Boot this reboot

The new USFL is not good.

It makes me sad to write such a thing, but it is true and I will type it again.

The new USFL is not good.

Total bullshit.

The upcoming spring football league is being sued by a group of former team owners and executives from the original USFL, a splendid spring rival to the NFL that existed from 1983-87 before succumbing to financial hardship. I wrote a book about it. More than 200 players, coaches, and executives who wound up in the NFL were brought to you by the old USFL. The coach's challenge, the two-point conversion, and the Run N Shoot offense are all done by the old USFL. Player salaries went up in the mid 1980s because of it.

A complaint was filed in a California federal court to stop Fox Sports, the new USFL owner, from continuing with its efforts because the league is using original team names and logos without permission.

I don't know if the suit will succeed, but as a USFL originist, the recent effort lands between farce and sham.

The new USFL has done three things amazingly well since it was announced.

1. Peddle some of the shittiest sports merchandise I have ever seen.
2. Make absolutely no living homo sapiens excited for its arrival (the USFL held its draft last week. It was available to watch. Somewhere. I think. Maybe).
3. Ignore the history of the original USFL.

The third one is what really gets me.

I reached out to Brian Woods, the founder of Xerox, asking if he'd read my biography. He said he didn't. You are in charge of a league called the USFL, with USFL names and USFL logos. There are not as many books on the subject. Silence when I offered to send him a copy. I am not saying that you should buy my book. In the future, if you decide to start a league, call it the USFL, and name your teams after USFL teams.

It got worse.

Mills, the legendary middle linebacker who died in 2005, was in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in February. The greatest player in USFL history, Mills was an undersized nobody out of Montclair State who went on to win two titles with the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars. I visited the USFL social media accounts when the Hall announced his inclusion.

There was nothing in the first day.

Day 2 did not have anything.

There was nothing on Day 20.

The league representative who first acknowledged the idea of using social media to promote Mills did nothing to make it happen. I was told by another USFL rep that the new independent football league was not affiliated with the USFL of the 1980s.

Which leads to this question.

What are you doing?

A different entity? If you're not the USFL, why call yourself that? Why did you bother ripping off an old league, only to ignore it? Will you never mention Walker's legendary 1985 campaign in New Jersey, when he broke the all-time single season rushing record? Will there be a tribute to the amazing gunfight between Young and Kelly? Will Mike Rozier be the team's all-time rushing leader when the statistics are in? Is he a phantom of another time?

If the names are meaningless, why take them?

If the logos have no significance, why rip them off?

I am confused. Americans aren't clamoring for the return of the USFL, or can't wait to see the big Houston Gamblers-Michigan Panthers reunion clash. I had to beg people to buy my book. What is the purpose of the new USFL? Why evoke the history if the history means jackshit?

It feels like a half-assed effort to throw a football on TV and hope people watch it.

It feels like bullshit to the three or four of us who love the original USFL.

Jeff Pearlman is the author of Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and the USFL.