Coming into the 2025 UFL season, the San Antonio Brahmas found themselves in an unusual position. Rather than being the ultimate underdog, they were the defending XFL Conference champions, and winning their first UFL championship was the next step in their evolution as a team. That is until the Brahmas started the 2025 season with back-to-back disappointing performances in losses against the Arlington Renegades and the Saint Louis Battlehawks.
The problems the Brahmas are facing are related to changes in personnel they have made since last season along their offensive line, defensive line, and defensive secondary. With the UFL season only being 10 games long and the other three teams in the XFL Conference all having undefeated records, the Brahmas need to make urgent adjustments to improve their team. Those adjustments started with Brahmas offensive coordinator AJ Smith resigning from his position with the team.
Brahmas head coach Wade Phillips responded to the loss of AJ Smith by promoting Wide Receiver/Special Teams Coordinator Payton Pardee into the offensive coordinator role. That left a need for the wide receiver/tight end coaching position, which former Brahmas tight end Cody Latimer has now filled. In addition to the changes to the coaching staff, the Brahmas have also made changes to their roster.
According to a UFL press release, the Brahmas have released defensive back Greedy Williams and outside linebacker Toby Ndukwe.
The removal of Williams and Ndukwe from the Brahmas roster created holes in their roster, but those holes were quickly filled. The next move for the Brahmas included adding two players who had previous successful experiences with the Brahmas in 2023 and 20224. UFL Insider James Larsen announced that San Antonio added defensive tackle Matthew Gotel and defensive back Derrick Langford.
Defensive tackle Matthew Gotel returns to the Brahmas after playing 10 games with San Antonio during the 2023 XFL season. While playing for the Brahmas, Gotel recorded 10 solo tackles and 13 assists. During the 2022 and 2023 NFL seasons, Gotel spent time with the Seattle Seahawks.
Gotel played college football at NCAA Division II West Florida from 2019 until 2020. While at West Florida, Gotel played in 25 games and registered 26 solo tackles, 31 assists, and 4.0 quarterback sacks. Before playing at West Florida, Gotel had two seasons at Snow Junior College in Utah, and Gotel was credited with 17 solo tackles, 28 assists, and 1.5 quarterback sacks while playing in 19 games.
Defensive back Derrick Langford also returns to the Brahmas after playing in one game for the San Antonio defense during the 2024 UFL season recording two tackles. During the 2023 NFL season, Langford spent time with the New York Jets. The 6’1″, 205-pound Langford played college football at Washington State University.
Langford played in 39 games with the Cougars from 2019 until 2022. During his time at Washington State, Langford recorded 60 solo tackles, 31 assists, and intercepted four passes and returned an interception for a touchdown. Before playing for the Cougars, Langford played one season at the City College of San Francisco where he played in 11 games.
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1 Comment
by Ken Granito
It seems as though there have been a number of coaches that have left this league including DC’s Gregg Williams and Reggie Barlow. When you add in the AJ Smith departure it seems like there is a lot of unrest in the UFL coaching ranks. To be honest, I think this might be a good thing. Think about it. Payton Pardee is both a young coach and the grandson of the successful and former NFL and USFL head coach Jack Pardee. As the Phillips have ties to Texas football so does the Pardee family. With the two UFL jobs coming my thought has been that he would interview and quite possibly get one of the jobs. My gut tells me that if Seattle is a team he would get the Seattle job as they are accustomed to the spread offense and how well it worked in 2023. He can use this time now to look network with a few assistants and a veteran defensive coordinator. Wade Phillips would lose Smith anyway so it is much better coming with a coach that might be the OC of the future where he can start to gain experience. I know this is connecting a lot of dots, but even if the squad is not in Seattle you can see how the league has trouble keeping good coaches. I think an open head coaching job would work for both the UFL and Smith.