USFL 2022: Pittsburgh Maulers Preview

USFL – We have passed the halfway point of our USFL previews and we now turn our attention to what’s projected to be the bottom half of the league—the teams with the lowest championship odds.

Of course, in a league with this many question marks, it’s hard to put too much stock into preseason odds, which vary wildly from place to place. As of time of writing, for example, here are the odds at DraftKings and at FOX Bet:

What we’re saying is, a lot of these numbers now are basically being blindly pulled out of a hat due to a lack of information on the teams. So it wouldn’t be a surprise if today’s team, the Pittsburgh Maulers, ends up on top of the league when all is said and done. Not really, at any rate.

Pittsburgh Maulers

Coaching Staff

The Maulers are the only team in the league to have a first-time head coach in charge. Kirby Wilson is the Mauler-in-Chief, finally getting his chance to run a team after a long, long career as a positional coach. Wilson first entered the NFL in 1997 as Pete Carroll’s running backs coach with the Patriots. He then spent every year from 1997 though 2020 as the running backs coach somewhere in the league, except for a one-year stint as Carroll’s wide receivers coach at USC in 2001. He worked with Norv Turner in Washington; with Jon Gruden in Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Las Vegas; with Dennis Green and Steve Wilks in Arizona; with Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh; with Mike Zimmer in Minnesota; and with Hue Jackson in Cleveland. He has won multiple Super Bowls and also experienced 0-16.

His last notable NFL connection was being considered for the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator position after Brian Schottenheimer was let go; a reunion with Pete Carroll seemed to be at least on the table. Instead, the Seahawks went with Shane Waldron and Wilson retired in July, just weeks before training camp opened.

Interestingly, Wilson is not the Maulers’ general manager. The other seven teams all have the coach listed as their general manager, but while Wilson was initially announced in that position for the Maulers as well, it was instead Chris Watts calling the shots at the draft. Watts was a scout for the Giants for years and has a pair of Super Bowl rings of his own to show for it. It’s odd that only the Maulers have separate coach and general manager roles (or, at least, are the only team to say they have separate roles; there are no official staff lists for any team at this point, or even separate pages for each team on the USFL’s website).

Offense

The Maulers’ first pick was Kyle Lauletta, the seventh quarterback drafted. Lauletta was a fourth-round NFL pick back in 2018, when the Giants grabbed him out of Richmond. Lauletta did get into two games as a rookie, going 0-for-5 with an interception. He had a little more success in the preseason, most recently throwing for 212 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a half with the Browns against the Jaguars last season. His arm strength is not at an NFL level, but he has solid enough accuracy, mechanics, and decision-making; he may well have more success against a lower level of competition.

To challenge him, the Maulers also drafted Josh Love, San Jose State’s all-time leader in passing yards, someone I have to highlight because we Spartans have to stick together. Love may have the stronger arm of the two as well, but it’s hard to tell—his ball placement and timing aren’t quite as good as Lauletta’s, so the results aren’t always there. But when Love looks good, he looks real good. He’s an attacking passer willing to throw the ball into tight windows, and that can create some spectacular moments. More gutsy than good, perhaps, but he has heard that before—he had to walk on at SJSU and fight his way to a starting role.

Wilson is, of course, a running backs coach, so it’s worth looking at Garrett Groshek and De’Veon Smith as large parts of his offense. Groshek’s a former high school quarterback who converted to running back at Wisconsin; he may end up playing more of a fullback/joker type role for Pittsburgh. Smith was undrafted out of Michigan in 2017 and got into a few games with the Dolphins that year, catching three receptions for 27 yards. He has had more success since then, though. He was sixth in the AAF with 345 yards, averaging 4.6 yards per carry (more than anyone who had more yards than him) and scoring six touchdowns, second to only Trent Richardson. And then he went to the XFL, where he led the league with 365 rushing yards as a member of the Vipers. He’s your starting running back here; a no-nonsense, straight-ahead sort of guy who can run through people when required.

The other skill position player you may have heard of is Jeff Thomas, who was notable at Miami for two things: great speed (he ran a 4.45s 40 at the combine) and a great deal of off-field issues (he was kicked off the team twice by two different coaches). He couldn’t stick around with the Patriots as a UDFA in 2020, so he has one more chance to make a splash here with the Maulers. None of the other receivers have played in an NFL game either, though a few of them got some tryouts last preseason. But there is a clear emphasis on speed, with Bailey Gaither and Delvon Hardaway likely to help stretch the field deep.

The most notable lineman the Maulers drafted is Vadal Alexander, drafted by the Raiders back in 2016. Alexander started nine games for Oakland over his first two seasons, but he was suspended in 2018 for violating the PED policy. He then failed to report to training camp and was waived and has not been on a roster. The Maulers also grabbed Isaiah Battle, drafted in 2015 by the Rams; they look to have one of the oldest offensive lines in the league.

Defense

The Maulers have seven players out of the Spring League on defense. They weren’t all teammates, but there’s a lot of cross-pollination and familiarity there. The thought, one supposes, is that chemistry will beat out pedigree; the Maulers have seven players on defense who have never even been in an NFL training camp.

But, continuing the theme of age before beauty from the offensive line, the Maulers did grab tackle Ethan Westbrooks in the supplemental draft. Westbrooks played 67 games for the Rams from 2014 to 2018 (plus four more playoff games, including 24 snaps against New England in the Super Bowl), with a one-game cameo for the Saints in 2021 due to COVID concerns. He’s 31 years old, one of the very, very few 30-somethings in the league; he’s kind of out of place in what’s mostly a developmental league. His 1,449 defensive snaps in the NFL are more than some USFL defenses have in total!

Carlo Kemp is much more the sort of player you expect to see here. He was an intriguing UDFA last season out of Michigan, although he ultimately couldn’t find a home with the Packers. At just 281 pounds and with 30-inch arms, he doesn’t have an ideal NFL build—not long enough to play end, too small to play in the interior. Against non-NFL competition, however, his agility and motor have a chance to shine, and if he bulks up a little bit, maybe he’ll find his way back to the NFL sooner rather than later.

Other intriguing Maulers defenders include speedy cornerback Terrell Bonds, who had a blocked punt return for a touchdown in the AAF and ended up getting some playing time with the Ravens last season due in part to every single Ravens defender getting injured at one point or another. They also grabbed linebacker Blair Brown in the supplemental draft. Brown was drafted by the Jaguars in 2017 and used mostly on special teams; a tackle machine in college, he’ll anchor the center of the Maulers defense.

But most of the projected starting defense is made up of relative unknowns. They grabbed some guys with good speed—linebacker Tyson Graham and safety Jayon McClain-Sapp stand out—and some guys with solid combine/pro day numbers. But there are a lot of question marks here—as in unknowns, as opposed to problems. And it’s not like the Stars, where all the spring league guys were on the same roster and won a title together; these guys were more spread out among the various minor teams. The lack of significant name recognition is one reason the Maulers are relatively low in the betting pecking order at the moment.

I would expect Wilson’s team to be very run-heavy behind De’Veon Smith, but that’s mostly based on Wilson’s pedigree as a running backs coach. He has never been an offensive coordinator at any level, though he was briefly a defensive coordinator in college in the 1990s. I’d expect Pittsburgh to emphasize speed and hitting on defense, but that’s mostly based on years-old scouting reports and combine numbers. Honestly, the Maulers may be the team we know the least about as we enter the season, which can be interesting in and of itself.

Newsbreak: Rivalries!

As a league with no history, it can sometimes be unclear as to just who you’re supposed to root for in the new USFL. Well, have no fear, because the league has laid out the official, predetermined rivalries teams that have hated each other since they were formed a few months ago.

You have the Keystone State Battle, pitting the Pittsburgh Maulers against the Philadelphia Stars.

The inaugural USFL divisional rivalries are HERE ⚔️

Up first: The Keystone State Battle between the @USFLMaulers and the @USFLStars 🔨🌟 pic.twitter.com/IxRYPpstrv

— USFL (@USFL) March 16, 2022

There’s the Double Down Derby, where the Houston Gamblers take on the Birmingham Stallions.

Next up: The Double Down Derby 🎰🐎

Who ya got: the @USFLGamblers or the @USFLStallions? 🔥 pic.twitter.com/0XuLvtiHVT

— USFL (@USFL) March 16, 2022

The Northern Duel pits the New Jersey Generals against the Michigan Panthers.

Next: The Northern Duel 🐾🎖

You ready for this one @USFLGenerals & @USFLPanthers, fans? pic.twitter.com/ONKECBMH7N

— USFL (@USFL) March 16, 2022

And finally, the Breaker Bay Brawl sees the Tampa Bay Bandits taking on the New Orleans Breakers.

And finally: THE BREAKER BAY BRAWL 🤠🌊

Who is coming out with the W: @USFLBandits or @USFLBreakers? pic.twitter.com/LwbyuRlsBj

— USFL (@USFL) March 16, 2022

First, the good: the USFL has these matchups all taking place in Week 2 and Week 9, which lets them build up some hype around them. I would have them Week 2 and Week 10, so you hype up the first divisional matchup of the year and the last divisional matchup of the year as your big rivalry games, but that’s a nitpick. Putting them all together makes a ton of sense from a marketing perspective.

But I don’t really think you can will a rivalry into existence just because you say it exists. I’ll grant them the all-Pennsylvania matchup, but I’m not sure what the long-held enmity between New Jersey and Michigan is supposed to be; the fact that they had to just go with “The Northern Duel” as their title for that one kind of shows that it’s very much the “and the rest!” of the matchups. It also seems weird that we’re supposed to care about Houston-Birmingham more than Houston-New Orleans or Tampa Bay-Birmingham when they’re identical games on the schedule. You could do something interesting with this—maybe have an 11th week of the regular season so all the rivalries play each other three times, or having a sweep over your rivals be a playoff tiebreaker or something interesting like that. But no, they’re just regular games being arbitrarily elevated to higher status.

Or maybe I’m just bitter because my guys have never won the Keystone State Battle, an eternal shame for us long-suffering Stars fans.