THE
OFF-SEASON
In David Dixon's original plan the USFL would expand to 16 teams
for its second season. Reality exceeded expectation in
1984 as the league, in need of additional capital thanks to
owners who had over-spent, increased its size by 50%, to 18
teams. Buoyed by the league's initial success, the league
received a whopping 24 applications for new franchises with
early favorites in the selection process being Minneapolis,
Seattle, Pittsburgh, Houston and San Diego.
Just 63 days after the league's debut, the first of six
expansion franchises was awarded to Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. The announcement sent shockwaves through NFL
circles not because Pittsburgh was chosen as an expansion site,
but because of who would be owning the franchise:
Youngstown, Ohio-based developer Edward J. DeBartolo.
DeBartolo was the father of Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., who at the
time just happened to own the NFL's San Francisco 49'ers.
It was unnerving to the NFL to say the least.
On May 11 DeBartolo was joined by a partnership that included
Jerry Argovitz, Alvin Lubetkin, Bernard Lerner and Fred Gerson,
who would form the Houston Gamblers. The Gamblers weren't,
in the technical sense, an "expansion"
franchise. USFL founder David Dixon had been given a
franchise in exchange for his organization of the league, but
didn't field a team in 1983. In the inaugural year, Dixon
had become something of a gadfly in league circles, writing
letters complaining about how the league's owners were deviating
from his plan. By May 1983, the owners had heard enough of
the league's founding father, and arranged for the Argovitz
partnership to buy Dixon out.
Five days after the Houston announcement, William Tatham and his
son are awarded a San Diego franchise for 1984, taking a second
effort at putting a USFL team in the city after an attempt to
place a team there for 1983 failed due to bureaucracy in
securing use of Jack Murphy Stadium. 1984 would prove no
different than 1983 in San Diego, however, as the Tathams also
encountered insurmountable stadium-related problems that forced
them to look elsewhere. Ultimately they decided to place
the team in virgin pro football territory - Tulsa, Oklahoma,
naming the club the Oklahoma Outlaws. It was a far cry
from San Diego. Minneapolis and Seattle would also
encounter difficulties that would prevent the USFL from awarding
franchises to play in those cities. Three of the
"favorite" cities for expansion wouldn't have USFL
football in 1984.
On June 14, Jacksonville, Florida is awarded a franchise, to be
owned by real estate developer Fred Bullard. Tampa Bay
Bandits owner John Bassett is particularly pleased - when
awarded his team he secured exclusive franchise rights for the
state of Florida, and in addition to his share of the expansion
fee, Bassett received an additional payment for the breach of
his rights. On July 11 Texas got a second USFL expansion
club when Clinton Manges is awarded a team for San
Antonio. Despite a study of 17 expansion cities
commissioned by the league that advised, under no uncertain
terms, that San Antonio wasn't capable of supporting an USFL
team, Manges had a lot of money and the league felt they had no
real reason to deny his application. It would prove a huge
error. The expansion wave hit the shore six days later,
with Memphis, Tennessee being awarded a franchise, to be owned
by margarine heir Logan Young, Jr.
Changes took shape among the charter USFL teams as well.
On September 30, 1983, one of the more unusual business
transactions in sports history took place as the Chicago Blitz
and Arizona Wranglers in effect traded whole franchises.
Blitz owner Ted Diethrich sold his team to Milwaukee physician
Dr. James Hoffman, then purchased the Arizona Wranglers from Jim
Joseph. In the deal the 1983 Blitz and Wranglers rosters
were swapped (with a few exceptions), with the staffs and
players of both teams switching locations. The
"new" Blitz named Marv Levy as their head coach to
replace George Allen (or, depending on your point of view, Doug
Shively), while the "new" Wranglers had George Allen
at the helm (replacing Shively, again depending on your
view). The swap was seen as odd by the media and as a
significant step down for the USFL - having a competitive
franchise in Chicago was seen as important, and the trade took
what was a bad attendance situation in Chicago and made it
significantly worse.
Unable to secure either Harvard or Foxboro Stadiums for Boston
Breakers games, in December 1983 team owners George Matthews and
Randy Vataha gave up the ghost, selling the club to Louisiana
real estate developer Joseph Canizaro, who relocates the club to
New Orleans and the spacious Louisiana Superdome. Donald
Trump, who had been slated as the original owner of the USFL's
New York franchise but left to complete construction of Trump
Tower, returned to the league fold during the off-season by
buying the New Jersey Generals from J. Walter Duncan, who at an
advanced age wasn't fond of traveling from Oklahoma to New
Jersey for his team's home games. Trump proceeds to make a
series of changes, revamping the team roster by bringing in
players such as free agent Cleveland Browns signal caller Brian
Sipe, and a new head coach in the form of popular former Jets
coach Walt Michaels.
The franchise merry-go-round would continue during the season in
1984, as Washington Federals owner Berl Bernhard had had enough
of competing with the NFL's Redskins. He reached a
preliminary agreement to sell the club to Sherwood
"Woody" Weiser of Florida, who planned to relocate the
team to Miami in 1985 and had already hired Howard
Schnellenberger as his head coach. Discussions about the
USFL moving to a fall schedule scared Weiser off, however, and
before the deal was closed he backed out, leaving Bernhard in a
lerch and giving the USFL as a whole a black eye.
Eventually former Tampa Bay Bandits minority owner Donald Dizney
would step forward and buy the club, planning to relocate it for
1985 in Orlando, Florida. Of the twelve original
franchises, exactly half would have new owners after just one
year.
The expansion to 18 teams resulted in a realignment of the
league into two conferences (Eastern and Western) and four
divisions (Atlantic, Southern, Central and Pacific), each
containing either four or five teams. The Boston Breakers
broke from the Atlantic Division to settle in the new Southern
Division as the New Orleans Breakers, while the expansion
Pittsburgh Maulers were aligned into the Atlantic. The
Breakers meanwhile were joined in the Southern Division by the
Birmingham Stallions and Tampa Bay Bandits, as well as by two of
the league's six expansion teams, the Jacksonville Bulls and
Memphis Showboats. The Central Division was the most
geographically diverse, with two north-central teams from 1983
(Chicago and Michigan) being joined by three south-central
expansion teams (Houston, Oklahoma and San Antonio). The
only division to remain unchanged from 1983 was the Pacific,
with the (new) Arizona Wranglers, Denver Gold, Los Angeles
Express and Oakland Invaders squaring off for a second straight
season. The playoffs would also expand, from 4 teams to 8
(four division champions plus four wild-card qualifiers).
ON THE FIELD, THE STARS SHINE
Featuring a tenacious "Doghouse" defense that allowed
just 12.5 points per game, the Philadelphia Stars proved that
1983 was no fluke, feasting on one expansion team (Pittsburgh)
and one one hapless one (Washington) to earn four of their 16
wins against only two losses. Donald Trump's spending on
player personnel in New Jersey was paying off as the team
rebounded nicely from 1983, finishing second under Walt Michaels
at 14-4-0 and earning their first trip to the USFL
playoffs. The expansion Pittsburgh Maulers disappointed
fans despite the team's signing of 1983 Heisman Trophy winning
running back Mike Rozier, winning only three games - two of them
against the Washington Federals, who went from bad in 1983 to
worse in 1984, giving up an average of over 27 points per game
on their way to another last-place, 3-15-0 finish.
In the USFL's new Southern Division, the Birmingham Stallions
and Tampa Bay Bandits engaged in a dogfight for the division
title, each posting 14-4-0 records and making the playoffs - the
Stallions winning the division crown via tiebreakers. The
transplanted New Orleans Breakers, who surprised the league in
1983 by going 11-7-0 and nearly making the playoffs, surprised
no one in 1984, going a disappointing 8-10-0. Expansion
Memphis and Jacksonville (7-11-0 and 6-12-0, respectively)
weren't successful in terms of wins and losses in their first
season, but were successful in a more important area of
measurement - attendance.
The 1983 USFL champion Michigan Panthers were expected to
steamroll their way through a weak Central Division, but the
expansion Houston Gamblers had other ideas. Picking up a
slew of offensive firepower in quarterback Jim Kelly and wide
receivers Ricky Sanders and Richard Johnson, and introducing the
"run n' shoot" offense invented by Darrell
"Mouse" Davis, the Gamblers put up an incredible 618
points - an average of 34 per game - to post a 13-5-0 record and
win the division in the team's maiden season. The 10-8-0
Panthers settled for second place and one of the Western
Conference wild-card playoff berths. Two other expansion
teams came next in the Central Division standings as the San
Antonio Gunslingers (7-11-0) and Oklahoma Outlaws (6-12-0) each
finished ahead of the "new" Chicago Blitz, who looked
a hell of a lot like the old Arizona Wranglers and finished
5-13-0. How bad off were the Blitz in 1984? New
owner James Hoffman, who reportedly had spent $7 million to buy
the team, returned the franchise back to the league without his
team playing a regular season game.
Under new owner J. William Oldenburg, the Los Angeles Express
made a significant splash in the player signing market.
Known by the colorful nickname "Mr. Dynamite,"
Oldenburg more than lived up to that moniker, blowing the
league's salary structure out of whack and scaring the bejeezus
out of executives and owners in both the NFL and USFL by signing
Brigham Young quarterback Steve Young to a staggering $40
million contract. Young, together with the addition of an
offensive line seen by some as the best in all pro football,
then went on to win the division title with a 10-8-0
record. The Arizona Wranglers (nee Chicago Blitz) also
finished 10-8-0, but had to settle for a wild-card berth due to
tiebreakers. The Denver Gold improved on the field to
compete for the Pacific Division crown before falling to third
place at 9-9-0, while the 1983 division champion Oakland
Invaders stumbled, going from first to worst by posting a 7-11-0
record.
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