– stock.adobe.com)
Something jumped out at me from the USFL press release announcing that the new, old spring football league has named its first four coaches.
It was the boilerplate at the end of the release.
“The USFL is a new, independent football league controlled by FOX Sports through USFL HoldCo, LLC, a new business entity, and it is not associated or affiliated with the USFL of the 1980s or its owners.”
Wonder who they’re trying to distance themselves from here?
Picking the name USFL carries with it the positive vibes of Doug Flutie, Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, Steve Young.
There were some really good players playing spring football in the 1980s.
There was also one supreme ass clown who owned one of the teams and thought the league should challenge the NFL head-to-head in the fall.
Yep, it was Donald Trump who killed the USFL, pretty much like he ruins everything else he touches – the casino business in Atlantic City, the Republican Party, representative democracy.
I’d make sure, in the course of seeking publicity for the new USFL, to emphasize that this new entity has nothing to do with that guy.
Spring football has been a disaster in the decades since the USFL’s brief run at success, but you don’t invest millions wanting what you’re doing to be another failure.
From the look at it, this new USFL is making efforts. The release that I’m writing about here let us in on four new coaches hired by the league, and they’re good names – former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, former Oregon State and Nebraska head coach Mike Riley, former Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin.
Talent, as always, will be the make-or-break. NFL teams, with their rosters and practice squads, account for, give or take, the best 2,200 or so active professional football players in the world, so you’re starting at #2,201 and trying to build a product around guys from there.
If you watch preseason NFL football, think: Week 1, when the starters play one series, and teams look at the guys trying to make the roster the rest of the way, except that in the case of spring football, they’re what you got.
Which is why the XFL failed, twice, why the AAF failed.
I’m rooting for this USFL to be a success, however the people behind it would want to define success.
I guess not going out of business before the first season is over would be one measure.
The season is set to kick off on April 16. You can learn more about the USFL at USFL2.com and follow the league on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
The news here is: no Trump. That means I’ll be watching.
Story by Chris Graham
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