On Saturday, May 3rd, the 1-4 Memphis Showboats will face the 2-3 Houston Roughnecks. It’s the second time in less than a month that the teams have played each other. However, a lot can change in a month.
THE QUARTERBACK CAROUSEL
In the team’s previous meeting, quarterback E.J. Perry got the starting assignment for Memphis while Anthony Brown was at the helm for the Roughnecks. Memphis lost by a score of 18-17 to Houston.
However, since that first game, Perry and Brown have been benched. Rookie quarterback Dresser Winn got his first start for Memphis a week ago. Following Nolan Henderson’s injury two weeks ago, former D.C. Defenders quarterback Jalen McClendon took over for Houston. Both quarterbacks have looked strong in their debuts.
MEMPHIS OFFENSE
Winn had an impressive first game last week, pulling off a decisive 24-20 overtime victory against the Birmingham Stallions. Completing 17 of 29 attempts for 235 yards and a touchdown, Winn also had two successful 2-point conversions. He provides mobility and an impressive arm as the Showboats’ quarterback. He can scramble and get away from defenders while making accurate throws on the run. Winn’s first completion was a stunning 78-yard touchdown bomb to Dee Anderson. With the long-awaited return this week of Daewood Davis and the talented Jonathan Adams, Winn has an impressive receiving group supporting him.
McClendon is 1/2 in his two starts for Houston. He lost his first game 23-16 to the Stallions. However, McClendon executed an impressive 27-3 win against the San Antonio Brahmas last week. At 6’4″ and 222 lbs, he brings size and athleticism to the position. McClendon enters this weekend’s game with more passing yards (407) than either Brown (207) or Henderson (183) and one rushing touchdown to his credit.
HOUSTON OFFENSE
The Roughnecks’ top receiver is Justin Hall. He has 27 catches for 203 yards and one touchdown. Keke Chism is second with 13 receptions for 118 yards. Although Emmanuel Butler has only four catches for 49 yards, two of those receptions were for touchdowns.
Marcus Simms, one of the UFL’s best receivers last year, was traded from the Michigan Panthers ahead of Week 3. He has only five catches for 51 yards. But Simms hasn’t practiced all week, hampered by a hamstring injury, and is unlikely to play on Saturday.
Running back Zaquandre White (previously with the D.C. Defenders) has proven to be a terrific addition to the Roughnecks’ backfield. White has 43 carries for 151 yards with two rushing touchdowns. He also has nine receptions for 74 yards.
ROUGHNECKS DEFENSE
Houston has a strong defense that has recorded 9.0 sacks and five interceptions. Tashawn Bower leads the Roughnecks with 3.0 sacks, while Marvin Moody has the most tackles with 27. Leon O’Neal is a fierce competitor with 25 tackles, one interception, one forced fumble, and two pass deflections. Safety Markel Roby, a dangerous threat with 23 tackles and a sack, is unlikely to play as he was limited in practice due to a hamstring injury. Cornerback Rayshad Williams currently leads the team with two interceptions.
MEMPHIS GROUND ATTACK
Deneric Prince leads the Memphis ground game this season with 50 carries for 195 yards with one touchdown. Prince also has five catches for 49 yards. With Jacob Kibodi’s release earlier this week and the addition of former Michigan Panthers running back Wes Hills, the Showboats’ ground game is taking shape. Before his injury, Hills had a solid season with the Panthers. Appearing in eight games last year, Hills had 72 carries for 291 yards with five touchdowns. He had another 59 yards on 12 carries. Jalen Jackson rounds out the trio with 25 carries for 63 yards and two catches for 21 yards.
MEMPHIS DEFENSE
Jarren Horton’s defense looked terrific last week, keeping the pressure on Stallions quarterback Case Cookus. Cookus completed only 50% of his passes for 145 yards with one touchdown and an interception. He added six carries for 83 rushing yards. LB Steele Chambers led the defense with 10 tackles. He has a total of 45 tackles this season with one pass deflection.
Safety Eli Walker had five tackles on Friday night, plus a huge interception off Cookus. In addition, Nasir Player forced a fumble, and P.J. Hall sacked Cookus.
SPECIAL TEAMS
If it comes down to special teams play, Memphis has the advantage. In one of the UFL’s most exciting plays of the UFL season, wide receiver and special-teams return specialist Isiah Hennie caught a missed 63-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis and returned it 108 yards for the touchdown. Hennie’s sensational heads-up play is the UFL’s longest kick return. That play earned him the “UFL News Hub Player of the Week” honors.
Adding two more field goals on Friday from 37 and 32 yards, Matthew Coghlin is one of the most reliable kickers in the league. Coghlin is 8 of 10, with one of his misses resulting from a blocked kick. His longest field goal is from 52 yards.
The Roughnecks kicker Chris Blewitt is 6 of 8 with his longest a 44-yard kick.
Interim head coach Jim Turner and OC Noel Mazzone have begun to turn things around in Memphis. With one win on the books, the Showboats are looking for their second consecutive victory. The Roughnecks pulled off a defining win a week ago. Houston brings a strong defense, and Curtis Johnson may finally have found his quarterback in McClendon.
The action begins at 11:00 am CDT when the Houston Roughnecks host the Memphis Showboats on Saturday, May 3rd at TDECU Stadium in Houston. The game will be televised on ESPN2. Tickets are still available.
1 Comment
by Ken Granito
I have always said, “If you build it, they will come”. Unfortunately the UFL has not built anything so beautiful. The officiating is the number one reason why this league is failing. The football is just not real. The announcers are owned by the league, so they will not question it so basically the league is a farce. It is much more like the WWE than the NFL. Joe Tessitore has a wonderful deep voice and the ability to sensationalize, but he has NO idea of what he is sensationalizing. In the game between the Defenders and Showboats, the league’s all-time leading receiver, Jay Adams, was not in on the drive as he had sustained what looked like a wrist or forearm injury earlier in the game and with two minutes left and trailing by less than one score there was no time like the present for him to be on the field . Did Tessitore he or any other announcer bring that to anyone’s attention. It’s a huge football play.
They did not. Why, because they aren’t paying attention. They want to pay attention to what new gimmick the UFL can bring about. The UFL loves to play at football, but not actually play football. Once they have the product of football, then if you want to improve the league, great, but their gameplay and officiating is SO poor.
In the Renegades vs Stallions game they did not call the Renegades for a penalty until the 3rd quarter. Why do you ask, because the Stallions were favored by only 3 1/2. I know that might seem like a stretch, but the most penalized team in the UFL does not have a penalty until the 3rd quarter. And the first call was the right end purposely going off sides and pointing at the left tackle’s ankle. You had to see the ref. It was not normal. The official hesitated and didn’t know what to do. Then instead of calling off-sides he called movement. This is not real football. This is someone in the booth telling him it was OK to call it on the offense. I know people think that sounds funny, but let’s go on. Either something funny is going on or the officials are jokes. Either way it is bad for football, but if it’s the refs, sometimes the booth corrects them and other times they are standoffish. This was supposed to correct it all. As Dany Garcia says. This is not going to be that league, I guess questioning the NFL, however the NFL has it MUCH more together than the UFL. The UFL is a joke when it comes to officiating.
Let’s go to the Renegades vs Battlehawks. I think it is safe to say that it will be good for the UFL to have the Battlehawks in the playoffs and maybe the finals, but exactly what extents would they go to have this happen?
1. First there is a 15 yard penalty on the Renegades for shoving Javeon Howard to the game an instant after the whistle is blown. They shove him backward and he falls, even acting a little bit. Even the announcers that are paid by the league felt it look like overacting and they throw a 15 yard penalty on the Renegades. I have never seen this penalty called in the UFL and it goes on for much longer after the whistle almost every, single time. I feel the UFL realized Max Duggan and the Battlehawks needed help.
2. Isaiah Winstead is called for pass interference. to keep a first down going. There certainly was a bit of a push, but really? Lord knows it would not have been called on the Battlehawks and to confirm it, this week Hakeem Butler shoves the defensive back to the ground to allow himself to be so wide open and score his first touchdown of the game. Was it a penalty, I don’t really know I would have to look at the play more closely, but I would have to say this was unfortunate for the Panthers. So than we go to the 4th with the game on the line. Hakeem Butler surely pushes the defender that he was running with stride for stride, definitely behind him and Hakeem Butler certainly could have made the catch without extending his arm and pushing the defender away. This was clearly offensive pass interference. So let’s look at this. For the Renegades it was a penalty the week prior, but for the Battlehawks it’s not. That is nice if you could get it that way.
3. The Showboats vs Stallions. The Showboats HOLD Bradley Anae or whoever the Right Defensive End on virtually every pass play in the first half. Skip Holtz not doing his job does not challenge the Left Tackle on the 74 yard Touchdown pass to Dee Anderson. It was clearly a hold. It was so VERY obvious it was a hold. Now should the officials caught sure they could. IF they wanted to……so we could talk about all the offense, but that should have been a holding penalty and not a 74 yard touchdown so let’s take that off the board. The holding went on play after play after play. They don’t call one on the Showboats. Then to provide insult to injury they call one on the Stallions for the same thing the Showboats are doing. These penalties weren’t missed they were purposefully not called. The parents of the referee Bryan Banks clearly know that their son is a liar, but he purposefully could not do what is correct. I hope he has no kids for his sake. He will have to explain to them they shouldn’t lie when he lies for a living. Mrs. Banks might want to think about that too. Watch the game. It is ondemand. Watch the first half starting with the 74 yard touchdown. So where am I going with this? First off it is clear that the truth means nothing for the UFL. It is a farce to the extent George the Animal Steele has a bazooka in the ring and the UFL’s officiating crew cannot see it. OK let me get back on target….. So now we come down to overtime. The Stallions (finally) challenge a play. They are correct. The left tackle has a whole arm wrapped around his neck and they ask for the challenge, but they say number 96. There wasn’t even a 96 on the field. They had Yarbury and #58 Perion Winfrey in the tackle positions. The number was surely 90. So even though EVERYONE can see the VERY obvious hold the league says they can’t see it, because the Stallions got the number wrong. Not only is the purely WWE, when everyone sees what is wrong and everyone is yelling, but the ref can’t see it. Isn’t this just like the WWE? I ask you how many times in your life have you seen the official get the number wrong when calling a penalty or don’t provide a number at all. I have seen it, at least a hundred times in my life. So the officials who clearly suck in this league are allowed to not get the number right, but not the team. Ok, You might say, yeah the outcome was wrong, but at least they are true to their word. The rule says they must be correct.
Let’s go back to the Battlehawks vs Renegades. Luis Perez throws a 52 yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Winstead or Javonta Payton, I can’t remember. The Battlehawks challenge the play. They say there was a hold on the person holding number 99. Number 99 Faiolu came all the way over to say it was on him. Ok, so they look at the play 99 was not held. There was a grab on 98. They had a grasped of his jersey much way the Battlehawks block on every single play. Perez got past him and was throwing the ball when the grasp occurred. It had no effect on the play. It was a touchdown, but because the UFL has a financial VESTED interest in the Battlehawks the booth comes back with that the hold was not on 99. It was on 98. How come the league makes the Stallions lose the challenge for saying the wrong number yet it’s ok for Battlehawks and they take the touchdown off the board. To be honest, the touchdown they took off the board was a cleaner touchdown than the 74 yarder to Dee Anderson and the game winning touchdown to Hakeem Butler. I understand why the league is favoring the Battlehawks. It is still wrong to.
Additionally, there was a bootleg by Max Duggan and Jordan Rogers says some wisecrack remark, like oh but now the Battlehawks are going to score here, because they are so great they fooled the Renegades, except that the Renegades caught and tackled him. Statements like that are great on wrestling programs and movies like the Terminator when it’s a show. Announcers need to report what they see, not to support what the league wants them to, but why would that happen. The league is not real. If you question it, think on this.
Hundreds of millions of fans watch the NFL, yet hundreds of thousands watch the UFL. That is a huge difference. You say the product is great and you don’t know why people don’t see it. Is it possible that you are looking for drones and interesting announcers and storylines and the NFL plays FOOTBALL. Maybe the hundreds of millions of football fans that aren’t watching the UFL are football fans and this isn’t football. Think about it. ESPN reports and shows highlights to the Little League World Series, but not the UFL. What does that tell you? It tells me, the UFL needs to figure it out. You want to fix a game or two when you become something big, you go do that. You shouldn’t be doing it now. And you shouldn’t insult football fans with how bad your officiating is. There are literally thousands of touchpoints in a game that you can fix. You just do it the MOST STUPID way. They insult us as football fans. Personally, I already know what this league is. I will try to give it a fair shake in 2026, but right now this league is a joke. You can say how the league had good games. Think on it. If you had a girlfriend that cheated and lied on you, but sometimes she was good, would you still want her? Hoping you all join me in boycotting Friday’s game. Maybe if we get it down to 250,000 eyes on the sets, we could get them to put football first. Even now, if they dare so read this. They wouldn’t be thinking that I am right we need to put football first. They would instead think, Ken is right, we are making it so obvious. Let’s get it together and make the cheating less obvious so that if someone did re-watch the game it wouldn’t be so obvious. Just remember this take away…..Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. No one watches the league. The team owners are them. The announcers are them. If you are a fan of the Andor series, forget no one is listening. The UFL has no one to report on their product. It’s just us. Let them know this is not good enough and boycot tonight’s game. Also, remember you can watch these games on ESPN and Fox-ondemand. Please watch so you can hold them accountable. One last thing……what is more WWE than a fan heckling and spitting on a fan and the player smack….not punch, not get arrested, a player smacks a fan and he gets a one-game suspension and the fan is not barred from the stadium. I am not saying this was faked. All I am saying is how that everything else is so fake, hear we are. I have actually seem for realistic stuff playing Celebrity Deathmatch back in the day. The USFL started with such possibility. It is truly a sham, mean shame where it is today. Remember, the USFL used to advertise how it is the real as it mocked the XFL. It truly is so sad. If Anthony Becht weren’t so afraid of a veteran quarterback with some talent, the league would trade Bryce Perkins to the St. Louis Battlehawks, much the way the XFL traded Luis Perez from the Vipers to the Renegades for Ryan Mueller who was cut by the Vipers and picked up again by the Renegades. Nah, the UFL hasn’t become too much of a joke. Please boycot tonight’s game. Tell them Football must come first. Hopefully, you are trying to teach your children about truth. Make the UFL be truthful. Also, Anthony Becht, if you have any guts (yes I used guts, but I could think of a better word) sign Ben DiNucci. At least with a veteran, good, quarterback the league won’t have to cheat for you as much. You being such a baby has put so much pressure on the league to make all these bad calls for you. Doesn’t it make you cringe that the league has lost all credibility because you are a bad coach. I used to say you were inexperienced. Seeing how much the league has to call things in your favor, I think it is safe to say you are a BAD coach and kind of wimpy too. You don’t even need to where a hat. I can still see the dunce written all over you.