I am and never have been a big fan of minor league football or spring football for a variety of reasons. It always feels contrived, there are always silly rules to trick up the games and create buzz, and most importantly, it is an inferior product.
I prefer the NFL which is played at the highest level with the best players, and that’s really what I want to watch. I will, however, watch some of the XFL/USFL/AFL/WLAF and whatever other alphabet soup-FL comes along because there are some colorful characters and it is still football.
Also, there are always a few of these players who make it to the NFL, so the quality of the games isn’t terrible. There is something charming and fun about these games — similar to minor league baseball.
That being said, I refuse to acknowledge the Pittsburgh Maulers of the newly formed (or rebirthed) USFL. You can call them the Birmingham Maulers, the Maulers, the Alabama Maulers, the Southern Maulers, fine, but don’t call them the Pittsburgh Maulers because they aren’t playing here.
There is nothing Pittsburgh about them. There is no connection to this city and from what I can tell there is no black or gold in their uniform. They don’t even have a player on their roster — at least the one I am looking at — from Pitt, Duquesne, Robert Morris or any of the smaller colleges in the city. There is only one player even from Pittsburgh — former Central Catholic High School standout Arnold Tarpley III.
They will play in Birmingham this year, just like all the teams, and the reason is because it will save money. True story. The league is trying to save as much money as possible — on things like travel — so everyone will play in Birmingham.
Now think about this: The league is so financially unstable that they are all going to use the same stadium to try to ensure they can get to a second season. They are literally asking teams to build a brand with a city and a fan base within a city that they aren’t playing in.
You have got to be joking me. I will tune in to the initial Maulers game tonight just because, well, I am not sure why. I suppose again, I like football and it is football, so why not, right?
The issue for me, though, is the Maulers are not a Pittsburgh team, and I refuse to truly acknowledge their existence until they are. Maybe it makes me a Yinzer snob, but if it does, so be it. I won’t get officially excited about this team until they are actually playing here in Pittsburgh.
And as I wrote before, there is no real connection to Pittsburgh with this team, from the stadium they will play in to their colors.
Oh, wait, the head coach is Kirby Wilson, who was the running backs coach for the Steelers a few years back. And remember Will Johnson, who was a fullback for the Steelers for a couple years? He is the running backs coach of the Maulers!
There is a connection, can you feel the excitement building? Can you feel the connection to this team building?
Wilson, of course, is apparently choosing the WWE route of creating drama and storylines with a viral video that has hit social media.
The story is that Wilson cut De’Veon Smith, a running back, and did so on one of these behind-the-scenes shows dedicated to the USFL. Smith apparently got cut because he wanted to eat pizza instead of chicken salad or something like that.
Here is what Smith said about it. I will let you be the judge of whether or not it is real or made-for-TV drama:
“I didn’t think I did anything or said anything disrespectful,” Smith said in his own confessional before another flash back to the meeting room, where he pleads his case to WIlson.
“I didn’t say anything disrespectful. He said, ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ And I said ‘Yes,’ and that’s it. I walked away,” Smith says. “I didn’t think that was disrespectful, me saying ‘Yes.’ I don’t eat chicken salad. And I was like, ‘Is there another option?’ [He] walked in with pizza and I was like, ‘Can I get a slice of pizza?’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ That’s all I said. I didn’t say no cuss words. Nothing. That’s all I said.”
There you have it, the most notable thing to happen in the preseason leading up to tonight’s grand opening — which, by the way, is against Todd Haley’s team from Tampa — was a guy getting cut for wanting a slice of pizza.
I don’t know about you, but I know that makes me want to watch it more. OK, maybe not, but that’s not the point. The point is this is not a Pittsburgh team until it is. The fact that they are not playing in Pittsburgh yet are trying to build a fan base here tells me they probably won’t ever actually make it to the point where they actually do play here.
Until such time, however, call them the Maulers, but not the Pittsburgh Maulers because there is nothing Pittsburgh about them.
