USFL Week 2 results, takeaways: Breakers claim top team, while league’s top QB comes as a surprise

Week 2 of the 2022 USFL season is officially in the books. We have a better idea of ​​who the best teams and players are at this stage, but there’s still a lot of football to play. The Michigan Panthers and Pittsburgh Maulers are the two remaining winless teams, while the Birmingham Stallions and New Orleans Breakers are the two undefeated clubs. The Stallions and Breakers face off next week, which should be fun.

Below, we’ll detail some takeaways from the USFL’s second week of action. Also, be sure to check out the USFL season standings and schedule. We have all the latest news on our USFL page here. First, here’s an overview of all the scores from Week 2:

Friday
New Jersey Generals 10, Michigan Panthers 6

Saturday
Philadelphia Stars 30, Pittsburgh Maulers 23
Birmingham Stallions 33, at Houston Gamblers 38

Sunday
New Orleans Breakers 34, Tampa Bay Bandits 3

The Breakers stand out as the best team

Wow. Nobody saw what happened on Sunday coming. The Breakers completely wiped out the Bandits, 34-3, in what was supposed to be our early season clash between the top two teams. New Orleans took an early lead and just didn’t look back. The offense scored touchdowns on its first two possessions, and the defense forced the Bandits three straight outs on their first three possessions. This defensive unit looks like one of the best in the league, and it made life unbearable in Ta’amu on Sunday. He threw for just 62 yards and one interception!

Kyle Sloter, meanwhile, threw for 266 yards, two touchdowns and also rushed for a touchdown in the win. He looks like a solid player, but he’s been struggling with multiple injuries. The Breakers also have some intriguing weapons in Jordan Ellis, TJ Logan and Jonathan Adams. They seem to be the early favorites to win the championship.

Eyes on Shea Patterson go ahead

Patterson, who was the USFL’s No. 1 draft pick, struggled in the Panthers’ Week 2 loss to the Generals, as he completed 14 of 29 passes for 124 yards. He only had 50 passing yards before the Panthers’ final possession!

Facing a fourth-and-20 from their own 10-yard line with a minute left at four points, the Panthers rallied to move the ball to the generals’ 16-yard line with five seconds left. However, Patterson’s last pitch fell incomplete. He was hesitant to let the ball fly when he had open receivers on the field and struggled to connect with his wides in general. Maybe head coach Jeff Fisher can find something to build on after what has been an impressive last gasp, but Paxton Lynch could get more playing time in the future.

Is Bryan Scott the best QB in the USFL?

Heading into this season, Scott was considered an interesting story, but probably not the best quarterback in the USFL. However, after two weeks of action, should we start asking ourselves this question? The Occidental College signalman went undefeated and won the Spring League Championship a few years ago, and now leads the USFL in passing yards (474) and passing touchdowns (4).

The No. 1 overall pick in Patterson struggled, and the No. 2 overall pick Jordan Ta’amu was crushed on Sunday. J’Mar Smith looks great for the Stallions, but is Scott the real star of this league?

Stallions have a real home advantage

The Birmingham Stallions are the only team in the USFL with “home field advantage”, and that’s actually a thing. They are one of two remaining undefeated teams and around 17,000 fans showed up for their season opener. They also had a decent number of people showing up for their contest last Saturday night. If you watched any other USFL game this week, you probably noticed the attendance was terrible. Seriously, it looked like there were less than 100 people there on Sunday. With only one of the eight teams having what appears to be a legit fan base, it will be something to watch.

First three-point conversion

After scoring a touchdown in the USFL, teams can go for one, two, or three runs. With the Stars up four points after a fourth quarter score, it was the perfect time to score three.

Saturday was for points

In the first week of the USFL, betting Unders in games was lucrative. However, you got burned if you were on the Unders on Saturday. We had a team that scored 30 points in a single game for the first time this season, and there were two of them, as the Stars beat the Maulers, 30-23, and the Stallions beat the Gamblers, 33 -28. This relatively high business was surprising, and for a young league trying to grab headlines, that’s a good thing. The more points, the better.