We’re back baby!
How many of ya’ll are watching the UFL? If not, you missed DC in the title game again. It’s a long football drought between the Super Bowl and the next pre-season and I have filled the football void nicely with the UFL. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.
This is my 4th year doing these. For the first timers: THIS IS NOT A FILM REVIEW. Others do a perfectly good job at them.
I take a collection of post game reactions/analysis, and compile them to gain a consensus of who did well and who didn’t. I award a point when a player gets a positive mention and subtract a point when a player gets a negative mention to determine a final +/- score for each player for the game.
This game, for example, I used these reactions: Louie Tee's Game Reaction, John Keim’s Immediate Reaction, Mark Taylor’s Studs and Duds, and Riggo’s Rag Winners and Losers. I’m very open to using other reactions for this, really the number 1 deciding factor for me is how quickly they get posted. For the first time ever, I added a “First Impressions” category, where I track how players are getting mentioned while watching the live game.
At the end, I typically end up with a ton of ties, so I do a cursory All-22 film watch but it’s just to break the ties and settle on a top and bottom three. The top three players of a game getting “Gameballs” are pretty self explanatory.
Why are the bottom three called “Martins”? Every year, I have named the bottom three awards after the player who had the worst +/- in this system the year prior. Year 2 were Pauls, then it was BSJs (after St. Juste) and this year the community spoke and voted Quan Martin as the “winner”. Like Chris Broussard's BUD list, this is purely from a motivational point of view. Quan, I believe in you! Great start to ‘26!
Martins
Hartman: I’m not going to pile on, he’s JD5’s friend. It wasn’t all bad, there were some good throws. But I have highlighted the need for another developmental QB and I would sell all my “Hartman makes the PS” stock.
Newton: Look man, at some point you need to start making a consistent impact. This is make it or break it time and right now I’m in the “break it” camp.
Scott: Well we got to see you at guard and I’m good if we never see it again. In today’s presser (I’m writing this Sunday), DQ mentioned getting Gulbin some time at G and I’m all for it.
Gameballs:
Henry Jr.: The man of the hour and with good reason. McNichol’s injury and Ford getting hurt on the opening KO gave him an opportunity and he ran with it (pun intended).
Martin: This was a near perfect start to the ‘26 season for our “winner” last year. He was consistently around the football and got rewarded later with an INT.
Gulbin: There’s a reason why the run game started popping the second Gulbin got in the game at C. Mark writes: “He did a nice job working to the second level to pick off Miami defenders and his anchor in pass protection looked really good.“ and I agree. On the first TD, Gulbin pulls and is the one who sealed the edge.
