THE USFL MP!!!!!

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USFL



The USFL draft was held on Saturday Dec. 20th at the Adam's Mark hotel in Jacksonville, Florida and many surprises came about. The first of which was the Commissioner's office being what seemed to be unprepared for the overwhelming task that was ahead. It took 6 hours and while there were some problems everything seemed to end up being alright.

All 32 franchises were there either via "war room phone" or by representative.

The 32 franchises are:

Boise Rough Riders
San Diego Seawolves
Los Angeles Riots
Las Vegas Nemesis
Minnesota Gemini
Denver Dustdevils
Fargo Freeze
Illinois Thunder
New York Blizzard
New Jersey Red Dogs
Columbus Wardogs
Norfolk Destroyers
Wichita Warlords
Jacksonville Edge
Richmond Rhinos
Charlotte Conquest
Seattle Stingrays
Portlan Forest Dragons
Sacramento Hurricanes
Arizona Knights
Des Moines Stampede
Milwaukee Marauders
Chicago Crusaders
Detroit Demolition
Boston Killer Bees
Baltimore Burn
Hartford Diesel
Erie Invaders
Tampa Bay Bandits
Atlanta Esquires
Baton Rouge Brigade
Austin Rage


Coming out of the draft The Sportin News magazine came out with their power poll and topping the list are the Illinois Thunder. The management has got to be pleased with the players on the Thunder squad, like:

Quarterback Brett Favre
Running Back Charlie Garner
Tight End Shannon Sharpe
Wide Receivers Curtis Conway and Joe Horn

With solid players at almost every other position the Thunder quite possibly be the team to beat in the AFC North and the USFL. The preseason kicks off this weekend with two games with the Chicago Crusaders visiting the San Diego Seawolves and the Norfolk Destroyers heading to visit the Austin Rage and Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison.

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Well Week 1 of the preseason certainly wasnt uneventful. The Austin Rage suffered a major injury to SS Mike Minter, one thaty may have an effect on his entire career. A ruptured achilles tendon is not easy to come back from and he certainly wont be back this season. Also on the injury front, the Chicago Crusaders were hit by the flu bug and almost every player had to take a trip to the trainer's room for fluids before, during, and after practices.

For the Rage, Peyton Manning was in true form with his old buddy Marvin Harrison. 19 comp. for 217 yards and 2 td's before donning a ballcap and letting Jon Kitna enter the game.

On the other side of the ball, the Norfolk Destroyers really had a difficult time moving the ball. Rod Smart got the bulk of the carries and avg. 2.4 per. Neither Aaron Brooks or Drew Bledsoe looked good enough to claim the lead in the starter race.

In the other preseason game, Crusader's Robert Holcombe broke the 100 yard mark rushing and QB Jake Plummer was efficient in moving the team. It was the Crusader defense that was surprisingly good totalling 7 sacks. San Diego relied on Chris Redmon's arm and he looked good despite the lack of any ground game. 13 completions 191 yards and a touchdown in the loss. Langdon Walker started at LT and showed his inexperience allowing 3 sacks. The Cal. grad will have to do better if he plans on keeping his starting job on the end of the line.

Week 2 of the preseason comes in on Thursday. Hopefully the teams wont suffer too many injnuries.