The Pittsburgh Maulers are officially dead. Again.
Reported weeks ago and now made official today, the USFL-XFL merger is only taking four teams who played in the two-year restarted USFL league. And the Maulers aren’t one of them.
Per Pro Football Talk, the four teams carried over into the merger don’t include Pittsburgh.
“The combined USFL-XFL has informed the USFL Players Association, which has informed its members, that four teams from the USFL will survive [sic] for 2024: Michigan, Houston, Memphis, and Birmingham.”
Pittsburgh, along with New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, are out of the picture. This means both PA teams have folded.
Players apparently found out via text message. Linebacker Scooby Wright shared the message he received, finding out his team, Birmingham, was part of the merger,
This news had been expected since news of the merger became official. The biggest issue with the Maulers was the lack of a stadium and home base. Though they carried the Pittsburgh name, they played last year’s games in Canton, Ohio. Without a stadium to truly call their own, it made little sense to keep the franchise going. Late last month, there were strong rumblings the Maulers weren’t going to be part of the merger. Rumors of a merger between the leagues began in September and was approved in late November.
The Maulers were the league’s laughingstock in 2021, becoming better known as a pizza meme than a football team after one of their running backs was reportedly cut due to wanting pizza over chicken salad. Things got off to a rocky start in 2022, but the team rallied late in the season to make the playoffs under new head coach Ray Horton, once the Steelers’ DBs Coach, and the team made it to the USFL Title Game before losing to Birmingham, 33-30.
The Maulers first formed in the 1984 season, lasting only one season before folding. They’ve now folded for a second time. It’s unlikely there will be a third attempt.
Though there seemingly wasn’t a big appetite for the rebirth of Maulers football, the article we wrote with the initial speculation of the team folding was one of our most-read articles of the day. Clearly, there was a section of fans who loved Pittsburgh football, even if it was in name only.
The new XFL-USFL merger is expected to make its on-field debut sometime in March.
