The latest incarnation of the United States Football League debuts next month and USFL Executive Vice President Daryl Johnson predicts it “has a chance to succeed if we can keep Orangeman’s tiny hands off us or don’t screw it up ourselves.”
Johnson, a fullback with the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys from 1989-99 and a former NFL broadcaster, said he wasn’t referring to Otto the Orange, the mascot of Syracuse University where he was an All-American. “I’m talking about (Donald) Trump,” he said.
There was a USFL born in 1983. Like this one, it began as a spring-summer league but after Trump bought the New Jersey Generals franchise in 1984 he bullied his fellow owners to go head to head with the NFL starting in 1986 and sue it. The new league collapsed after the 1985 season.
“We’re not going to make a mistake like that again. We might make some other mistakes that take us to the edge. In fact, I’ve been working on several possibilities,” Johnson said.
“We’re speeding up the game by eliminating penalties for offside and false starts and roughing the passer. Also, no two-minute warning. They’re just TV timeouts. I mean, jeez, this isn’t the 1920s. There’s clocks on the field now and everyone can see them.”
And to attract spectators “we’ll have lotteries during games,” Johnson said, “so lucky fans can have a chance at joining the cheerleaders, or bringing water to players during a timeout, or helping out in the medical tent, or driving the cart to take an injured player to the locker room, or kicking an extra point, or returning a punt.”
Johnson already has experience running franchises in two other football leagues that came and went in a hurry.
He was General Manager of the San Antonio Commanders of the Alliance of American Football. Eight weeks into its inaugural 2019 season the league shut down. A month later, Johnson became Director of Player Personnel of the Dallas Renegades of the second version of the XFL and five weeks into its inaugural 2020 season, that league shut down.
“Too bad I didn’t get a shot at working with the United Football League,” Johnson said of the the UFL that lasted 3½ seasons and died in 2012. “With luck, I could’ve pulled off a three-peat.”
This new USFL’s eight teams, with the same names as those in the first version, are the Birmingham Stallions, Pittsburgh Maulers, Philadelphia Stars, Michigan Panthers, Houston Gamblers, New Orleans Breakers, Tampa Bay Bandits and New Jersey Generals.
“Here’s our first big idea that’s going to almost guarantee seven of our franchises don’t get the kind of following any team needs to build a fan base,” Johnson said. “Unless you’re a Stallions fan, and unless you give more of a damn about your team than any of us can imagine, get ready for ten road trips this year.
“That’s right. Every game, every game, all 10 weeks of the season, will be played in Birmingham. For real. Houston at Michigan at noon on April 17? At Birmingham. New Orleans at Tampa Bay at 3 p.m. on April 24? At Birmingham. New Jersey at Philadelphia at
8 p.m. on May 1? You guessed it. At Birmingham.
“I can’t wait to see all our fans in Newark arriving to see their Generals play here after a 14-hour, 952-mile drive from home,” Johnson said. “Hell, for Tampa Bay fans it’ll be like a drive to visit grandma, just 8½ hours, 603 miles.”
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