ContestsEvents

The New Jersey Generals are back? Yes! USFL Team Marks Return

There is something about the 80’s that just gets people fired up, longing for a connection to the past. Maybe it’s the music? The movies? Nobody makes action movies like…

There is something about the 80's that just gets people fired up, longing for a connection to the past.

Maybe it's the music? The movies? Nobody makes action movies like they did the 80s, nobody!

The fact the Mets were actually good. Yes, they won a World Series in 1986.

Maybe it's the decade's overall sense of excess and escape?

Well, one relic of the 80's is set to make a return: the New Jersey Generals.

That's right, the same New Jersey Generals that gave us Herschel Walker (better known for being traded from the Dallas Cowboys to the Vikings that started Dallas's run in the 90's), Doug Flutie (remember Flutie Flakes anyone?), and were once owned by a soon-to-be-future-President: Donald Trump.  As most remember Trump's infamous ownership of the Generals soon became subject of 3o-for-30 on the decline of the USFL in 1986.

Now, some 35-years later, the Generals and the USFL are set to make a return.

The USFL, which is partnered with Fox Sports, is set to mark its return to the gridiron in 2022. In fact all eight members were revealed on Monday.

In the North, the Generals will be joined by the Philadelphia Stars, Michigan Panthers and Pittsburgh Maulers.

The South will comprise of the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Gamblers, New Orleans Breakers, and Tampa Bay Bandits.

The 2022 season will played in the spring of 2022 in one host city, which has yet to be named. In the future, teams will head to their own markets. The season will be 10-games with two weeks for playoffs. Former Dallas Cowboys running back, Darryl "Moose" Johnston will be the Executive Vice President of Football Operations. Mike Pereira will be the head of officiating. Both Johnston and Pereria are NFL on Fox game analysts.

The return of the USFL marks the latest attempt to play professional football in the spring.  The XFL tried twice, in 2001 and again in 2020, and folded after each of its initial seasons. There was also the Alliance of American Football in 2019.  From 2009 to 2012 there was the United Football League.  After the USFL's initial run in the mid-80s, the really only successful spring league was NFL Europe, which was run by the National Football League as a form of Triple-A-league, however the NFL shut it down in 2007 to focus on sending teams to England for the International Series.

Michael Cohen is the News and Sports Director at Fox Sports Radio New Jersey and Magic 98.3 FM, as well as a radio production assistant with Fox and Magic in New Jersey. He started his career in Somerset in 2018 initially as a news fill-in at WCTC 1450 AM, and soon moved up to higher responsibilities in the ensuing years, assuming News & Sports Director title in 2021Prior to his time with Fox Sports New Jersey, Michael was play-by-play voice for New Jersey Jackals baseball, and as well as play-by-play and color for the College of Staten Island basketball (men and women), softball and baseball. Michael began his career as a news and sportswriter with the Jersey Journal of Hudson County.