was gonna pop if you're
really in step with these leagues and didn't didn't really get the opportunity to whether
it be his own. But you know, fringe, fringe NFL guy at
one point versus overturn man, all that goofy stuff. So let's see what
happens with Pooka. A couple others on here coming down here, Van Trail
going to the Panthers, and then Madre Harper here going to the Stallions.
As I kind of get up to date here, Van Trell was part of
their defensive line rotation last year with Michigan. You tea Chatt a NEWGA guy
played some snaps in the CFL. You know, there's there's a lot of
key pieces, like when anytime you have Breelan speaks there, that secondary defensive
end spot is going to be a big like what if? As far as
like who's going to be the guy you saw speaks get that extra attention.
Last year they signed Levi Bell, who Bell had four and a half five
sacks in about six games or something like that. And when you bring in
Levi Bell, who's a muscle hamster, plays very similar to Patrick Richard,
it was really great to see that Bell get more exposure. And then it
opened up like Breeland Speaks having a lot more success on the back end because
now there's another dominant pass rusher there. If you can have that, just
have a average and I use that an average defensive ends on the other side
of Breedland Speaks, it's gonna be It's gonna be a good time. You
know. It's kind of like Sam Hubbard is a lot better than we think
because of Trey Hendrickson for the Bengals. Greg, I've had a lot of
questions in the chat here, even another one here talking about why has the
anyone picked up Jeff Beidet. It was about about five six seven here.
Are you surprised no Bedet signing yet? I am a little bit. You
know, he's he's another one that's been campaigning on social media about being po
We know he's in the draft pool. But yeah, you know, you
look at some of these wide receivers that have picked like a Katie Cannon,
who, yes, he's speedy, lacks a little bit of size that Bedet
may have over him. So you know, he was he was in a
rough offense last year with Vegas. You know, even with Arlington or Dallas
in twenty twenty, he didn't really shine. I think he only averaged you
know, seven or eight yards per catch, so he did wasn't really used
to stretch the field as his speed would indicate. So there might be some
questions about that with him. But yeah, I would expect him to be
selected by the end of the draft. Maybe someone takes a late fly on
him as a wide receiver, but it's certainly a little surprise that he hasn't
gone by now. Uh, Pat for you, as we talk about Cameron
Kelly here getting pulled up, Andrew has a question the chat where do you
think the BattleHawks need to improve? And obviously here with drafted with the safety
and then we have a couple more picks for whether you make of Andrew's question,
I mean, I'm pretty I'm pretty good right now. I'd like to
see him get and this is this is kind of a generic statement. I
like to see him get a straight dog in the secondary. You know,
I think the guys they have right now are good, but there's no one
like that. I'm looking at that. I'm like, oh, okay,
no fly zone type thing. They're linebacking corps. I'm pretty okay with.
You know, you have a team they addressed the they addressed receiver, you
know, because they don't have Marcel Aman or Darius Shephard right now coming back
with Blake Blake Jackson and Jakor Pearson. Maybe a tight end that really stretched
that field. Obviously we're all holding our breath a quarterback and that's the easy
thing to say, but I would love to see a tight end to kind
of stretch that field, really work the seams and everything like that. And
you know, because right now they have Kamari Kamari Ebert and another gentleman who
was the backup the Kyle Pitts at Florida before he went to UCF. And
then there's big Jake Sutherlin who's more of your full back type. So I
think they're pretty stacked outside of quarterback, but we could see a quarterback pop
out of nowhere tomorrow, you know, once free agency comes up because of
all these guys who aren't being being signed the future. So Craig, we
have a couple more signings coming in here. I will likely going to the
Showboats and then talking about Eric here with the Panthers and the dear Ruz going
to the Defenders, keeping him back with the Defenders. I think that's kind
of do they hear any other thoughts on these picks? Yeah, obviously Will
likely. He's been a guy that's been around for a little while now,
so he's been a pretty good player when he's gone out there. He's been
help when he's been out there and healthy. I saw Lannon Akers was another
one there too that popped up him staying with san Antonio essentially. So obviously
he did enough and he was a guy that came on pretty good at the
beginning of the year. Then he got hurt. I believe it was an
ankle injury. He missed like what was it like six weeks or something.
That kind of slowed down after that too, although you know san Antonio had
all their other issues. It'll be very interesting to see what that team looks
like in total by the time you know the whole new coaching staff. A.
J. Smith what his impact on this offense looks like overall too,
because they have a lot of interesting pieces here, but how they kind of
put all those offensive players together is gonna be very interesting, I think.
And yeah, go for it. That Acres was traded to the Roughnecks in
the offseason, and I book the Stallions picking back up of both Scarborough,
So no, I don't think that was a surprise personally. Yeah, Boe
coming back here on that, Greg, toss back to you. Any updated
thoughts. Yeah, A couple of things that stand out to me. It
looks like Arlington did not make a sixth round pick, so they may be
done. If they passed on that, they may be done for the day.
And if so, it looks like that would give them sixty one players
on their roster, so there's plenty of room for them to add over free
agency. Khalil McKenzie just going to the BattleHawks in round seven. He was
a starter at center for the Vipers, got hurt last year. Donovan West,
who actually I believe was also picked by the BattleHawks in the previous draft,
so he came in and replaced McKenzie at center. So McKenzie is a
guy son of Reggie McKenzie. Former NFL player Khalil comes in. He's got
some NFL experience as well on practice squads. I think that's a really good
pick for the seventh round. Pat, we have a question here, why
did they draft a running back when they have Mark Thompson here? Talking about
the thoughts on that the gamble next, who did which? Why did they
drave? Oh yeah, I mean why would it? Well, you got
to have depth there, right if TJ. Pleaser, who played a decent
amount when Mark was hurt earlier in the year, let me pull up their
roster real quick. But in the end, like it's gonna come down to
a lot of like it's it might not just be about running the ball.
And I know it's a crazy thing to say, right, it comes down
to, like, Okay, we're gonna pick up this guy. What's this
film? Noe? Okay, we see all this goofy stuff. He could
play our kickoff, he can play our special teams. He could he could
be our third down pass catching back. Pledger didn't really do that much,
you know, Shamary you know they picked up Shamari Jones as well, I
think in the offseason. But you want a guy who's gonna be your ability
to fill out more roster spots in that special teams. But not only that,
when you're going in the camp, if you're going in the camp with
only three running backs, you're gonna have your running back three running those scout
team reps. Well, depending on the game plan, you might want to
have that running back with your first team while your scout team's doing their thing.
I don't know because of the roster sizes how they break up their practices.
Normally, if your team's big enough, you had your scout scout O
going again to your team one D and your Scout D going against your team
one oh. With fifty one players on this roster, I don't think they
really have that privilege. So you really want these running backs to come in,
especially in camp, which is going to be the majority of your install,
to be really taking away those reps because I think we'll all be who
and hollering if Mark Thompson gets hurt against during scout team reps because Shamari Jones
couldn't go because he's got a tweaked ankle, and TJ Pledger isn't feeling his
best self either. Craig Any thoughts on this stuff. And then I have
a couple of questions here in the chat. We have a new also as
well as san Antonio aj Hendy here going from the Reughnecks. Yeah, I
don't think I got too much else to add really there. I mean I
talked a little bit about Gray when he got drafted. But you know,
maybe it's the pass catching aspect, because you look at the guys that they
got with Mark Thompson, TJ. Pledger, Tyane Evans, you don't really
think about them as being past catchers as much. But you know, anybody
that can play it a little bit of a verstyle role is going to be
important in these types of leagues just in general. A couple questions here.
We have a question from Robber and the question from Vinnie. This is more
I think of a philosophical question, a little bit of talking free agency.
Greg Robert wants to know how does free agency even work if the leagues run
the teams and everyone makes the same salaries. Man, I know the USFL
had a little bit more of it, felt like the free agency signings and
during the summer and stuff, but how are you expecting this with the eight
teams now? And it's so weird because we don't know what you how many
spots in every team. But philosophically, I think this is going to work
here moving forward. One of the big questions, right, I would assume
teams go out and recruit players and try to bring them in, and ultimately,
if San Antonio and Memphis are both recruiting the same player, the player
decides where to go and they sign a league wide contract and for that team.
So you know, my understanding as it used to be for the XFL
back in twenty twenty, like they would sign with the league, they would
go into a pool and teams would claim them from there. But I get
the sense there's a lot more networking going on amongst DPPs, among coaches where
they're reaching out to players trying to bring them in, or maybe players are
reaching out and saying, hey, I'm willing to play in this league,
but I want to play for this team. So it may be a player's
market here if that's the way it goes. But you know, obviously we
don't have all that information, so that's kind of informed speculation for me.
Pat, I got the same question for you, and then we have a
follow up here Benny has a question as well. Here we'll get to I
mean not to be Edgy Robert, but it comes down to opportunity, right,
Like if I am a free agent quarterback and I can make the same
amount of money, but I have to go against you know, give a
quarterback for example, Ben de Nucci from last year. Right, let's say
he doesn't play with the Sea Dragons. He's in the same situation where he's
like, I need to go play in the spring League to do X,
Y and Z. Do I want to go play for X team with this
quarterback who's established like the Showboats, Or do I feel like I can go
beat out Quinn Dormandy, or I can beat out Jamalen McClendon for DC or
San Antonio. So it comes down to that these guys, very few of
them, I would have to say, want to make their career playing in
the UFL. I believe that everyone who goes to the UFL has the dream
of going to the NFL. Crazy, right, So at this point these
guys are going to be looking at it saying what scheme do I fit the
best, Where can I go to, Where am I going to get on
the field, and what can I do to showcase my talents in an effort
to reach my goals. We have a couple more picks here coming in Jamir
Ross Johnson here going back to the Stallions here at stacked with chanting it back
to back at CJ. Johnson going to the defenders. Craig for you,
Vinny has a question this guy here, who'd you guys have said having the
best draft offensively? Who have you been impressed by of any of these teams?
M is kind of tough, like because without looking at like in totality
to you, yeah, I will, I think, what's your gut feeling?
Oh, it's tough right now. I like what Saint Louis has done
so far, like addressing some of their secondaries and the players they brought in.
I'll see it. Even like c J. Johnson there though too.
That's another DC defender. They're going after these big body wide receivers still besides
Chris Rowland, but you know he's a guy at Eastern Carolina. He was
a very very good player. He had a lot of off the field issues.
He got invited in the NFL comments still last year did all right there?
You know, got a cup of coffee in like training camp. But
he's a guy that could be very good in this league if he has his
head on straight. Greg's same question, who are you feeling like as having
the best draft offensively? Offensively? I look at again, DC. You
know they pick a quarterback. They needed another one. I'm not really sold
on Jalen McClendon me the answer, but they addressed it with a high draft
pick, adding two receivers. C J. Johnson. When I wrote my
column on UFL board, Johnson was my surprise unprotected from the defenders. I
was surprised that they left him unprotected. So to come back in the super
dispersal draft and get him in round eight, I think is a pretty good
bargain. You know, you look at it looks like a lot of teams
really helped themselves on defense. Saint Louis adding three guards. Their draft is
done, but they added Khalil McKenzie, who I already raved about. Abdul
Beacham from Orlando. Christian Olums said backup types. But as we've seen with
these leagues, you need good backups. I mean, if you can go
too deep at every position on the offensive line, you're going to be in
pretty good shape. The Brahmas did some interesting stuff adding bj Wilson. They
added Landon Acres coming back over Katie Cannon. So we know in that offense,
wide receivers are going to be important. They're going to play a role,
so kind of like some of those pickups. And you know Memphis with
their last pick in the at the eighth round, Damian Willis out of Seattle,
so he was pretty far down the receiver depth chart I think in Seattle,
but still playing in a June Jones offense is going to get you noticed.
So I think he did pretty well there and has a pretty good pick
up for round eight. We had a question asking about the Renegades drafting.
It looks like their last pick was Juwan Minigo here coming in about seventeen minutes
ago. So just again I had had on their battle Hawks announcing they're done,
a kind of a different vary numbers and all that stuff. Anyway,
from Mike's question, Pat, who you feel like is having the best draft
defensively, I think I think you said defensively or overall, well, however
you want to take it at this point, overall, I think it was
san Antonio. I mean, I think you automatically upgrade. When you pick
up you know, Quentin Dormandy, you know, dealing with all the stuff
that he did, showed a lot of bouts. You throw him in that
AJ Smith offense. I think it could get real, real goofy in a
good way. You picked up DJ Wilson, sup Shure up to the offensive
tackle spot. You bring back landon Acres, someone that they obviously had their
eye on for the trade. I think going at that front, they're a
much improved team. You keep pieces all around. You know, Saint louis
really depth heavy. No one really blows me away as far as as far
as too. They picked up I do like Khalil McKenzie XFL twenty twenty guy,
some NFL experience and also played i think all ten games last year,
able to be versatile, So there are definitely some improvements on that offensive offensive
line. They also brought back Christian Olmsted, who was their seventh or eighth
offensive lineman that you know played on field goal but in active a decent amounts.
So a lot of safe picks, a lot of picks that could easily
improve the team. But we leave this draft without a quarterback, and that
is something that fans of the league will be tweeting about and blowing up dms
about and all that goofy stuff. Greg, how are we doing in terms
of like where we're at in the draft? I know that Saint Louis is
done, he said, are we kind of winding down here? I'm trying
to check some of the teams. Looks like it looks like Arlington, Michigan,
Houston are done. They didn't make round eight picks. Saint Louis announced
that almost said was their last pick. So we're looking at Memphis DC in
Birmingham potentially with round nine picks, although we're not sure. I haven't seen
any other picks come in the for the ninth round. But I think,
you know, Pat is right in terms of the Brahmas, like if you
can come into a draft like this and get potentially a starting quarterback in Quenton
Dormandy, And I think, you know, maybe a little unfair to judge
Jack cone By last year because of the offensive line issues, because of the
injuries elsewhere on the offense, not just the offensive line, by the way,
they had some running back issues as well with Kylen Bilage. Maybe tough
to judge, but certainly Quenton Dormandy showed at the end of last season that
he could be a starting quarterback caliber player in a league like this. So
if you're able to get a starter at that position in this type of draft,
I think that vaults you to the top of the list in terms of
who won this draft. Craig Any thoughts on kind of rounding out any of
these rosters, anything else on pat what Greg said, I don't really have
too much else to add. I think, you know, San Antonio did
a good job with kind of what they've done. Like I like what Saint
Louis did. I think a lot. You know, at the end of
the day, it's hard to get like to screw up this type of draft,
honestly, because you're picking players that you already didn't have, making your
roster a little bit better. So every team should be getting better in this
too. I think obviously the special teams when we were talking about Michigan earlier,
was kind of interested in having two kickers and two punters. But you
know, to each their own in that regard. Patty think Dormany that was
the biggest name today in the draft. Yeah, maybe not first play,
but because of all the all the all the baggage, and I used to
warn baggage lightly all the stuff the year before, So I mean, I
I think his play was a lot better than a lot of people probably gave
it credit or and whatnot. But overall, I'm excited to see a guy
like that still continue to have an opportunity, especially with all these all these
you know, the cutting down of the workforce and whatnot. Very interesting to
see though, the amount of air quote free agency spots. I've had a
couple guys tell me that they who were signed that didn't sign their lois that
they do plan on coming back as well. So you know, Saint Louis
only picking what eight guys, seven guys that brings their roster up to sixty
one or sixty two. They had twenty one spots open coming into this DC
twenty two, you know, Arlington twenty Birmingham twenty two. So I'm very
curious to see what's going to happen as well. Greg names, you're surprised
to see not pop up here today that we were talking to Dad and the
Silvers and all that. I mean, just any any kind of red red
flags out of there. You're seeing players that didn't get picked up. Well,
it's hard to say because we don't really know, especially for the whole
overs from last year, who signed their lois and who did right, so
we know the ones who are new to the league, especially for the XFL,
where they were putting out press releases of hey, these guys are new
to the league. They've signed loys or they've returned from the NFL and they've
signed LOI. So it's really hard from that perspective to know who was in
the pool. Very hard to find USFL roster information, updated roster information quite
frankly in you know, preparing my review of the dispersal draft, and certainly
as we get to preparing my review of the super dispersal Draft. So really
hard to say who was who was in the dispersal draft other than those who
made it clear on social media. A couple more picks here. I just
want to point out Boogie Roberts by the picked he did so he was in
the USFL, signed an LI with the XFL, I think with the Brahmas
was not protected among the forty two. So now he goes to the defenders.
We had John Yarborough go to the Bramas with the first pick of the
ninth round. He was with Houston the XFL last year, So another Roughneck
being brought over by the Brahmas coaching staff who coached the Roughnecks last year.
Long snapper Turner Bernard goes to the Showboats and as a quandary, right White
staying with Birmingham. So I think Birmingham their last five picks have all been
players who played with Birmingham last year. So you know, when you talk
about deep teams, right, if you're Birmingham, you may look at that
forty two protection lists and say, wow, I can only protect forty two
while there's some players who might be some teams that might be really scrounging to
find forty two players on their roster worth protecting. So you're seeing that Birmingham
had such a deep roster that they protected their forty two and then they're picking
up more of their own players to add to their roster this offseason. What
I want to get into we can do a little bit of talk here before
we get out at some point about the kickoff game, because I do think
that that's going to be very interesting all of that. Yeah, Pat,
what do you think? Boogie here? I know there have been questions about
that. Good to see him sticking around with the defenders any of these these
last This has to be near the end here, right in terms of the
names coming out, I mean, John Yarborough has been around the league,
these leagues, TSL guy, Canadian guy. I think he played with the
Browns in camp for five minutes, played with the Gamblers last year in twenty
twenty two. Kicks over to the XFL with the Roughnecks. They obviously transition
staff. John Yarborough versatile, can play guard and tackle. I don't think
he's amazing at any spot, but he's definitely a value piece that has a
lot of starting experience in these leagues. So definitely not a bad guy to
have on your roster. Especially you got to keep these guys around for the
micro because you still might have some of these power five guys and group of
five guys who still think they're going to be in the NFL. So like,
in my opinion, you might see guys who you're like, oh man,
that's kind of crazy. He's sticking around in the cycle until these leagues
start becoming like a legitimate Like this league isn't going anywhere in ten years and
with spring football every five minutes, we're not really sure what's gonna happen.
Boogie the interior right there. I believe they had a gentleman named Robert Windsor
that they that they signed that they didn't protect, so him and TJ.
Barnes are really going to clog up that middle Itsqandre White came on a little
bit in the end of the year, a little bit more playing time,
splitting carries with a CJ. Marrible and Ricky Pearson. So another depth piece,
Like Greg said, you had teams that were like, oh man,
who are we going to protect forty two? And then you had teams that
were like, okay, man, like as soon as you come come up
in our draft board, like you're coming back. So don't you know granted
I'm sure he doesn't live in Birmingham, but don't unpack for too long,
you know. Well, But also like Greg, like you said, you
have I mean, some of these teams are just a lot better. And
then you have some of these coaches right with the Brahmas, that's just weird
ynamic where like we're wanting to take a lot of the Roughnecks players to the
Bromas. Maybe Wade does a want and the same with de Filippo, which
who followed me on Twitter the other day. Some of them it's a fake
account or not if someone trying to potentially that could be my USML Conference team.
But yeah, Greg, just the roster gymnastics and all of that,
where you have two of those weird dynamics with those teams, and like you
said, yeah, if I'm the Stallions, I want to save everyone I
don't want, I don't need any Malers on my team or whatever. Yeah,
and that's the whole point of this, these dispersal drafts is to get
the teams more on even footing. Where Birmingham is far and away, I
would say the best roster of the USFL. DC and Saint Louis certainly two
of the best rosters in the XFL. And then you have a team like
the Brahmas, who finished three and seven last year, really struggled with their
roster construction with injuries and things like that. So by being able to draft
players you know that Birmingham didn't protect, So you know these players that Birmingham
is selecting back to their roster were eligib today to be selected by a team
like San Antonio so that they could make themselves better. They chose to go
in different directions. They chose to load up again, not surprisingly on the
roughnecks of last year. So I guess the big point of this is to
we don't want one in nine teams. Okay, we don't want a team
like the Guardians being one to nine. Competitive football is the goal here.
And to that end, how do you combine two different leagues where you're eliminating
eight teams and you still have all of these players who have either signed letters
of intent or who are under contract. And this goes back to our conversation
at the beginning of the show, where this was not a perfect system by
any stretch, but I certainly couldn't think of anything better because it's such a
You have so many complicated factors going into combining these teams, wanting to do
it equally, but also wanting to do it fairly and wanting to make sure
you're fair about the dispersal, but also making sure that teams can be as
equal as possible because you want that comp petition once the season kicks off.
You don't want forty to zero snoozers. That's not going to Attrack the audience
you need to keep these leagues going. We'll get Pat and then we'll go
to Craig on this. And this was his interesting came of Matt Lyons just
posted this in our group chat here. Jeff Bedett tweeting out because they said,
obviously, Kelly Latimer, how are you just going to lay Jeff Badet
on the board. Do whoever I read the wrong way, I apologize.
All I ever cared about was getting warm percent better every day and helping my
team win by all means. And then we've talked to Bedett. We had
a lot of comments and that that to me is a little bit weird on
that pad initial thoughts. So we do know that Jeff may have rubbed the
staff in Michigan in twenty twenty two a little bit a certain way. So
maybe that kind of negates his standing with one team. You do have Jeff
with his time in his twenty twenty team Colley help me guys, was the
Renegades, so he was with Yeah, so he was a Bob Stoops twenty
seventeen he was with the he was with Oklahoma. So Stoops stopped coaching at
Ou in sixteen. But you have to think like college football was a little
bit different back then, that Stoops had a hand in him coming to OU
in seventeen and with you know, Lincoln Riley being there and everything like that,
Like people know who Jeff Beidet is. I mean, I think he
still has the capability of playing this league, but you're also asking a twenty
nine year old receiver like, you know, to be a part of this
whose name is in Josh Gordon or Martavis Bryant. You know, like Jeffidet
has a couple of receptions in the regular season game under his belt, it
becomes a little bit more. I think Jeff should be a part of this
league. But at the same time, it's like, you know, you
take a guy like Landon Acres who's a couple of years younger. A lot
of these guys a couple of years younger. I mean, I hate to
be edgy, but you know, life's not fair, man like. But
you're also looking at and we just like kind of went through the numbers real
quick, like there's still about sixty the seventy roster spots open, like you
know, and how many of these guys are going to get drafted and just
be like nah, fam, I'm good. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean to me, and like I love Jeff and he's been on the
show and I think he follows, he accounts and everything. Like some of
these like people got really restless with all this like pre draft stuff and like
I'm tweeting out the private emails from everything and I'm going to delete it later
and it's like, I don't know, maybe that pissed people off and they're
like, we don't want to I don't know, Like I just I it's
easy for me to kind of tweet and say things. It doesn't really affect
me, if you know, if I'm not going to get fired from the
XFL or whatever. But I just thought there was a it kind of got
involved in that. Are we surprised at here? No, No Jeff Bedett
today kind of now that we finally rounded this out. Yeah, I mean
it's it's interesting, for sure, But you know, he's been a guy
that's been around a lot of these leagues for a long time. He's had
a lot of soft tissue injuries too. That's kept him off the field for
most of the time. Because the last season, so you know, there's
that factory's getting older obviously kind of have some of the I don't even know
what you want to call it, the conflict between the two leagues when they
were kind of murdering and he was talking about, you know, being a
part of the players like union on the one side, and he's trying to
say all this stuff and they come out and they're like, oh, well,
everything you just says not true. One never too how much does that
actually play a role into everything too? There's just so many here. At
the end of the day, he's probably gonna end up. If he doesn't
get drafted, he will high with some team. We'll see if he makes
faster or not. It's just gonna take the situation, I think, Greg
I think this is the last last picks coming in here certain four minutes ago
Brahmas with Cody Tressed, Anthony Hines here going into the Defenders, Bobby Holly
not the wrestler right with the Stallions, and then at Ty Smith here with
Matt Maxis commenting a big pick up for the show notes and Ty Smith with
a few defensive standat players from the Guardians last season. Greg Any thoughts on
fellow Guardians and Ty Smith or anyone else here yeah. Ty Smith sort of
on the back end of the Orlando defense did okay last year. Cody Krest
for San Antonio was another Lois signing by Houston in the offseason. He had
spent some time in NFL training camp. This year, Anthony Hines a really
good backup who can spot start with d C, good special teams player,
so that's a really good pick. He was in d C last year.
DC's been picking up just like Birmingham. Did you know DC's been picking up
the last five aside from Boogie Roberts, I think five of the last six
picks have all been DC players from last year that they're bringing back. So
Hines is a good depth piece. Bobby Holly for Birmingham. The fullback is
not dead yet, and Holly is I think he can play some tight end
as well, so good for Birmingham bringing another name for Birmingham being brought back.
So yeah, I mean, even here in the tenth round, quality
players being taken. I would assume San Antonio might be one of the last
teams to be drafting because they're gonna want to pull as many roughnecks from twenty
twenty three or Loi signings of the roughnecks over so they may go a little
deeper than a lot of other teams for that sake, to really add those
players who fit their offense and fit their defensive schemes. Pat An the pounce
on these last names coming in. I mean, Bobby Holly is a guy
with Skipholz ties, not only from the last two years, but also also
I'm at Louisiana Tech, like Greg said, an extremely versatile guy. I
believe Birmingham's well, I know they have Jason Sternberger. I don't know if
they kept bad Moss back, but you know, with the rosters being as
versatile as you need to do, you'll have a guy like Holly who will
play on special teams and whatnot. Ty Smith, he's an older guy.
I know he played. He's playing a bunch of NFL games. I think
I saw last year he had like seventy total tackles in his NFL career.
So you bring in a veteran presence down the Memphis and whatnot. Anthony Hines
once again, a guy in the in the room, in the in the
team versus lo can kind of fill in with Francis Bernard and whatnot. If
Bernard goes out, So nothing really to lose my mind about, you know,
going on my list real quick. San Antonio had fourteen spots open,
so we'll see what happens. And then Cody Kress, I think he's kind
of like playing an a Chris Clone. But obviously when you sign him and
you have the open spot, by not bring him back, right, Craig
any pos these final picks coming in, Yeah, I mean, like Keevin
Bobby Holly is gonna be like important for them. He's a good special teamer,
good fullback. At the least he had their one long touchdown I believe
it was that last year before he got hurt. Yeah, so obviously he's
been around you knows the system too. And then I like Cody Krest,
I think that's a good pickup. But like it's gonna be really interesting to
see what that san Antonio offense looks like once again, when you get all
these pieces in there, figuring out who actually makes the team's gonna be like
another thing too, just because they have so many wide receivers there. Now
it's like, okay, so who are we keeping for seven or eight guys
that they go with and who ends up on the field the most there's a
lot of interesting pieces there because there's a lot of names, Like they got
some of the guys they that are holdovers, they got the guys they brought
over from the Roughnecks. Who you know, there's some guys Ag Smith particularly
likes one way or another. So it'll just be interested to see all those
pieces all play out too. And I'm trying to remember the name. But
they had their running back too from Hawaii from two years ago. He got
hurt most of the last year, but he actually played initially like D two.
Yeah, Kelvin Turner Jr. But he initially played like D two Quarterbacksville
State transfers to the wai to play running back, and then he was working
out for like NFL teams as a running back slash wide receiver. So I
think guy, he just spotted it. In terms of we have a a
couple of questions around that Greg people asking about Cole McDonald. Seemed like he
was pretty athletic last year. I no no side of Cole McDonald. They're
obviously Brandon Silver's, but Cole McDonald seemed like someone that was pretty a focal
point of the XVl marketing last year. Right in terms of the player of
fifty four. Yes, I guess yeah, it's hard to market a backup
quarterback beyond that, you know, because that was that was his role,
backup quarterback, short yardage specialist, that sort of thing uses very much a
gadget player last year for the Roughnecks. I'm not sure really if there's a
ton of room for that on a roster this year, especially in this draft.
And again he's one of those guys that we don't know if we signed
an LOI to return or not. Same thing with Brandon Silvers. If you
were on a team last year and you made it through the end of the
season, the XFL didn't really publicize whether or not you signed an LOI.
It was only the guys who were new to the league or who had been
released to sign with an NFL team and returned to the league. So that's
why I said, it's so hard to know who was even in this pool.
To really critique picks or non picks, I will say, and I
guess it's probably the statute of limitaitious past year we're talking about the Roughnecks to
Renegades and all that stuff. With the player forty four. I remember when
I was in DC for the Sea Dragons game. The night before, I'm
watching the game that Renegades and Roughnecks at the bar with a lot of the
player fifty four guys win the Renegades. It was like all the producers and
stuff and they're like, oh my god, we can't believe the Renegades don't
like we haven't we haven't been tracking them on the show, like we don't
have any footage of them. They're gonna go to the championship game. And
I remember, like I was just excited and Perez and everything, but it
was like, oh gosh, like we really need to like have a production
media right now and figure out, like how are we gonna market this game.
I think this is kind of weird because Bob Stoops is their head coach,
and he was probably, along with Wade Phillips, like the most well
known head coach, so you think they'd at least have like be filming him
and and things like that. So that was kind of weird to me.
And some of the you know, Luis Perez, a friend of the show,
filled in with Brian Scott and all that stuff of the vibras. You
know, Louis is a nice guy. But not exactly the most verbos of
orators, you know, when you're getting down to two interviews and stuff.
Pat, we have a question here, Madre. Is Madre London still around?
Did he make it on the roster? Madre London was with the Malers
signed but I don't remember if he Re signed him. Yeah, I don't
see him on the rosters right now. He did not get picked up today
from so far and why week as well? A lot of people love Madre
London because of all the great stuff he did in the European League of Football
and he's a spring league guy. I mean, I thought he was kind
of you know, I mean you had Garrett Grocerer. I thought he was,
you know, a little bit faster version of Garrett Groshak. He didn't
really lack that like explosive speed. And everyone was like, but yeah,
over two thousand yards rushing in in the European leg of football and I'm like,
yeah, I mean that's cool. But like a lot of those guys
haven't been playing football for more than like three hours. So I mean it
was a story that didn't really get like as much traction. I think more
fame for Madre London came because he was the Daveion Smith's replacement because of the
Pizzagate nonsense. But I mean, I think he's like twenty six. I
looked it up the other day. He's like twenty six years old. Plenty
of roster spots. Guy gets hurt. I mean, if you want to
talk about guy in the mallers who should have got signed Troy Williams. But
that remains a big scene, timy Wise, here are we are? We
about rounding down here? I though I've been trying to track Greg. You
maybe have a better pulse on just I mean, I assume we'll get a
press release at some point of the other teams. I just don't want to
keep people all day. I kind of want to be about this. It
looks like round ten is the end. I haven't seen any picks being released
before that. The XFL main twitter account is now tweeting out round by round
picks okay on tweet, so if you're interested, you can kind of see
them and track them from there. But it looks like we're done. And
I look at you know, the teams like the Bramas they added ten players
today on top of the several that they picked and protected. So you have
teams like the Bramas who have you know, three to four players, you
know, three to four openings on their roster. Same with Memphis, they
picked ten, they had thirteen open coming in. So you know there are
teams with single digit openings less than five. You have some teams, for
example, I think the Roughnecks picked six, so they could have picked thirteen
and they've got seven openings. Arlington had twenty openings on their roster. They
only picked five, so they got fifteen openings on their roster for free agency
tomorrow. So you can kind of see how every team is treating this draft
a little bit differently. They are keeping different numbers of roster spots open for
free agency tomorrow. Some of them may have an idea of some players they
want to sign already tomorrow who are not in the USFL or XFL. Maybe
they've been talking to players already who are free agents. So it's going to
be interesting to see how that plays out. And again it's gonna be interesting
to see how that's covered by the UFL, how those signings are made,
and when those signings are announced. Yeah, I will say Justin Weill flashed
this up on here, and of course we do rounds five through nine,
and then we did a tweet for round ten and then at some point I
would think we would just tweet them all in one consecutive list. But that
of the outside in terms of the free agencies have obviously when we do in
the live show on that, but like and subscribe if we get the rules
and stuff this week or the schedule will definitely do depending on how they do
the schedule, but at least, you know, look for an episode Friday
if we do get some of the stuff this week, and maybe we can
get Pat back on or someone Greg whoever wants to you. But kind of
talking about, you know, any of the big free agency signings and all
that stuff. Pat, now that we have the list here, anything else
standing out from you? And I'm trying to get if we can Scott got
for big it read arounds one through ten and when the consecutive list. No,
not really, you know, we talked about, you know, the
monetary values of these tweets and whatnot. You know, something I would have
liked to see, and this is me really really nitpicking, is you have
the guy and then you have his Twitter handle. You know, like,
oh, that's a lot of work. We can't even get one to ten
in the order. I don't think we're I think we're getting the clearer to
it. Maybe eleven dollars for Twitter blue you would you would have got a
pretty decent amount of impressions today. That and then you know, with them
only playing paying these guys sixty thousand dollars and whatnot, like every dollar counts,
you know what I mean, So these guys don't have to work side
jobs and everything. They can focus on building their brands and whatnot. And
I know that might be like a real nitpicky thing, but like that that
stuff counts, man, Like you know that that stuff really does count.
And you know it's eleven dollars for a blue check and there ROI can we
all agree would be a pretty decent like chunk of change, especially if they
did it last week with like I said, James, three thousand followers,
almost two million impressions the xbl three eighty three. Yeah, we can't even
get it's good. Yeah, And like they still don't have anything passed around
five on your craig any other thoughts and any of this kind of stuff.
Here, we'll start getting this down Football Fair, you know hit like like
the video subscribe. We added like twenty six subscribers I think, So that's
exciting. We have that two hundred people watching, So thanks everyone for checking
it out. You were at like two because I have it on my laptop,
so I'm cheating getting that extra getting that extra view. Had I appreciate
that. I think Dorothy's downstairs on their phone as we'll watch it. We
have the numbers, but yeah, we had like two hundred and eighty at
one point or two sixty at one point. It wasn't on Twitter, so
it was all YouTube. So I mean, I mean people, people are
gonna you know, type this in and see this and hopefully you know,
they think we're semi competent, and you know, you know, they continue
to watch and you know, let's let's see what happens. But thank you
for everyone for listening to us talk for almost two hours. Let me just
say, and I keep wanting to go to Craig again, but we keep
cutting them off as sorry. I will say, like, uh, you
know, tweeting not ten minutes before, like hey, we're doing this today,
Like I just even if they had just put that Friday, we're doing
this, and then like we said today, they're not all on the XFL
count around the teams, Like there's such little things like if you're going to
do it, it's just not not hard at all to do this. And
like I said, I think we probably could have gotten another thirty forty percent
of the viewership on here if it was it. Hey, we're doing it.
You know, we were gonna do it this afternoon. We're doing it
now. I appreciate obviously Greg stepping up in blocking time and Pat and Craig
is Craig Any other thoughts on kind of any of these names and any other
thoughts on anything. Yeah, I think it's just been an interesting experience overall.
Like obviously we've had these two different drafts, and like even going back
to like someone with Greg said, like we don't know like some of these
guys that signed the letter intent. So maybe that's playing a big factor in
like these quarterbacks not getting drafted because we don't even know if they're signed the
love for the league, you know. And at the same time, maybe
some of these quarterbacks are debating between coming back to the league or like going
to the CFL and trying to explore explore out there too, because you have
slightly less options, but you still have options at the end of the day.
So you know, even when we're talking about a guy like Cole mcdonwell,
like maybe he goes to the CFL now because his game could fit pretty
well up there, you know, around the goal line, running around everything
else like that, even if it's just you know, your short yardage quarterback.
So there's a lot of different factors here. I think it's gonna be
very interesting to see what happens with this free agency and even kind of going
back to what someone Greg brought up, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot
of these teams kind of had like backdoor deals with some of these guys to
sign as free agents. And that's why the less some of their roster spots
open, because you're probably not gonna go after teams for there's no real tampering
in this league. I guess, yeah, I mean, we'll see what
happens. I mean there was a little bit of tamper ring in the USFL,
right with like the Generals at one point, well they signed too many,
right, they signed too many over the summer, and then they got
they got halted a draft pick in the college draft or whatever it was.
If that was wild Times there Greg, any any other thoughts on this,
I don't want to, I say, just someone to keep everyone all day.
Yeah. Like so what Craig was saying, it kind of reminds me
of the NFL Draft, where you have teams start negotiating with potential undrafted free
agents in round six, in round seven, So there could be a little
bit of that going on. If Arlington knows they're going to sign two or
three really good players in free agency, they may, you know, say,
Okay, those guys are going to be better than anyone who's left in
the draft pool. So we're going to stop drafting right there, knowing we're
going to bring these guys onto the roster. And you know, if you're
a Brandon Silvers and you know, you can sign your letter of intent at
any time, and I'm assuming these guys are going to sign their contracts officially
when they get to training camp. Maybe not, who knows, but you
know, if you're Brandon Silver's, is there an advantage to signing your li
to be in the draft pool where you are kind of limited in your own
power. You're you're going to be drafted by a team and that's the team
that has your rights, or you sign your LLI. After the draft,
you go into the free agency where you can kind of choose maybe what team
you want to be a part of. So there could be a little bit
of that going on as well, a little gamesmanship from the player's point of
view in terms of those llys or those contracts. You know, just throwing
that out there as a possibility. I don't know that to be a fact,
but it wouldn't surprise me if agents are kind of leading their players down
that direction. Well, yeah, I give your Brandon Silvers, you know,
ag I'll bring you back regardless of try. I mean, I think
that there's certainly an open door there. I remember we had Brandon Silver's on
the show and he's like sitting on his pickup truck and I'm like, oh,
what do you do? I just like fishing when I'm not player,
and I'm just I don't know if Brandon Silver's is game in the system,
but I certainly wouldn't put it past it. Like, you know, if
he wants to go play with a J. Smith, I'll tell you,
you know, get him back on the Brahmas. I think that would be
good. Pat anything else, we still can't get this list in order.
The XBL is tweeting out we have. I think what they did. I
think what they did read is they tweeted and they made individual tweets for every
one in the first five rounds, and then instead of doing that for rounds
five through ten, they just put them all in one list. So if
you're looking for one through four as a list, I think they did each
individual tweet and then that I'm on here, I don't see that. I
mean, I'm I don't want to like get in the weed here, but
I'm on, like, I'm on here, we have around five a thread
through to eleven. I don't see rounds one to four anywhere, No,
I don't. I don't think they did rounds one through four the same way.
I think they did, each individual pick getting its own post or retweeting
or retweeting the team accounts for those posts. And then they stopped and for
five through eleven they just did the five through ten. Oh they did.
They did have a round eleven. Look at that. That was That's new
to me, Okay, Matthew Coughlin out here, Yes, yeah, the
Texas to be here. The why they heck did they tweet to tune in
live? You know, I just anyway, uh follow follow on Twitter the
Underscore Mark cast. I'll tweet out. I'm sure we're going to press release
here when it's all said and down. But this, you know, like
you either got to do it or you're not even the freaking XFL. The
drafting last year was great where you would just refresh it, it would pop
in the grid and all that. I mean, there's ways to do it
that aren't like we need to make all these graphics. Never think I pat
anything else here, not really. I mean final picks Myron Richel, Mitchell
Stallion's guy from last year, Reserved dude, you Coughlan a show Breakers guy.
You know they keep the same specialist Core Taylor. Don't really know much
about him. I apologize to him and his family. But in the end,
I uh, I think rewinding down here, man, it's been you
know, two hours. Uh, I mean, it just seems like maybe
these last final picks are just kind of like, hey, by the way,
you want to come play for us real quick. They're hoping that,
you know, maybe some of these NFL practice squad guys, you know,
don't sign their futures deals and whatnot. But that's a whole nother discussion,
uh for another day. You know, once again, appreciate you having me
come on, you know, Pat Ristrimo, I'll be streaming my thoughts and
yes tomorrow and everything like that before I go to Memphis. And you know,
I have to go to Memphis to shore up that spring football is happening
in Memphis, by the way, and that's why I was in Vegas to
try to get the Vipers back. But they told me to leave Cashfield.
They were like, yeah, what did they do? Pat? What cash
Refield? They were very they were very confused. Somebody I was there,
did you get some photos? I would like to see some photos from this,
so side side quest here. So I was just there for work,
obviously, and I'm walking up and down the strip, just kind of exploring
and seeing stuff. And then I find my way by a football field and
I'm like, oh, what's this? And then I didn't realize UNLV was
literally right off the strip, and I'm like, college children go here.
This is a terrible idea. And then I ended up like walking on to
like the UNLV practice facility, like driving around and whatnot. I was just
like, dude, why are they letting me do this? Like I am
just a random guy in a minivan mind you, and then you know,
a T mobile. You know, I didn't. I don't really like the
party, especially my girlfriend wasn't there, so it's like I don't want to
do stuff without her, you know. So it's like, you know,
it was kind of funny seven thirty in the morning. You see guys like
yelling Vegas, Vegas, Vegas, and I was just kind of like,
bro, you know, yeah, all right, let's oh where are the
Oh Craig dropped out? Where did he go? I've been doing the draft
stuff. He must have had to go. Has that been a long time?
I was trying to get the XFL thing up here XFL fans, Uh
here we and then we have round twelve, so we have this has to
be at We're down to two teams picking, so show both Antonio Brooks Defenders
and Enrique Yenni Romero. Any thoughts and any of that? Oh man,
I think Romano was the uh was it one of the kickers or something like
that? I don't know. I mean, I mean, I might be
I might be type casting there, but yeah, he was. He was
a kicker signed this offseason. Yeah, Greg, any other comments on any
of that stuff, Uh no, I mean kicker at this point is interesting.
They still have Matthew mccrane as well. He was one of the guys
they protected really good kicker from XFL twenty twenty and twenty twenty three, so
creating a little competition. I guess in training camp at that position, if
mccrane goes up, you know, like, we don't know if these we
don't know if these dudes are going to show up, they might just Well,
mccrane was protected, so I assume he had signed a letter of intent
at that point. Now that that could obviously change and he could decide not
to show up, but I'm assuming if you sign a letter of intent,
you're pretty solid on going to camp. At least I'm gonna pull up any
to see if he's done any punting or anything like that. But no,
he's a Canadian LFA, hey guy, you know, kind of upset the
LFA doesn't have a team in Cancun. You know, I'm trying to move
the Cancun lokey again, I'm not trying to keep everyone on here, but
I mean, we just had a round twelve, so I guess I'll give
it just another second here. I really thought we were done on here,
Greg. I guess anything else where they're really just kind of winding down the
ship here. No, I think that's uh, that's about it for me.
You know, we might get a few more picks here from from d
C and d C and Memphis. Of the last two remaining, Birmingham has
exhausted their picks, so I guess it's up to them to see if we
continue on. Yeah, go, Pat, Sorry, and Dave Bowler and
Anthony Beck want to go home. They want to go play some golf.
Yeah, Max says Ramera was playing in the Mexican League before this, so
there you go. Greg. Obviously we'll be doing deep dives here for a
ufl board. Now, how is that? How was the rebrand from xfl
board the ufl board. But you've been doing big d times with all these
team rosters. Yeah, I mean it doesn't really affect me all that much,
just making sure I type the right address in and things like that.
But I'm sure for Mark Nelson it's a little it's a little tougher. So
now you know, It's interesting because you know, I'm someone who I'll admit
I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to USFL. I didn't dive into
it, you know, very surface level, and I admit that every time
I come on here. But you know, it's been a learning experience for
me looking into the rosters, looking into how the teams performed last year,
and doing my deep dive into the previous draft. And so you know,
that'll continue with this and hope that as the off season progresses, I'll get
a little more and more comfortable with the USFL teams, the coaching staffs,
the rosters, and so you know, that's that's kind of my hope as
the off season goes on. Yeah, we have here the this has to
be at the final thirteenth round. The show notes Michael Stevens on there,
so Pat, I want you the whole dissertation of Michael Stevens before we get
out of here. And Michael Stevens, well, when I saw that,
I thought his name was Michael Steivers. Which Michael Steivers is a freshman at
Illinois College, so who I know. He's a defensive back, was with
New Orleans last year. Same thing with the NC State. From what I
remember, I mean kind of just a reserve defensive back. I think in
twenty twenty two he had a little bit more to him as far as like
playing time, because I remember like looking him up at one point. But
I mean, if you're a breaker and you're kind of curious about where you're
gonna go, Daddy flipp gonna make it happen. So I think he started.
I think he started a little bit this year, but I mean that
defense was kind of overshadowed, or guys are overshadowed, like with girod Fernandez
and Bonte Diggs whatnot, so you kind of kind of you kind of really
go like his as the rest of the guys and whatnot, especially when you
have MBT on the offensive side of the ball and whatnot. So depth pic
in my opinion, quality quality defensive back at this league. We'll see what
happens on that front. But there is a reason why he it took a
minute to get into what we'll call it. It took a minute for him
to get back, you know. But it could also be one of those
things where it's like, hey man, we're gonna come get you. Don't
worry about it. You know, there were a couple, man, there
were a couple of guys who were on the who were on the showboats before
the Haley regime showboats that were getting text message like that they were safe,
and then all of a sudden they were like, oh my god, Whip
is the coach? What's going on? Oh? So yeah, I mean
like I don't know, Like I get that it's not anyone's fault, say,
but at the same time, like, I mean, I don't you
know, I'm It's like, I don't run this league, So who am
I? You know, who am I to make these decisions and all that
stuff. So I also don't want to say anything that upset the upset the
ebb and flow of everything. But yeah, man, there were some guys
who got text messages from existing staff. Like I told you, there was
two or three guys who I talked to that got like, didn't even know
they were safe last week, And I mean, god, willing next year.
This is a little bit more streamlined. Yeah, I will say they
had a question here. I'll get to in the minute. Yeah, it's
I don't know. We we didn't do the one last week because he didn't
want people's feelings hurt because they did or didn't find out, but that we're
doing this with it, I don't. I don't really get the rhyme maries
of any of that stuff, Greg anything else here as we wait down.
This has to be at the round thirteen I would expect. So round twelve
was Listens Tonio Brooks by the way, but it's actually Antoine Brooks. Yeah,
safety out of the Seattle Sea Dragon. So I think that's a pretty
quality pick up for Memphis this late in the draft. But yeah, I
would assume that Memphis is it's down to just Memphis now, so either they're
going to continue picking against nobody or or they're done with round thirteen, Lucky
number thirteen. We had a question here talking about fantasy sides for UFL pat.
I assume Mark's doing something again, right, I mean that kind of
seems like it's his thing. Yeah, so Mark, we'll be doing it
on UFL news Hub. I don't know the specifics of it. I know
he's done it for the last couple of years. There's also another kid,
I'll pull up his Twitter draft. I forget what the hell is his name,
but it's draft fantasy. I did. I did last year. Let
me just get his Twitter pulled up real quick on my either. But he
did it. It was it was all fantasy or something like that, all
fantasy draft or something like that. Yeah, just handle is all fantasy sports.
I did it through him last year. Pretty solid guy. I think
his name is like Jet or something like that. But I did it through
his league. I think Mike Mitchell was in that league as well. And
you know, I didn't really have any complaints. You know, it's it's
going to take a minute until I think they get it streamlined. I know
Mark stuff has been pretty good throughout you know, the time, from when
I've heard that from people. So I mean either one of those two options
I recommend, and you know both those guys are pretty responsive in the DMS.
If you do mention UFL news Hub and message UFL news Hub and you
don't get a response back, feel free to reach out to me and I'll
go direct with Mark. That just kind of you know, you know,
push the things and push it forward. I know he's on the beach right
now or at the pool, so but we do have what seventy five days
so this bad voice starts, so I'm sure he'll start starting up prior to
Yeah, and then two and two we're getting out of here seeing Greg greg
I think I think that if Memphis only had thirteen spots open on the roster
coming into today, and they've made thirteen picks, so I'd assume that's the
end. Okay, that's the end. I just I'm hoping for a final.
And then at two and two had a comment here, do you guys
have any suggestions for Instagram accounts? They did he if he changed his name
the XFL analyst. UFL analyst is having the best best account to have on
there to follow all the breaking news? Is it pad? Did he update
his handle? I haven't been on Instagram a lot later Facebook step the UFL
Analyst on Instagram. That's kind of the way way to go. You know.
He does get a lot of these players DM ing him as well,
so and he doesn't really do much on like YouTube or anything like that.
He's also on Twitter. I think he's still XFL analyst on Twitter. But
once again, if you can't find it, send send me a d M
and I'll shoot you the link or whatever. But it's UFL analyst on Twitter.
Now, it might still be XFL analyst on Instagram. But yeah,
he's a good he's a good uh resource, and you know he is a
young, a young kid and whatnot. But he is still like you know,
he's been doing it since like the AAF, so he's not a bad
resource at all. He doesn't do YouTube or anything, which I've told him.
I was like, dude, how are you not if you got all
these players in your dms? But you know, maybe maybe later, maybe
maybe maybe later. We'll rather here Greg, get anything else from you.
No, I think that's good. You know, I'll have something later in
the week on this draft and and breaking things down a little bit more so,
uh look on ufl board dot com for that coming up, and that
Greg m Parks on Twitter and pat on there by, Pat Rafino. I
appreciate everyone, Like I said, we'll put this to bad follow Twitter.
We'll put out the father release at the end, but it could be two
seconds from now, it could be two hours from now, so appreciate it
like a subscribe thumbs up all that stuff. And like I said, Craig,
I DMed him. He said his internet ran out. And then John
Vogel, who is gonna come on by this Snowdan without proper internet, so
I really appreciate it everyone making time today. Like I said, look for
Friday episode if we get enough stuff this week, so that should be good.
So we'll see you guys next time. Thanks again