Category: Alternative Football

Daryl Johnston has been on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to startup football leagues.

In 2019, he served as general manager of the Alliance of American Football’s San Antonio Commanders, and watched the circuit implode before completing its first and only season – leaving behind bad debts and bad feelings.

Now the former Dallas Cowboys fullback is president of football operations for the United States Football League. And after meeting all its financial obligations in Year One and garnering solid television ratings, the USFL has returned.

Johnston likes where it’s headed.

“We hosted the Birmingham Stallions (on Monday at Protective Stadium) and passed out their championship rings,” Johnston said during a Tuesday morning press conference. “And it was really kind of a full circle moment for us because the room we hosted the event in was actually the room we did our inaugural draft back in February of 2022.

“We’re just really, really excited to kick off the season here in Year Two and bring high quality football to the fans of the USFL, and I cannot wait until we are crowning our Year Two champion next season as we get ready for season three. But there’s a lot of work to do before we get to that point.”

After Birmingham served as the hub for all eight teams in 2022, the league will have four sites this spring. Birmingham will be home to the Stallions and New Orleans Breakers; Memphis hosts the Showboats and Houston Gamblers; the Michigan Panthers will play in Detroit, along with the Philadelphia Stars; and the New Jersey Generals and Pittsburgh Maulers will call Canton home for 2023.

“We’ve actually moved out into four hubs throughout our league, and that was in response to a lot of the feedback we had from our fan base,” Johnston explained. “You know, one of the things they wanted to do was to see those full stadiums when the home teams were playing, and it was really hard for us to accomplish that with Birmingham basically having a home game every weekend. And our other teams, when they played, really didn’t have that same support.

“So, one of the things we wanted to do was start to get our teams into their home markets – or as close to their home markets as we can – and give them that opportunity that Birmingham had last season.”

The Memphis Showboats replace the Tampa Bay Bandits for the 2023 campaign, and have the honor of hosting the first USFL regular season game outside Birmingham.

The Showboats kick off the new season at 3:30 p.m. CDT on Saturday when they welcome the Philadelphia Stars to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.

Todd Haley, who guided the Bandits to a 4-6 record in 2022, is helming the Showboats.

“Daryl called me this summer and he said, ‘How would you feel about coaching the Memphis Showboats?” and I said it sounds great. And then he added, ‘You’re going to be in Memphis,” and that got me really excited,” Haley said. “I came down here for the opening press conference, got to see a little bit of Memphis. I’ve been in and out a few times, but really excited about everything that I’ve seen here.

“I mean, our facility here at Simmons Bank Liberty stadium is phenomenal. The locker room that we’re able to utilize is phenomenal. That gets the players excited. You know, just a first-class setup, and I think it’s only gonna get better.”

USFL head of officiating Mike Pereira was also on hand for the presser and gave updates on a few rule changes and tweaks in store for this spring and summer.

“We are always concerned about the pace of play, and the overall length of the game,” Pereira said. “And about Week Three last year, we had games that were lasting longer than three hours. So, we put in a rule that said that we would wind the clock after incomplete passes in the first and third quarters. It still really didn’t get the overall time of the game down to where we wanted it to, or where we wanted it to be. Therefore, this year, we’re expanding that winding after incomplete passes into the second and fourth quarters also, up until the five-minute mark of each one of those quarters, then the clock will remain stopped after the incomplete passes.

“We’re shooting for a game that falls into a window of around two hours and 45 minutes, maybe two hours and 55 minutes.”

Perhaps the biggest change – and best news for league offenses – is an alteration of the forward fumble rule.

“We did change a rule that got discussed every year when I was at the competition committee, and I was against changing it, but I got beat down a little bit,” Pereira said. “The rule has always been that when you fumble the ball forward and out of bounds in the field of play, the ball goes back to the spot of the fumble and the fumbling team keeps the ball. But the rule has been if you fumbled it forward into the end zone or into the pylon and out of bounds of the end zone, then it turned into a touchback and everybody – I mean I think every fan – felt that the rule was unfair. And so, we changed it. We’re treating all forward fumbles that go out of bounds the same even if it’s in the end zone. The ball goes back to the fumbling team at the spot of the fumble.”

Teams will also carry three quarterbacks this year. The third will remain inactive unless the first two quarterbacks are knocked out of the game. And kickoffs have been moved back to the 20-yard line to ensure even more runbacks.

Rules notwithstanding, the goal of the league is to provide quality entertainment for fans while giving players another chance to make the leap to the NFL. “Guys in this league have seen some guys extend their dream and make it into the NFL, and we embrace that as coaches and as the USFL,” Haley said. “So, we’re rooting for those kinds of things to happen. And when they see guys make it and stick on an NFL team and have success, that just builds the excitement even more because there’s just not enough spots in the NFL for all the talented players we have out there that love this game of football.”  

They celebrated big hits.

They celebrated big plays.

And when a teammate found his way into the end zone, they celebrated in big numbers.

Thing is, it was all just a scrimmage.

But football is a game, games are supposed to be fun, and two United States Football League rivals got to mix pleasure with business on Friday before things get serious.

The Birmingham Stallions and New Orleans Breakers locked horns today at Legion Field, putting in one last dress rehearsal ahead of the 2023 USFL regular season opener on April 15.

The Stallions will host the New Jersey Generals that night at Protective Stadium, while the Breakers – calling the Magic City home for the second consecutive year – will face the Pittsburgh Maulers at the same venue on April 16.

If the teams can match the enthusiasm they mustered at the Old Gray Lady next weekend, it should be two days of high energy football.

“We see each other in the hotel so there was some good-natured trash talk, and it was great,” said first-year New Orleans coach John DeFilippo, who served as Chicago Bears QB coach and passing game coordinator in 2021. “And our guys are so spirited. The best part about it was I saw very few injuries, if any at all. There’s a difference between doing things right in practice and doing the right thing in a game, so this was really important.

“There are a lot of different situations out there, and you’ve got to process it.”

Stallions quarterbacks J’Mar Smith, Alex McGough and Jalen Morton shuffled in and out throughout the scrimmage, which Birmingham boss Skip Holtz said was by design.

“Today, I rolled out every quarterback … I just want to see ‘em all play and see where we are,” Holtz said. “Next week, we’ll start putting it together.”

Like his counterpart, the Stallions coach was happy to close out preseason camp with a game-style workout.

“It’s been a long camp, so to be able to finish it with a little scrimmage like this against another team was great,” Holtz said. “Everybody’s starting to hit each other and ready to start playing games, and I thought both teams handled it really well.

“Tempers didn’t flare or anything like that. We got some work done, so I thought it was a really productive day for both sides, but excited to be back for season two. Excited to put this team together.”

Smith said with the scrimmage behind them, players will soon adopt a game week mindset.  

“The pieces are out there, we’ve just got to put the puzzle together,” he said. “We got one week of work left to get ready for New Jersey. Camp is over … we can finally say that, but now it’s time to get that 1-and-oh mentality and get ready for the season.”

McLeod Bethel-Thompson, fresh from helping the Toronto Argonauts win the 2022 Grey Cup, hopes to lead the charge for the Breakers in 2023.

The 34-year-old signal caller showed plenty of zip on his fastball today.

“We’ve been learning the same thing all camp,” he said. “It’s about us … we have to execute better and do the small things. We know we have the talent, but we have to do the basics and be fundamentally sound. And I have to cut down on my mistakes.”

The Stallions topped the USFL South Division last season with a 9-1 record, then won two playoff games (the first coming against the Breakers) to claim the inaugural league championship.

New Orleans, under the direction of Larry Fedora, finished second to Birmingham in the division with a 6-4 regular season mark.

Now all eight teams in the circuit hit the reset button for Year 2.

“We’ve got a lot of new faces on our football team this year, but I like the progress we’re making,” Holtz said. “We’re still not there … we’re not as consistent as we need to be. But we’re getting there.”

In the long, storied tradition of sports debates, I’m guessing few people argue about the greatest semi-pro football dynasty of all-time. There have been countless no money/beer money leagues throughout the game’s history, and tracking them all is next to impossible.

But …

This year is the 40th anniversary of the American Football Association’s final season, and in doing research on it I uncovered some interesting info.

First, the Carolina Storm won the final two AFA championship games, finishing 12-0 in 1982 and 7-0 in 1983. Not only that, they were dominant, scoring a lot while allowing the opposition very little in the way of points.

But just as I was about to suggest we crown the Storm semi-pro GOAT, I learned about the California Football League’s San Jose Tigers.

And what did I learn?

The Tigers were 14-0 in league play in 1977 and 14-0 in 1978.

They were also a club that overwhelmed the competition, and I decided that maybe they were even better than the Storm.

But …

After running roughshod through their foes in 1977, the Tigers squared off with the Pierce County (Washington) Bengals of the Northwest International Football League in what amounted to a championship of teams in the Pacific Northwest. So, I looked for a score from that one and found that Pierce County knocked San Jose from the unbeaten ranks, 28-27, at San Jose’s Spartan Stadium in a showdown dubbed the Holiday Bowl.

The game account, courtesy of the Tacoma News Tribune, reads like the script from a sports movie – complete with an ending that might’ve inspired a pivotal scene in All The Right Moves.

The turnover-prone Bengals trailed 14-0 at halftime, battled back to take a 15-14 lead, but found themselves down, 27-15, with 3:06 left.

Former University of California backup quarterback Mark Cahill quickly led the Steve Harshman-coached team down the field on the ensuing drive, capping it off with a 15-yard TD pass to Al Ketter that cut the deficit to 27-22 with just 1:22 left.

An onside kick failed, so all the Tigers had to do was run out the clock to wrap up a perfect season. However, a shaky exchange between San Jose QB Sonny Brasil and fullback Mike Bonds became a fumble following a hit by cornerback Mike Nelson, and the ball was picked up and returned for a 66-yard touchdown by safety Larry Smith with 26 seconds remaining.

“That was too lucky to believe,” Smith told the San Francisco Examiner after the game. “I was really surprised they didn’t just fall on the ball and run out the clock and win the game. We were just going for the ball and they gave us the chance.”

The Tigers still had a shot at winning with a 39-yard field goal attempt on the game’s final play, but the snap was high and the ball was never placed down.

As I continued to peruse the article, I discovered that the Bengals’ victory was their 32nd consecutive “W” dating back to early in the 1973 season – and that Harshman played offensive guard to go along with his coaching duties.

Naturally, I had to learn more.

And what I learned made me forget my plan to write about the Tigers and Storm, and take a deeper dive into the Pierce County dynasty.

The original Bengals existed from 1973 to 1981, and over nine seasons compiled a remarkable 86-8-1 record as members of the NWIL (1973-79) and Pacific Northwest Football League (1980-81).

As impressive as those numbers are, Pierce County also won five consecutive league championships from 1973-77, was named Pro Football Weekly national champions in 1977, and had three perfect seasons and only one campaign with more than one loss (an 8-3 mark in 1978).

In addition, they were two-time winners of the Can-Am Bowl, which pitted them against the top semi-pro team from Canada.

It was 1977, though, that stood out among all the standout seasons.

Cahill (Olympic, California and UNLV) led the team with 2,117 passing yards and 21 touchdowns. Ron Baines, Willis Freeman, Jim Whitman and Al Bessette were his primary targets.

Baines caught 35 passes for 648 yards and seven TDs that season and retired after the San Jose game.

Harlon Miles rushed for 450 yards on 90 carries to lead the rushing attack on a team that outscored the opposition 446-101.

And talk about a balanced attack; the Bengals averaged 210 passing and 145 rushing yards per game while limiting opponents to 35.9 rushing yards.

So, did the Bengals have the greatest semi-pro dynasty of all-time?

Who knows? If I wanted to take the time, I’m sure I could find other great teams lost to history.

But I do know if you ever decide to start a conversation on the topic, Pierce County most certainly belongs in it.