They are words that now echo in the minds of many UFL fans and players. During new league co-owner Mike Repole's media blitz this summer, he said the following:
“If they have the drive and the passion and they want to make the NFL, and that’s their dream, then we want to help them. But if they’re looking for, ‘Hey, where’s my next check, or am I going to play next year?’ then this is probably not the league for you. And if you’re in this league four or five years, you probably shouldn’t be here. You should probably go into coaching or do something else.”
To those who had followed spring football for years, this was a sign their favorite players may be turned into endangered species. And as some old faces cycled out with new faces cycling in, it gave ammo to those distrustful of the way Repole was planning to operate the league.
Early in the season, some former UFL players took to social media to seemingly confirm their blacklisting from the league. It all built off of Ricky Person, who had been vocal about wanting to be included in the UFL in 2026. At one point, he came out and directly accused the league office of keeping him on the sidelines even as other teams wanted to acquire his services (his X account is currently suspended for unknown reasons):
“I’m getting black balled I would love if stallion nation could back me up I’ve had multiple teams reach out and try to sign me but the league isn’t allowing me to play but this the league of opportunity?”
Another player in a similar situation to Person was Frank Ginda, who added some detail to his experience:
“Blacklisting us is INSANE. I have 3 UFL teams’ HCs, DCs, 1 of the GMs, & LB coaches all frustrated because they been fighting hard to sign me but the league is not allowing for no reason. As of very recent, TWO of the HCs has been literally begging on multiple occasions @TheUFL”.
Immediately, fans and analysts sided with Person and Ginda, viewing this as an example of Repole's edict to make the UFL a developmental league for the NFL, not a place where still-capable players can make a living even if the NFL is no longer in reach. But do the facts back up this claim? I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the comments made by players and what other, reasonable explanations could be for their absence - or eliminate those explanations as possibilities.
It's worth noting that I reached out to UFL public relations to ask if the league had any official or unofficial policy regarding the restriction of player acquisition. To this point, I've received no response to that query.
Is the UFL limiting player participation based on age or time away from the NFL?
The first suspicion when reading Person's post was that the UFL was simply following up on Repole's perceived threats before the season began, that players who were in the UFL year after year would be sent out to pasture. There are a couple of ways to judge that, and one of them is based on age. Person is just 26 years old - maybe old for a running back, but not old. I decided to look at a random UFL team's roster to see what the ages are there. At least half of the D.C. Defenders' roster is 26 years old or over. So very quickly, we can eliminate the idea that the UFL is blacklisting players (or at least Person) based on age.
The second piece addresses the other part of Repole's quote: If you're no longer on the NFL radar, you're inherently not a developmental player and not someone the UFL may be interested in investing in. The UFL wants players on the cusp of the NFL, preferring those who've had recent experience in that league. Person spent a month with the Seattle Seahawks in 2024 as his most recent NFL time. Sticking with the Defenders, players like Deontay Anderson, Brian Abraham and Deandre Baker are further removed from the NFL than Person - and that's just three of the first five players listed alphabetically on the team's roster. I think it's safe to rule out both of these possibilities.
Is it possible the league will allow older players, but has a per team cap on the number?
This would be the middle ground of the "no, the league obviously isn't doing this" argument and the "the league is blacklisting these players for '(fill in the blank reason)'!" believers. What if the league has quietly instituted a cap on the percentage of players a team has on its roster that meet this criteria? Let's say they're only allowed to have 10% of their roster over 30, for example. That would explain why some players are in the league and some players - with the same age, playing experience, etc. - can't get in.
It's still not an ideal scenario from my vantage point, but it could be an explanation. However, as noted above, D.C. has half of its roster past Person's age. If you're going to allow half the roster, why even bother with a cap? So if there is a percentage allowable, it doesn't seem like age is the factor. And if there IS indeed a cap, shouldn't the coaches (and GMs for that matter) know about such a rule? Why would they be trying to reach out to/recruit these players, as Person and Ginda have contended, if there is such a rule in place? We'll put this in the "possible, but unlikely" category, though there are several factors that the UFL could choose to limit player involvement in the league outside of just age.
What about injury history of the player? Could that be a deciding factor?
On some level, this would explain why coaches have wanted Person while the league has resisted: Those general managers would have access to information coaches may not necessarily have about these players, including their injury history and the risk involved. Some comments on Person's X/Twitter post indicated injuries could've played a role; if not injuries themselves, then the required money to insure players with extensive injury history. It would also explain Frank Ginda's absence (more on that below), as he had a season-ending injury last year.
When Person was with Seattle in '24, he was released with an injury settlement. However, he returned to the UFL in 2025 with the Birmingham Stallions and played in eight games. Clearly, the injury did not hamper him last year. Someone with a steep injury history may cost more to have insured, and we know the UFL is looking to cut costs any way they can. Person, though, does not have the kind of injuries in his past you'd imagine would be a barrier to entry for insurance reasons. Defenders RB Abram Smith has suffered torn ACLs three times in his life and he's still alive and kicking in the UFL.
Is the UFL discriminating against players who have not played in the NFL?
Cam Echols-Luper thinks so. In a now-deleted post on X/Twitter, Echols-Luper relayed that he was told he was cut by the Stallions in training camp because he lacked NFL experience.
The easy explanation here is that UFL teams, individually, may prefer those with NFL experience over others. If everything is equal between two players, that makes some sense as a deciding factor. But is this a league mandate? Unlikely. After all, one of the events the UFL is proudest of every year is the UFL Showcase. The whole point of this exercise is to perhaps uncover hidden gems, those not on the UFL's radar and who likely don't have any time in the NFL. There would be no point to these, then, if the UFL had an explicit edict to only hire players with NFL experience.
And of course, there are players in the UFL who have only sniffed the periphery of the league, such as rookie minicamp attendees (like the previously mentioned Abraham and his teammate, Macklin Ayers) and others who never even signed an NFL contract. Echols-Luper has extensive experience in the CFL and USFL that would be at least nearer equivalent of NFL experience than some others. How a coaching staff builds its team, and what they emphasize, is up to them. And if they're emphasizing NFL experience over actual talent or production in practice as Echols-Luper seems to indicate, it's at the team's own peril.
Are UFL scouts, general managers, and league officials freezing out legacy USFL players?
This is the accusation made by Channing Stribling.
For full disclosure, Stribling played for the XFL in 2020, the USFL in 2022 and 2023, and the UFL in 2024. A few months ago, in the aftermath of Repole's takeover and reshaping of the football operations department, I wrote a column about how the XFL side of the merger seemed to win out in that those with XFL ties are the ones in key scouting positions, tasked with acquiring and approving players for UFL teams.
When you look at those names who have made noise about being unable to enter the league this year, it certainly does seem to have a USFL slant: Person, Ginda, Stribling, Breeland Speaks, Chris Odom - all of these players have backgrounds with the USFL. But many if not all also played in the UFL over the last two seasons. That would make them just as much UFL talent as USFL. It really all depends on how those in charge view them. And with Moose Johnston out of power, a holdover from the USFL himself, that opens the door for suspicions of nefarious goings-on.
If teams want to acquire a player, the league shouldn't stand in the way of them doing so, except in rare and significant instances. This would not be such an example. The idea of those in UFL management being so petty as to not allow players with USFL backgrounds into the league is really hard to fathom. Their jobs - this league - literally depends on the best players coming in and playing at a high level. It would be not only dumb for this to happen, but also potentially damaging to the future existence of the league.
It wouldn't be the first time a spring football league was accused of funny business with transactions. There was the Luis Perez trade from Vegas to Arlington back in XFL 2023. The oddity involving the league stopping San Antonio from adding a player prior to the 2024 UFL Championship against Birmingham. Last year, it was Memphis releasing QB Quentin Dormady, which Dormady saw as retaliation from the league for his union activities (the GM for the Showboats at the time, Jim Monos, is now a league scout with the UFL, in charge of Birmingham and St. Louis). As recently as this week, D.C. was gifted a starting linebacker - and a former Defender - on waivers as Houston just happened to waive him just before the playoffs. Is it a big leap of faith to think the UFL is playing fast and loose with its player acquisition process once again?
If we scan the rosters of UFL teams, we can see that there are plenty of legacy USFL players involved today. The Birmingham Stallions, for example, have players like Deon Cain, Kyahva Tezino, Ryan Langan, Colby Wadman, and several others with roots in the USFL, a few of whom played both years in that league. Heck, Columbus's QB Jalen Morton, the Week Eight Offensive Player of the Week, was a USFL Stallion in 2023. With that evidence in front of us, the question then becomes, what gives those players with USFL backgrounds a pass, and not others? It certainly doesn't seem like it's a case of straight bias against the USFL.
Could this be a situation where players are exaggerating or making up these accusations?
In today's social media world, it's difficult to discern what's real and what's not. Players use social media to champion their cause, attempting to go viral in the hopes that someone will notice. These players may think that if they get their name out there - somehow - teams and coaches might take heed and sign them up. Plus, the league would likely not bother to refute the claims made, so there'd be little chance of blowback.
The UFL's player union is not the strongest in all of sports, but if players were really getting blocked from signing for reasons untoward, you'd think these players could go to the union to try to get to the bottom of this. Person, Ginda, and others were, after all, part of the league and therefore one would imagine the union as recently as last season. The fact that the union has not seemed to get involved, or publicly comment on the situation, casts doubt on the veracity of the claims unless there is something in writing, agreed to in the last CBA, limiting access to these players in some way. The mysterious suspension of Person's X account and Echols-Luper deleting his post raise even more questions.
I don't personally think this to be the case, but in running down all avenues of possibilities, I needed to include this for the sake of completion. I'd guess it's more likely there are wires being crossed here in communication between players and league than actually something disreputable from the player perspective. The frustration of not being able to continue playing on your terms, and a perceived unfair roadblock standing in the way, makes it understandable that these players would lash out on social media. A player's football career is finite, and they're being robbed of a year they'll never get back.
Final Analysis
Ultimately, if these players' claims are to be taken at face value, something fishy is going on here. It's just that a lot of the obvious suggestions as to "what" don't line up with reality. Is there something more, the league selectively holding something against these players that they aren't holding against so many others in similar situations? Again, it's to the league's detriment if that's the case. The UFL has been notorious for not being transparent in situations such as this and even making rules up on the fly. Until we hear from the UFL officially in these cases, we'll be left to speculate about the cause of so many qualified players being unable to get a contract with the league.