USFL keeping dreams alive for its 280 draft picks
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
Shea Patterson knew he faced an uphill battle to get drafted into the NFL, so when he entered the scouting combine in early 2020, he didn’t hold anything back.
The Michigan quarterback, who had thrown for 5,661 yards and 45 touchdowns in two years at Ann Arbor, went hard in the drills and workouts. And, when it came time for the grueling rounds of interviews with NFL teams, he went all-out to show the kind of confidence he imagined they were looking for.
Shea Patterson had a record-setting career at Michigan, throwing for more yards with the Wolverines than Tom Brady. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
When one team presented Patterson with a brick — yep, a brick — and gave him two minutes to list all the things he could think of to do with it, he told them he’d "build a f------ house." When Pittsburgh QB coach Matt Canada asked why the Steelers should draft him, Patterson promised to win them a Super Bowl before his rookie contract was up if they did.
They didn’t.
Nor did any other team, either. After a spell with the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent and some interest from the CFL that didn’t amount to much, it looked like that was it for Patterson, with little more than a few good stories to tell from his pro experience.
Tales like his are rife among the 280 players who will be drafted into the United States Football League by the time its selection process is done Wednesday. Close, oh so close, but no staying power in the NFL and no soft landing afterward.
"There are a ton of guys who things just didn’t quite work out for," Daryl "Moose" Johnston, former Dallas Cowboys fullback and current USFL executive vice president said via telephone. "Football is an unpredictable game and there are a lot of things beyond your control. Just as it goes smoothly for some guys, for others it doesn’t."
The USFL aims to provide a second chance, Johnston said.
Patterson was picked first overall by the Michigan Panthers when the USFL draft kicked off Tuesday and could scarcely conceal his excitement at this new opportunity.
Panthers coach Jeff Fisher jumped at the chance to take former Michigan star Shea Patterson with the No. 1 pick.
The USFL’s eight teams will play a 10-game season that begins April 16. All regular-season matchups will be held in Birmingham, Ala., and all the postseason action will take place at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, in Canton, Ohio.
Patterson will compete with former Denver Broncos first-rounder Paxton Lynch on a Panthers roster led by former Rams head coach Jeff Fisher.
"For all of these guys, this is the game they have played all their lives, and they are very good at it," Johnston added. "All of them have had success on some level. Some of them were highly rated coming out of high school. Some had success in college.
"They have chased this dream for a long time, but now the dream is almost dead. This is a chance to keep it alive, either by elevating their status in the USFL and rejoining an NFL team, or just the chance to keep playing football and getting paid for it."
Daryl "Moose" Johnston, USFL Executive Vice President, says he is inspired by watching these players chase their dreams.
Jordan Ta’amu was the No. 2 pick for the Tampa Bay Bandits, ahead of Bryan Scott for the Philadelphia Stars, as teams continued to fill their roster in an innovative modified snake system of drafting. Players were grouped by position for each round — rounds 1 and 12 were all QBs — with the format designed so that each team picked first for a position group.
As a start-up, the USFL has the liberty to try some things out, especially in year one, and won’t be shy with its innovations as it offers a high level of professional football. The games will be televised nationally on FOX and NBC.
For the players, it is a fresh start, too. Some of them have always flown under the radar, either because they didn't grow up in a football hotbed or due to untimely injury. Others saw their stock fall at the wrong time, for a variety of reasons.
Patterson was the No. 1 QB in the country coming out of high school, but the five-star recruit transferred from Ole Miss to Michigan ahead of his junior year. While Joe Burrow was cutting a swath through college football at LSU, Patterson put up some solid numbers, but a senior year completion rate of 56.2 percent counted against him, pushing him down the prospects list.
When COVID hit, Johnston said, countless players were deeply affected by restrictions and disruption that cut short their ability to impress in college. He said the process of recruiting players to the USFL and seeing their hunger to prolong their careers had been uplifting.
A total of 280 players heard their names called Tuesday and Wednesday at the inaugural USFL Draft.
Of course, the league will thrive based on its ability to capture the imagination of the public and grab a foothold at a time when there is precious little else of note happening in American sports.
The players’ most immediate task is to get into optimal shape for a league that, due to tightened rosters and a compact 10-game regular season, will make for an intense workload.
It will reward those who come with the right combination of energy and smarts, switched on enough to pick the brain of teammates and coaches who have had experience at a higher level.
And those who treat this with all the passion reserved for what it very well might be — a chance to keep their dreams alive.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
