Football Discussion Forums

I believe that since the original USFL the UFL is the best,  most talent filled spring pro football we have seen.   The one place the old USFL would really blow past the UFL is at QB.   In 1985 there were 9 players who either had extensive NFL experience or would go on to great careers in the NFL.  Two hall of famers,  three superbowl participants with two winning.   Currently AJ McCarron is the only QB with significant experience in the NFL.  

Jim Kelly - Hall of Fame
Steve Young - Hall of Fame  super bowl winner
Brian Sipe - Cleveland Browns
Cliff Stoudt - Steelers
Bobby Hebert - went on to start for Saints, Falcons
Churck Fusina - 7 seasons in NFL
Doug Williams - superbowl winner
John Reaves - 11 seasons in the NFL
Doug Flutie - 12 NFL seasons Heisman Winner

Well, even at this tier of play, quarterbacks are expensive. McCarron runs six figures. And that's still far below the eight-figure price tags players like Mahomes and Allen are getting. The days of getting a rookie or starting-caliber NFL vet into spring football are long gone. ESPN and Fox aren't investing that kind of money for a 1,000,000 viewer-per-game league.

But, with the possible exception of the previous UFL, which was about half composed of NFL vets, you're probably right on this being some of the best. For one, these teams are all on their third seasons, the financial backing remains strong, there's deep sponsorship, and it looks like we've achieved some stability. These players are starting to see the UFL as a legitimate career option—and you need only look to arena football to see what illegitimate, unstable options look like! (There's a reason Lee Hutton and company haven't landed a lot of the players who were left out of the USFL/XFL merger.) Sustainability has been something all of the partners in this league have been pushing since the beginning, all the way back to when Vince put up the first $100 million knowing that's how much it was going to take to get through season one (of course, nobody having the foresight to ever expect how the COVID response was going to screw our whole society up).

America loves football. America will watch second-tier football at least as much as it will watch, for example, first-tier hockey. And because of that, the networks are willing to put that second-tier football on national TV. Musicians like to joke about getting "paid in exposure," but for guys like McCarron who have young kids, that's real.

That's not to mention that because it's season 3, a lot of these teams have built some enduring chemistry, something especially essential with offensive line play.

This isn't the NFL, or even the better teams of the WFL of the 1970s, but it is solid, credible pro football—for which we should be grateful.

I agree 100% that the financially sound decisions are the right decisions and that's certainly why the QB's are not the same.   In the original USFL they just spent the bulk of their money on one or two NFL stars and the rest of the roster was left to scavenge what was left.   I think that's bad for team chemistry.  I would like to see more NFL veterans choosing to end their careers in the UFL assuming they are already vested in the NFL retirement system.  The seasons are much shorter and on an aging body I could see them extending their career by 2 or more years than it would in the NFL.  I realize this wouldn't be for everybody but "normal" life is just not that exciting.  Most jobs suck, otherwise you wouldn't get paid to do it.