Latest news with #USFL
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
St. Louis Battlehawks finish UFL season with league-best 8-2 record
The best UFL city has the UFL's best team. The St. Louis Battlehawks finished the league's 2025 season with an 8-2 record. That's the best mark in the eight-team league. The Battlehawks capped the season with a 13-8 win over the Defenders in D.C. The two teams will meet on Sunday with a berth in the UFL Championship on the line. Last year, the Battlehawks lost in the semifinal round, to the San Antonio Brahmas. The 2025 Brahmas collapsed, winning only one of 10 games. The winner of the D.C.-St. Louis game will face the winner of Michigan at Birmingham in the UFL title game, which will again be played in St. Louis. The Birmingham Stallions have won three straight championships — two in the reconstituted USFL and in the first year of the UFL, a merger of the USFL and the XFL. The Battlehawks routinely draw the most fans of any team in the UFL. The fact that roughly 30,000 show up for every game of a spring league that's struggling to resonate nationally should keep St. Louis on the NFL's radar screen, despite the $790 million settlement the league had to pay after moving the Rams in a tangled web of bald-faced lies.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rodrigo Blankenship, Jayden Price
Bryce Perkins, Olive Sagapolu-Failauga | 4th and 12 The XFL and USFL Conference Championships are coming up. Jess Nevarez talks with DC Defenders defensive coordinator Blake Williams about his return to the game. Then Jeff Kolb sits down with Houston Roughnecks' Olive Demitre Sagapolu-Failauga about growing up on an island and chick flicks, and Michigan Panthers quarterback Bryce Perkins talks about returning from a double neck fracture. 22:45 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Michigan Panthers to give away bobbleheads of Lions kicker Jake Bates
The Michigan Panthers will compete in their final home game this season with a bobblehead giveaway featuring Detroit Lions kicker Jake Bates. On May 31, the Panthers will play the Houston Roughnecks at Ford Field. Kickoff is at 3 p.m. The team said the first 2,000 fans at Ford Field will get a bobblehead. The Panthers clinched a spot in the USFL Conference Championship for the second year. They will take on the Birmingham Stallions on June 8 at Protective Stadium in Alabama in the conference finals. The game winner will play the D.C. Defenders or St. Louis Battlehawks in the championship on June 14. The Panthers lost to the Stallions in the 2024 conference finals. The Stallions would go on to win the championship against the San Antonio Brahmas. Bates played one season with the Panthers before he signed a two-year contract with the Lions. He made 26 of his 29 field goal attempts and 64 of the 67 extra point attempts in the Lions' 2024 season. He was named NFC Special Teams Player of the Month and NFC Special Teams Player of the Week for weeks 7 and 10.
USA Today
26-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Jim Mora spearheaded the first golden age of Saints football
Happy belated birthday to former New Orleans Saints head coach Jim Mora, who celebrated his 90th birthday over the weekend. Mora got into coaching in 1961, first as an assistant then as head coach at Occidental (CA) College until 1966. From there, he'd be a linebackers coach at Stanford for one year before moving on to the same role at Colorado from 1968 to 1973. He'd then be the linebacker coach at UCLA for one year before being hired as defensive coordinator at Washington from 1975 to 1977. In 1978, Mora got his first NFL job. The Seattle Seahawks would bring him in as defensive line coach, a role he'd hold until 1981. In 1982, Mora was hired as defensive coordinator by the New England Patriots. He'd be there for two years before finally getting his first chance to be a head coach after 24 years in the profession. The expansion United States Football League ((USFL) gave Mora his first chance to be in charge as head coach of the Philadelphia Stars. Mora's Philadelphia and Baltimore Stars appeared in all three of the original USFL championship games. They won two of them, taking back-to-back titles in 1984 and 1985 before the league eventually folded. In his three years, Mora's teams had a .782 winning percentage. Saints' First Golden Era Tom Benson bought the New Orleans Saints and took over operations of the team in 1985. Looking for a spark, Benson hired Jim Finks as the General Manager in 1986. Finks and Benson then hired Jim Mora as their head coach in 1986, also taking excellent advantage of the dissolving of the USFL. Joining Mora were a few of his former assistant coaches with the Stars like Dom Capers, Vic Fangio, and Carl Smith. New Orleans also managed to bring in several players that starred in the USFL. Former Stars linebacker Sam Mills was a free-agent signee. Linebacker Vaughan Johnson joined him as a first round choice in a special expansion draft. Additionally, the Saints also added quarterback Bobby Hebert, running back Buford Jordan, kick returner Mel Gray, offensive lineman Derek Kennard, and quarterback John Fourcade. When Mora and the Saints selected Pat Swilling in Round 3 of the 1986 NFL Draft, the intimidating foursome of the ''Dome Patrol'' of Rickey Jackson, Mills, Johnson, and Swilling was complete. Prior to hiring Mora, the Saints had never had a winning season in 19 years of existence and had double-digit losses in nine of those 19 years. After a 7-9 finish in 1986, Mora guided the Saints to an incredible 12-3 record and first playoff appearance in 1987, their 20th year of operation. Mora's Saints would not have a losing season again for the next eight years. Mora led New Orleans to the playoffs four times in a six year stretch between 1987 and 1992. Included in that was the franchise's first division championship, an NFC West title in 1991. Four times in those six years, the Saints had double-digit victories, including a then-franchise record 12 wins in 1987 and 1992. Under Mora, the Saints annually had one of the league's top defenses led by the Dome Patrol foursome of Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, Pat Swilling, and Vaughan Johnson. During Mora's tenure, New Orleans had a top-5 defense six times and ranked first in the NFL twice. While conservative, the Saints also had an underrated offense. Under Mora, New Orleans held a top-10 ranking in points scored six times. Unfortunately, Mora's Saints were also known for their postseason shortcomings. The Saints did not win a playoff game under Mora, going 0-4 in the postseason with two especially heartbreaking losses at home. The NFC was also stacked during this time. San Francisco had built a dynasty and were in the same division as New Orleans. The Saints also had to compete against perennial Super Bowl contenders like the Giants, Redskins, and Bears within their own conference before the arrival of the Cowboys dynasty in the early 1990s. Still, Jim Mora helped usher in the first 'Golden Era' of New Orleans Saints football. Between 1987 and 1992, the Saints had a 62-33 record, a winning percentage of .653. Overall, Mora had a 93-74 regular season record in 11 years with the Saints, a winning percentage of .557. No other coach in the history of the Saints were close to those numbers until the arrival of Sean Payton in 2006. Sean Payton coached 241 games for the Saints with a winning percentage of .631 and regular season record of 152-89. Mora's 167 games and 93 victories is second in franchise history. A very distant third is Jim Haslett, who coached 96 games for New Orleans with 45 wins and a .469 winning percentage. Counting his four-year tenure with the Indianapolis Colts, Mora is one of only 31 coaches with at least 125 NFL victories. Happy birthday to Jim Mora, and thank you for leading the first truly relevant period of New Orleans Saints football.
NBC Sports
26-05-2025
- Business
- NBC Sports
Is UFL plotting expansion to Oakland, Philly, New Jersey, and/or Tampa?
As the UFL sputters through a second season that hasn't matched the first year of the XFL-USFL merger, there's reason to think the league is thinking about the possibility of expanding. A recent item from indicates that USFL Enterprises LLC (which apparently owns the USFL half of the league) filed earlier this month trademark applications relating to the names of four original USFL teams: the Oakland Invaders, the Philadelphia Stars, the New Jersey Generals, and the Tampa Bay Bandits. We've confirmed the existence of the filings. All four were made on May 6, 2025. The Stars and Generals were part of the pre-merger USFL. They folded when the UFL emerged. The Bandits spent one season as part of the reconstituted USFL; they became the Memphis Showboats in 2023. Oakland would be a very intriguing option. Given the success of the St. Louis Battlehawks, it makes plenty of sense to put UFL teams in markets the NFL has abandoned. The article also mentions that former Buccaneers quarterback and current Raiders minority owner Tom Brady is supposedly interested in buying a UFL team. Currently, however, the league is one integrated business. Franchises have not been sold to individuals or groups. Maybe that will happen. It would seem more plausible if the UFL weren't slumping in comparison to 2024. Still, by moving teams to the right markets, it could work. The UFL is thriving in St. Louis. Oakland could do well, too. And San Diego. And there are plenty of non-NFL markets that might take to a pro football team. The biggest challenge remains the simple fact that spring football typically struggles. Even in an age of widespread legalized gambling, it's hard to get people fully invested in football when it's not football season.
