Cover picture from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Each week, Greg will present what we learned from UFL games over the previous weekend.
-Week Seven shook up the playoff standings. The entirety of the first half of the season saw the same four teams above the playoff cutline: D.C., St. Louis, Dallas and Orlando. Week Seven had a chance to change that, as each team above that line played a team below. We saw upsets in half the games, as Louisville knocked off D.C. and, in the game with the most effect on the standings, Birmingham downed Dallas. That moved Dallas down and out of the playoffs if they were to start this week, and Birmingham into the fourth and final spot. It also means that even the non-playoff teams that lost, Houston and Columbus, are still at worst 1.5 games behind with three to play. It's a pretty nice spot to have each team in if you're the UFL where everyone is still in contention with Week Eight on the horizon.
-The Spring King returns to his throne. With a few weeks in the St. Louis system, the Battlehawks turned the keys over to Luis Perez beginning with Friday night's matchup against Columbus. Perez was a bit rusty in his first game action of 2026, completing just over 50% of his passes and throwing an interception, but he did enough to lead the team to a win over the Aviators. St. Louis faces Houston back-to-back in weeks eight and nine before finishing with his former team, Dallas, as the Battlehawks try to lock up a home game for the playoffs.
-Derick Roberson's hit to Chandler Rogers was the turning point in that game. You may not see a bigger hit in the UFL this year than the one Defenders' Derick Roberson laid on Kings quarterback Chandler Rogers. In the second quarter, with D.C. leading 13-3, Roberson launched into Rogers with a huge hit, jarring the ball lose and allowing D.C. to recover. However, the hit was deemed illegal and Louisville retained possession. Rogers returned after missing one play to get checked out and two plays later, he found Tarik Black in the end zone for a touchdown. The Kings scored 27 unanswered points on D.C. to picked up the victory and stay in the playoff hunt. The hit to Rogers seemed to fire Louisville up and once again D.C.'s undisciplined nature cost them. We'll see how much of that bad blood spills over as the two games square off again in Week Eight.
-Dallas's downward spiral continues. After looking like the toast of the league for the first three weeks, Dallas has now dropped four straight, including the Week Seven matchup against Birmingham in overtime. The Renegades offense continues to look out of sorts, with once-vaunted Tyler Vaughns only catching one pass on the afternoon. Meanwhile, Birmingham has won two in a row behind new QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson. DTR didn't have a great statistical day against Dallas on Saturday, completing fewer than 50% of his passes for just 159 yards. But he did throw for two touchdowns and engineered two scores in OT to put Birmingham over the top. The Stallions defense, which played a lot of soft coverage the previous week against Orlando, tightened up successfully against the Renegades' receivers. The road doesn't get much easier for Dallas this week, as they face Orlando on Friday evening.
-Houston's QB situation got murkier. Houston had an opportunity to keep up with some of their fellow 2-4 teams that ended up winning in Week Seven, but missed field goals, a pick-six and a red zone turnover led to a one-point loss to Orlando. At 2-5, Houston is now in desperation mode and they move forward with a bit of a quarterback quandary. The player who has been under center most of the year, Nolan Henderson, was out due to injury. They got Hunter Dekkers back from an injury of his own and Dekkers played well. They also signed John Rhys Plumlee this week, one of their QB claims in the off-season who has been in the NFL. Plumlee was just let go by the Pittsburgh Steelers, making him eligible to join Houston. Now head coach Kevin Sumlin finally has his top two QBs in Dekkers and Plumlee. The question is, who stars and gets the bulk of the playing time? Both are athletic but Plumlee more so; that athleticism led to a 49-yard TD pass on his first UFL completion. The Gamblers have a razor-thin margin for error the rest of the season so Sumlin and his staff have to quickly figure out who is going to give them the best chance to win.
-Attendance alarm bells are ringing in various markets. St. Louis's attendance has held up relatively well over time...until this year. Friday night drew a reported 18,000 fans, the fewest in team history. D.C. had another game under 8,000 after drawing around 12,000 most years. Houston continued to be in Memphis Showboats territory at a little over 4,000. UFL co-owner Mike Repole has some work to do this off-season: He's already moved franchises into new stadiums and transferred others to different cities. You can't keep moving the chess pieces around the board. At some point, you have to play the hand you're dealt. It will be interesting to see what ideas Repole has to try to better engage these markets in the lead-up to 2027. One way could be changing the league schedule and beginning the season earlier, though it remains to be seen what kind of effect that'll have on attendance.