COLUMN: UFL ends promising first season with a dud of a championship game

Among the dignitaries in attendance for the inaugural UFL Championship game in St. Louis were Pro Football Hall-of-Fame QB Kurt Warner and soon-to-be Pro Football Hall-of-Fame QB Tom Brady. Warner once won a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams, piloting the Greatest Show on Turf, one of the most potent NFL offenses of all-time. Brady holds most NFL passing records and is a seven-time Super Bowl champion.

The offenses they watched on Sunday must’ve made them blush with embarrassment.

In front of Warner, Brady, 27,396 fans at the Dome at America’s Center, and what could be the biggest television audience to watch a UFL game this season, the San Antonio Brahmas and Birmingham Stallions put together one of the ugliest games of the season en route to Birmingham winning its third straight spring league championship, 25-0.

For almost the entirety of the first half, the teams played as if it was their first game of the year rather than their 12th. Neither offense could get out of their own way and the game lacked any kind of flow due to constant stoppages. At least Birmingham finally got on track in the second half, finding a running game and doing just enough in the pass game to crush San Antonio’s hopes beneath their Stallion cleats.

Birmingham’s defense certainly deserves credit for playing with a chip on their shoulder, as they shut down San Antonio’s prominent running backs and didn’t allow anything vertical in the pass game. The Brahmas, though, looked completely outclassed and unprepared, suffering numerous unforced errors throughout the game.

There were drops, penalties (twice getting caught for too many men on defense, one of them turning a Stallions 4th-and-short into a first down), wasted time outs, and turnovers (WR Jontre Kirklin fumbling twice for, as announcer Joel Klatt pointed out, holding the ball in the wrong arm when running after the catch).

There was QB Chase Garbers sliding short of a first down on 3rd-and-1, appearing to play more to protect himself than to win the game. He was replaced after that series by Quinten Dormady, whose biggest play was falling on his rear end in backpedaling trying to avoid the Birmingham pass rush, costing his team at least 10 yards.

To cap it off, CB Bryce Thompson got ejected late in the game, along with Stallions TE Jace Sternberger, for their part in some illegal post-whistle activities. The only thing more tight than San Antonio’s performance may have been Brady’s second quarter appearance in the broadcast booth.

This should’ve been a marquee contest for the league, one in which both teams were evenly matched, with Birmingham seeking revenge on San Antonio, the team that cost them their perfect regular season record. Brady being on-hand for a cameo to call his first football action for Fox since signing a reported 10-year, $375 million contract with the network in 2022, and to hand out the game MVP award, may have attracted more eyeballs to the game than otherwise would’ve watched.

Their reward for tuning in was a sloppy, mistake-filled outing that resembled the worst of NFL preseason games as opposed to the two best teams in spring football battling for a title. That’s a shame, as the on-field product the UFL put out for much of the 2024 season was engaging and at times, enthralling. Hopefully, that’s what will be remembered about this first season, rather than this stinker of a finale.