It's the stuff of legend around these parts.  The story of Jim Kelly's path to the Buffalo Bills.  Legend has it that when Jim Kelly was in Orchard Park meeting with the Bills to negotiate his contract after being selected 14th in the 1983 NFL Draft, a Bills secretary mistakenly let The GM of the United States Football League's Chicago Blitz get on the phone with Kelly.

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The GM, Bruce Allen, somehow talked Kelly into walking out of the meeting. The legend goes that Allen and the league (the USFL) offered Kelly his choice of cities to play in, and a fat paycheck to do so. Kelly wound up leaving the Bills at the alter and signed with the Houston Gamblers. The USFL only lasted two seasons.  In the 1986 season, the Gamblers were to merge with the New Jersey Generals.  Kelly would have been teammates that season with another future Bills QB, Doug Flutie.  But the league's move to the fall never happened, and Kelly never played in New Jersey, instead joining the Bills for the 1986 season, as the team still held his NFL rights.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Well, they also say that history repeats itself.  And in the case of the USFL, that holds true.  If you watched any of the NFL playoffs this year, you no doubt saw the commercials for the re-launch of the 80's rivalry league that started the career of several notable NFL stars.  In addition to Jim Kelly and Doug Flutie, the USFL also spawned the careers of Hall of Famers Regie White, Steve Young, and NFL stars Herschel Walker, Sam Mills, and more.

The new version of the USFL will make its debut in April of 2022 and will be bringing back some classic franchise names and logos.

As a football fanatic, and a guy that remembers the original USFL, I'm stoked to check out the new league.  The USFL season will run between mid-April and mid-June, with games airing on both Saturdays and Sundays.  Will the next Jim Kelly, Reggie White, or Steve Young be taking the field?  There's only one way to find out.  You will be able to watch the inaugural game of the 2022 USFL season on Saturday, April 16, 2022. The rest of the 2022 schedule has yet to be released.

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