USFL Draft 2022: Coaches analyze their teams' Day 1 drafts
By RJ Young
FOX Sports Writer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — At the start of the inaugural United States Football League Draft, Jeff Fisher stood just to the right of USFL President Brian Woods, looking confident in a blazer and cowboy boots.
His trademark mustache started curling up into a smile as Woods tossed the privilege of announcing the No. 1 overall pick to NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski.
Just two days — on Tuesday, 2/22/22 — after finishing ninth in the Daytona 500, Keselowski appeared on a video screen inside the Stadium Club at Protective Field. After introducing himself, Keselowski, a Michigan native, announced the Panthers selected former five-star recruit and Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson.
Patterson, seated at a table just to the left of the draft stage, stood up visibly struck by the news. Moments after Patterson donned the white Panthers cap and lifted a maroon and gold jersey with his last name written across the back, Fisher walked and joined his first selection in the draft.
Fisher had been ready. Though he’d never met Patterson before today, Fisher knew he’d made the right decision.
"We had quite a bit of time from an evaluation standpoint," said Fisher, who was announced as Panthers head coach late last month. "We just felt like from what we want to do offensively, and what I remember seeing him do in college at a big program, and the kind of person people have told me, he’s just a passionate and dedicated athlete. And he’s played the position pretty well."
Shea Patterson goes No. 1
This is Fisher’s 23rd professional football draft as a head coach and his 37th as a pro ball coach. While this is old hat to him, the nature of this draft, with its brand-new style of selection, was not.
Fisher has been so locked into his draft preparation and assembling a staff capable of winning a championship within four months’ time that he didn’t even know he’d been trending as the fan’s choice for the Michigan mascot.
"You didn’t know people all are calling the Panthers the ‘Fighting Jeff Fishers’?" I asked.
"I didn’t know that, no," he said.
I closed the voice recording app on my phone and opened the Twitter one. I typed in Fighting Jeff Fishers in the search bar and handed him my phone.
"Unbelievable," he said, scrolling through to read the tweets. (Fisher hasn’t tweeted since October 2021.) "This is so cool.
"I’ve been so engulfed in this — I mean I’ve got 800 kids to evaluate — but I love every bit of this."
Two rows right and near the front of the stage, Houston Gamblers coach Kevin Sumlin was able to walk into this process with fresh eyes, a fresh perspective, and, for the first time in his career, a chance to lean in on evaluation.
Sumlin, who has been a college head coach at Arizona, Texas A&M and Houston, is used to constantly evaluating and recruiting players to his program. At his table, he said he felt the excitement at this historic event.
"This is different," Sumlin told FOX Sports. "In college, you kind of know who you’re getting on Tuesday. But you don’t really know until Wednesday. Here, we’ve done the work. We know who we like, and the quarterbacks are easy. When you get into drafting edge guys, it gets interesting."
The time crunch also made the draft process interesting and taxing for him. Each team was given two minutes to make a selection.
"The time is a factor," Sumlin said. "And it’s only going to get faster tomorrow. The thing you’re already seeing is you have your draft board. You know who you like. But so do the seven other teams. Tomorrow, when you only get 90 seconds to make a pick, and you’ve got six guys listed at a position, and the first four or even all six are gone, we’re gonna be flying through these.
"Then you’re gonna have to start making some decisions. You’ll probably see more teams use a compensatory pick."
By the ninth round (of 12) on Day 1 of this two-day event, Pittsburgh Maulers coach Kirby Wilson was walking the floor in between picks, his khaki bottoms bouncing off the top of his pearly white Air Force Ones. He worked his iPhone while his staff sat at his table and on Zoom calls, along with their first overall selection, Kyle Lauletta, digging into their various draft chart trying to find players that they wanted to be a part of their 38-player core when the season kicks off April 16.
New Orleans coach Larry Fedora, wearing a blue Breakers pullover, his trademark reading glasses sitting atop his nose, calmly highlighted players selected. For him, the hard work was done well before even making his first selection, former Northern Colorado quarterback Kyle Sloter.
"It’s fascinating, really," said Fedora, after participating in the first eight rounds. "We put a lot of work in before the draft, our entire staff, evaluating players, and it’s paying off tonight. We’re getting the guys that we wanted, and we’re excited about it."
Like Sumlin, this is Fedora’s first opportunity to draft players rather than recruit them. He’s been a head coach at Southern Miss and North Carolina.
"It’s a very interesting process," Fedora said. "Never have done it before. I’m learning as we go."
Fedora says the whole process is definitely a departure from team-building in college.
"The difference between this and recruiting is we’re trying to get somebody to come," Fedora said. "We’re picking the ones we want. It puts more of an emphasis on the evaluation, and you’ve got to get the evaluation right, so you get the right guys."
Sumlin felt that, too. He spoke about picking out "edge" players as an example.
"Some guys are stand-up guys. Some guys are used to having their hands down. So, you’re not just drafting an ‘edge’ player or a defensive end. You’re building a defensive front. And you can see around the room at the different teams who are probably gonna look more like an odd front or an even front.
"This is totally unique. We’re literally building a team from scratch here. That’s fun and new."
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.
