A huge week for upsets as no fewer than 8 of 11 games went to the underdog (though, admittedly a couple of these were toss up games). This included 2 of the 3 remaining undefeated teams going down in defeat on the road. It was also a week that saw the last of the winless teams both rise up and get their first W of the season. A week of unusual results, but also some really entertaining games. Let’s get right to our GOTW, another overtime thriller.
Not many people pegged this game as the potential shoot out of the week, but in a game that saw the erratic Dragon offense rack up 402 yards, we got a whole lot of firepower in this game. Seattle came loaded for bear, and got huge days from rookie David Boston, HB Corey Dillon and our Player of the Week, QB Jon Kitna. New Jersey for their part got solid performances from Terry Glenn and Kevin Johnson out wide, as well as Jason Sehorn, who got his first pick-six since coming over from the NFL.
The game started off with a Seattle game plan that was working to perfection against a somewhat flat New Jersey defense. Seattle scored the first 17 points of the game and seemed to have the Generals on the ropes. David Boston caught another of his patented 1-yard TD’s, yet another corner fade, and Derrick Loville got a 1-yard TD run around the left end to give Seattle the big lead midway through the 2nd, but then the Dragons got a bit sloppy and momentum turned.
Jon Kitna tried to force a ball to Metcalf and not only did Sehorn step in front of the receiver, but caught the ball in stride, cruising for an easy TD to put New Jersey on the board. This seemed to wake up the Generals, who wen ton to score thirteen more unanswered points to take a 20-17 lead at the half. Spence Fischer hit Terry Glenn for a 17-yard score and Adam Vinatieri nailed a 47-yard kick as time ran out to give New Jersey the lead after their furious comeback.
In the third quarter, New Jersey added to their lead with another Vinatieri kick before Seattle hit their own big play, a 42-yard deep ball to Boston, who used his speed to outrun the coverage and put Seattle back on top 24-20. New Jersey answered with yet another Vinatieri kick, and when Leeland MacElroy added a TD to open the 4th Quarter the lead changed again, now with New Jersey up 31-24.
Seattle would mount a comeback to send the game to overtime, a nice 11-play drive that ended with Kitna finding O. J. McDuffie for a game-tying score with 1:09 left in regulation. The game moved to overtime and, as so often seems to happen, the fate of the game hinged on the coin toss. Seattle won the toss and decided to receive the ball. Their momentum carried over and 6 plays later Kitna found HB Corey Dillon on a swing route that provided him with a clear path to the endzone and a Seattle win.
Dillon finished the game as Seattle’s second leading receiver (4 catches for 45 yards and the game winning score) while David Boston added 129 yards and two more touchdowns to his impressive first season stats. It was, to be sure, a tough loss for the Generals, who still remain above .500 at 3-2, but now fall a game back of Baltimore. For Seattle, who also stand at 3-2, they find themselves very much a part of the crowded Pacific Division.
ARZ 17 BAL 34
The Blitz find themselves alone in first place in the Atlantic after doubling up the visiting Arizona Wranglers. The Blitz defense held Arizona to only 4 of 12 on third down and caused 2 turnovers, both factors in the win. They also got strong games from their receivers, with Trent Green hitting 8 different targets on the day.
OAK 7 PIT 23
The Maulers made it two in a row by thoroughly dominating a seemingly scattered Oakland Invader squad. Terrell Davis contributed 92 yards on the ground and Andre Rison again led all Mauler receivers with 92 yards and a TD on 7 receptions. The Mauler D also had a strong day, limiting Siran Stacy to only 15 yards rushing and completely shutting out Troy Davis. Ryan Leaf threw two picks and suffered 4 sacks as the Oakland offense just never seemed to figure out a plan to mount an offense.
LA 28 OHIO 35
Ohio moved over .500 with a solid win over a much-improved Express squad. Kerry Collins and Cade McNown both threw for 3 TDs each, but it was a late Collins to HB Keith Woodside TD that won the game for Ohio, breaking up a 28-28 tie with just over 3 minutes to play. LA tried to mount a last minute drive, but needing a TD proved too much for the rookie QB and his inexperienced Express squad.
POR 43 PHI 13
This one was a shocker. Despite being outgained by the Stars 413 to 385, Portland blew past Philadelphia largely due to three bad Star turnovers. Akili Smith had his best day as the Thunder QB, tossing 2 TDs and no picks, while Robert Drummond rushed for 99 yards and 2 scores to power the Thunder offense. Philadelphia was able to move the ball, with both Charlie Garner and Cris Carter having solid days, but they just seemed to shoot themselves in the foot every time they reached scoring position. The loss drops the Stars to a surprising 1-4 on the year.
DEN 7 WSH 30
The final game of the 6 Pacific-Atlantic clashes saw Washington’s defense come alive against a listless Denver squad. The Federals built up a 27-7 lead at the half thanks to short fields from the D and 4 Kordell Stewart TD passes. The loss was a bad one for Denver, which now falls below .500 and 2 games behind LA in the division.
TEX 22 TBY 20
Texas earned their fifth win as they have earned the other 4, solid team effort and a stifling defense. It helped, of course, that Troy Aikman was forced to leave the game and the Bandits found themselves with Mike Pawlowski for a good part of the game, but it still came down to the final moments. Tampa Bay got within 2 when Pawlowski hit Chris Doering with a late TD, but the Bandits could not convert the 2-point conversion. The loss drops them to 3-2 while Texas emerges from the weekend as the only unbeaten.
STL 14 ORL 17
St. Louis fell from the ranks of the unbeaten thanks to a strong effort from the Renegades defense, aided a bit by occasional monsoon rain during their game at the Citrus Bowl. Ahman Green struggled to find room against a pressing Renegade defense, averaging only 1.9 yards per carry. On the opposite sideline, Terry Kirby had far better success against the usually staunch St. Louis front 7, rushing 18 times for 92 yards. The win helps Orlando stay on pace in the South, while St. Louis now falls a game back of Texas.
HOU 17 BIR 48
Houston built up a 4-0 record on their defense, so when it failed against Brett Favre and the Stallions, the Gamblers did not have many answers. Favre had a very Favre day, completing only 52.6% of his passes but hitting on big plays throughout the game. He connected with Ernest Givens for 172 yards on 6 passes as Houston’s Ashley Ambrose simply could not keep pace with the clever veteran. The win buts Birminham at 3-2 and in solid position in the South, while Houston, like St. Louis, now drop a game back of Texas.
MGN 17 MEM 30
The Showboats continue to surprise many as they now claim first place in the South. Michigan could have gotten into the mix with St. Louis and Houston, but the Showboats defense shut down Doug Flutie and the Panther run game. Garrison Hearst had his best game of the year, with 91 yards on 13 carries, while for Michigan the offense ran through wideout Jeff Campbell (12 receptions for 125 yards and both Panther TDs). It was not enough for the visitors, however, as Heath Shuler threw 4 TDs on the day, including 3 to Joe Horn to get the home win.
NOR 24 JAX 18
Of the Central squads, New Orleans got one of the better results, edging the Bulls thanks to a strong day from rookie Ricky Williams (18 carries for 94 yards and 2 scores). The defense also helped out, sacking Chris Chandler 4 times and once again proving that the Bulls’s run game is just not working, as Natrone Means averaged only 2.7 yards per carry.
CHI 29 ATL 13
The Machine earned their first win of the year and much-maligned QB Jeff Garcia, getting one more chance to prove himself, had a solid game, passing for 290 yards and a late TD to rookie Jim Kleinsasser to help propel the Machine to the win. Jeff George continued to struggle and was actually booed at points in the second half as fans in Bobby Dowd started calling for Eric Zeier to take over. Zeier never saw the field, but the pressure is certainly mounting in Atlanta.
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
No, not the boy band, the new QBs around the league. We figured 5-weeks in was a good time to take a look at the rookies, free agents, and backups who have taken over as starters across the USFL. The first year as a starter can be tough at any position but no player on the field gets the scrutiny and second guessing that a QB gets, and the first year of action can determine the entire path of a career. So let’s take a look at this year’s three new starters and see what we see so far.
Charlie Batch (PIT)
115/208, 1,174 Yards, 8 TD, 2 Int, 55.3 Completion Rate, 80.5 Rating
Clearly having a year on the bench has helped Batch. His season started off rough, with three straight losses, but he has looked solid with occasional flashes that there is more to come. Coach Emmitt Thomas is also helping Batch by building the offense around newly-acquired HB Terrell Davis, a strategy that now has Davis atop the rushing leaderboard and is allowing Batch to use play action effectively. It also helps that he has a veteran presence at wideout with Andre Rison in that spot. Rison is a bit of a loose cannon, but he knows how to make life easy for a QB by getting open when there is pressure in the pocket. Realistic expectations this year, and a run-based offense, should help Batch grow into the role.
Cade McNown (LA)
83/176, 1,113 Yards, 10 TD, 3 Int, 47.2% Completions, 79.6 Rating
McNown is off to a solid start, again thanks to a run-first philosophy that allows McNown to use play action and get adjusted to the speed of the pro game. LA is off to a strong start this year, certainly compared to last season, and while rookie wideout Tory Holt is a bit green, his clear talent is certainly helping McNown. The UCLA product needs to improve on his accuracy and get that completion percentage above water, but he has shown poise behind a somewhat shaky line and leadership in guiding the Express to 3 early season wins.
Akili Smith (POR)
61/130, 705 Yds, 2 TD, 3 Int, 46.9% Completions, 59.3 Rating
The plan for Smith was to have him sit for at least the first 6-8 weeks, playing behind Bill Musgrave until Coach Tobin felt he was up to speed, but an early injury to Musgrave thrust Smith into games ahead of schedule, and it shows. The Oregon draftee has physical talent, that is clear, but the speed of the game and the complexity of USFL defenses is clearly impacting his play. He is at his best when he breaks the pocket and improvises, but far too often he is going for the higher risk throw instead of dumping the ball down. Portland has a solid run game with Robert Drummond, so they should be working along the same lines as Pittsburgh and LA, but to date they have not been able to get a lot of consistency on the ground and that has hindered Smith’s ability to throw on run downs, simply because teams are not stacking the box. With Musgrave coming back from his injury, Coach Tobin now has to decide which is better for his rookie QB, to return him to the bench to learn more about the pro game or to keep him in the fray and hope that game action is the best teacher.
And, while we are discussing QB play, we should mention the current trends we see among the 2nd year QBs around the league. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Right now the good has to be Trent Green, in his 2nd year with Baltimore after several years on the bench in Arizona. Green is not lighting up the league, but he is providing the Blitz with solid leadership and occasional flashes of real quality. We would also categorize Kerry Collins’s 2nd year start as a pretty solid “Good”. He has thrown for 1,534 yards already, among the league leaders, and his 7-4 TD-INT ratio, while not elite is certainly better than what we saw last year. It seems Collins is getting his feet under him in the USFL, which is certainly good news for Ohio.
Looking only at 2nd year performance, we have to classify Ryan Leaf’s year so far as “bad”. Leaf started off on fire last year and faded down the stretch and so far this year he has seemingly regressed even further. He is completing barely over 51% of his passes and has 6 picks already this year, level with his 6 TD passes. That ratio is not what Oakland hoped for when they outspent the NFL to sign Leaf after last year’s surprise selection of the Washington State Cougar. If the Invaders are going to get out of the basement in the Pacific, they need Leaf to look like he did weeks 1-8 last year, and not what we have seen since.
Finally, under “ugly” we have to put the second year for Jeff George in Atlanta. George currently ranks as the 2nd worst QB with a 59.2 QB Rating, behind only Brian Griese (a bench player who came in for an injured Kitna). George also has 6 interceptions on the year, but only 3 touchdowns to offset it. This is another case where a USFL team jumped for a high visibility NFL player and another case where they are not seeing the same results. LA did this when they signed Marcus Allen from the Raiders, and it appears that the Fire have done the same by snatching up the former Falcons QB. George, as we all knew, has a big arm, but he just does not use it well. The boo-birds have started coming out in Atlanta, and it does not help that George’s backup is local hero, UGA alum Eric Zeier.
THE SHORT GAME
Each week we provide the top receivers in the league based on yardage, and we see a lot of top yardage receivers averaging 15 or even 20 yards per catch. That is great, and the fans certainly love the deep ball, and while it is guys like speedster Bert Emmanuel, deep threat Randy Moss, or highlight reel players like Joey Galloway and Lawrence Dawsey at the top of that list, when we change the parameters of our rankings a bit and focus on catches rather than yardage, we get a very different picture.
When we look at catches, we see players like Philadelphia’s Cris Carter (48), Michigan’s Muhsin Muhammad (42), or Texas’s league leader, Shawn Collins (49). We even find the occasional tight end like Denver’s Keith Jackson (42). These players tend to average between 8-10 yards per catch (Collins is at 9.4, Carter at 9.6).
These are the third down specialists, the play action, over the middle, tough yards receivers that every team needs, especially when the weather is not ideal or you need a sure thing on a vital 3rd and 7. It is the rare find that can be a speedy deep option and a precision route runner, racking up yards and catches at the same time. Michigan has one in Jeff Campbell, Orlando in Bert Emmanuel, and Ohio in Joey Galloway. It is a special receiver who can finish the season as Top 5 in both catches and yardage, and yet every year there tends to be at least one “possession receiver” that pulls it off. Who will it be this year?
A couple more season-ending injuries hit the league this week, first in Philadelphia, where safety Larry Wigham is done after breaking two hard-to-rehab bones in his foot on Sunday. In Pittsburgh it is TE Jay Riemersma who will be missed for the rest of the year after rupturing a disc in his back. New Orleans could be without guard John Hunter for up to 2 months with a fracture, and Texas tackle Ryan Tucker is out with a torn meniscus, at least one month before he can return.
Orlando got the big win this week, but on Monday it was reported that QB Scott Mitchell could miss up to a month after a lingering issue with his plant let was tested and the report came back that it was a partially torn quad. Orlando will have to turn to Craig Ericson to take over in Mitchell’s absence.
In Oakland HB Siran Stacy is expected to miss 1-3 weeks with a neck injury, while Tampa Bay is still unsure if Randy Moss can return to action this week with his finger in a splint.
Both Troy Aikman and Brett Favre suffered dings this week, but both are expected to start next week.
ATTENDANCE V. SALES
A couple of weeks ago we reported that the St. Louis Knights organization was being investigated by local media for the way that they reported revenue, ticket sales, and tax liability. It appears that they were overvaluing their ticket sales in some spaces when it benefited them to develop credit and access loans but undervaluing it when reporting for tax purposes, a big no no. This is still a developing story out of St. Louis, but it made us wonder what exactly the distinction between reported attendance and ticket sales actually is in the USFL.
Here's the thing, in nearly every pro sport in the USA, there is always a discrepancy between tickets sold and attendance, and it almost always goes in the same direction, with attendance trailing ticket sales. There are logical reasons for that. Season ticket holders do not always make it to every game. Sometimes folks buy ticket thinking they will be able to resell and that does not always happen. Sometimes the weather can keep even a committed fan at home. It is not unusual for a club in the NFL, for example, to have a sellout of 80,000 (at one of the larger stadiums) but only report 74,000 in attendance on game day. The same is true in Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL, and college sports. But not in the USFL.
We looked at numbers from the 1997 and 1998 seasons and it appears that something is very different in the USFL, either in the reporting of sales or in attendance. Over this 2 year span the USFL has reported an average attendance of 43,424, but when we dug into revenue reporting (done for tax purposes) the ticket sales do not add up to that total. It took a lot of digging, and quite a bit of math, but it appears that ticket sales, particularly seat sales (excluding luxury boxes and suites) adds up to just under 37,000 per game, with some variation club to club. Why is this?
On the surface the answer does not appear to be nefarious, at least not in most cases. The simplest answer is giveaways. These are common in start up leagues, but we were somewhat surprised to see just how much this impacts a league that is 14 or 15 years into its existence (as of 1998). Teams offer BOGO (Buy one, get one) ticket deals to many games, others offer free seats on game day, often to specific groups (local YMCA/YWCA groups, schools, etc.) and some run contests that can lead to 1,000 or more free tickets being given out to any particular game. This makes sense for a struggling or fledgling league, but is surprising to see in a league with the current financial resources available to the USFL, a league that in many ways has already joined the “majors” in the American sports scene, with huge TV deals, sponsorship packages, and multi-million dollar player contracts.
We do see a very logical pattern in the use of these giveaways. If you look at individual teams over the past 2 years, you see that clubs like Tampa Bay, Birmingham, Denver, and Philadelphia offer very few free ticket opportunities, and often as charitable donations to local youth groups or other nonprofits. You see a much higher number of 2-for-1 or kids-attend-free deals, along with more last-minute giveaways in places like LA, Atlanta, Ohio, and New Orleans, where recent play by the clubs has not built up a strong season ticket base or a reliable home crowd. The LA Express, to take the extreme case, have had some games where paid attendance barely topped 10,000 fans. You put that small a crowd in Farmers Insurance Field and it will be horrible optics for the league. Add in even a few thousand more free ticket holders, especially along the sidelines, and you can give the impression of a reasonable following for the club.
But what does this mean for the USFL or its individual clubs? Probably not a lot since so much of the revenue is generated through sponsorship and TV money. But if the perception grows that there are free tickets to be had, what is the incentive to pay $2,000 or more for season tickets? What is the incentive to plan ahead and buy tickets if you can get some of these free or 2-for-1 seats with a bit of patience? That is the tricky business the USFL is in. They want to sell tickets. They want reliable fans who attend every home game, because those fans also buy merch, attend offseason events, and tune in to road games. The USFL needs serious fan buy in to get stadia built in various cities. They need boosters and fan clubs, and they need to show investors and creditors that they have a solid flow of funding not only from league-shared revenue streams, but from local and gameday sources as well. Add in the potential scandal of reporting discrepancies, like those under investigation in St. Louis, and you could have some real issues for a club or the league as a whole. It is something we intend to keep an eye on, and something we expect the legal team of the USFL in NYC to also be monitoring because it has the potential to blow up among fans, investors, creditors and potential sponsors, and that is something that even 15-years in, the USFL cannot ignore.
Week six of the schedule brings us the third week of Eastern Conference division games, while once again the West sees the Central clubs face off against the Pacific. Among the divisional matchups to watch this week we have Birmingham at Orlando, a tough test for the Renegades and backup Craig Ericson. Baltimore renews their rivalry with Washington as the two clash at RFK, while Philly is at home again, facing an Ohio Glory squad that hopes to stay well above .500 with a win. New Jersey takes their 3-2 record to Pittsburgh to face a Mauler squad that has shown signs of life these past two weeks. We wrap up with Atlanta traveling to Tampa Bay in a tough game against the 3-2 Bandits.
It seems Arizona cannot catch a break. Now 1-4, they host the only remaining undefeated team in the Texas Outlaws. We also have good matchups in Seattle and LA, where the Dragons host the Panthers and the Express host the Gamblers one week after getting destroyed by the Stallions. St. Louis is in Oakland, where a 1-4 start is not looking to be getting any better. New Orleans and Denver are both 2-3 and both hoping to hit .500 with a win at Mile High this Saturday. And finally, either Chicago or Portland will turn their first win of the year into a 2-game streak with a win this week at Civic Stadium.