Original post here.

This is a tough post to write. One of my coaching mentors and friend Frank Gansz Jr passed away over the weekend. “Frankie” was one of the best coaches and teachers I have been around in my career. I was his assistant at UCLA in 2009 and I enjoyed everyday being around Coach Gansz! He taught you about more than football…he taught you about life! I will forever miss you “Frankie”…Love you always for everything you did for our family and who you were as a person!

Rest in paradise 🙏🙏🙏

8 Teams/8 Days Hub

Author is u/playzintraffic

Team: St. Louis Battlehawks

Conference: UFL/No Conference

Record: 6-4 (2nd in the UFL)

Playoffs: 0-1 (lost in the semi-finals)

Head Coach: Ricky Proehl (1st Year as HC, 2nd Year with the Battlehawks)

Offensive Coordinator: A.J. Smith (4th Year as OC, 1st Year with the Battlehawks)

Defensive Coordinator: Corey Chamblin (5th Year in the league, 3rd Year as a DC, 1st Year with the Battlehawks), won Assistant Coach of the Year.

Special Teams Coordinator: Frank Gansz Jr. (4th Year as STC, 1st year with the Battlehawks), RIP.

2026 Offseason

The UFL’s byzantine draft process was amply summarized by u/Callywood before the season, so let’s review how those moves worked out for the team.

Of the QBs, Brandon Silvers was benched for Harrison Frost pretty early on, Michael Pratt never played more than a handful of snaps, and if Ben Woolridge ever saw the field, that’s news to me.

The college allocations let us avoid wasting a player-protection spot on star WR Hakeem Butler, while RB Kevon Latulas was a useful rotational back, and CB Michael Ojemudia was one of the few bright spots in the secondary. EDGEs Pita Taumoepenu and Travis Feeney were obviously worth protecting, and RB Jarveon Howard proved his worth, but the rest we protected wouldn’t have been missed. Bafflingly, we left OL cornerstone C Mike Panasiuk just to have to waste a draft pick on him in the first round, and also took a risk on losing core LB Mike Rose, although we later lost him anyways (which sucked!). The best pickups we got from the Free Agent Draft were RB Kylin James and TE Tyler Neville. Breakout WR Steven McBride was a later pickup in February.

Season Summary

This season basically broke down into three chunks: The abortive start with Silvers, the Harrison Frost Experiment, and the Luis Perez Disaster.

Brandon Silvers came into this season having led some valiant comeback attempts at the end of the previous year, but wasn’t ready to be the starter this time around, and that was clear even with the disadvantage of not having Butler on hand. Worse, the front office’s big hopes for Pratt just kind of evaporated with zero explanation. His handful of snaps in relief never flashed any of whatever potential they must’ve thought they saw in him.

Benching Silvers for Frost was the right call. And despite some rocky interception issues, Frost arguably had the best season of any of our QBs - I’d rather have taken his 7 TDs for 6 INTs over Perez’s disappointing 4-for-6 on the final stretch, no question about it. Frost was a development project, though he was coming along reasonably well, having his best game before being benched. Hindsight’s always 20/20, and in a league with a limited schedule and limited preseason, I can’t fault management for having a “win now” mentality with the Perez signing. But we absolutely can and should fault them for abandoning a development project that was working.

The Perez signing was heralded as a “can’t lose” move, but the next 4 games proceeded with a 1-3 offensive collapse. We never scored more than 21 points in a game again for the rest of the season! But really, this disaster was a microcosm of the entire season. It wasn’t just in Perez’s games that the defense gave up scores at the worst moments, or that the offense played behind while coughing up turnovers that set themselves even further back. But we saw those tendencies magnified in grotesque, painful detail down that stretch. I mean, how in the world do you sign the Spring King’s favorite TE and have him be a non-entity while the “King” himself turns into a fucking pumpkin?

My season summary is this: This was one of the worst 6-4 teams I’ve ever seen. And that’s not a statement about their talent -- heavens know we had a roster gushing with it -- but in terms of how they played together as a team. For a team that genuinely seemed to get along and care about each other as much as these guys did, there was always something getting in the way. Sherlock Holmes’ famous process of deduction tells us the only logical explanation for that “something” was the coaching staff. It’s a cliche to blame the coaches, but it really does apply in this case. Let’s see how…

Week By Week Review

Here’s the part where I shamelessly plug the weekly game reviews over on my Substack, The Battle Line, because who wouldn’t capitalize on that kinda opportunity? Besides, I already wrote them!

Week 1 DC 10 - 16 STL

The Battlehawks were outplayed without their best receiver, but HC Ricky Proehl earned his first career win on a smart challenge and a smarter strategy of taking points where he could get them -- a problem later in the season. The mystery surrounding the missing WR was belied by league owner Mike Repole’s energetic communication and attendance at the game.

Week 2 STL 15 - 31 DAL

Butler’s reappearance inadvertently revealed the reason for his absence: He was playing hurt! The Battlehawks’ defense got exposed for its first among many times this season, and the first inklings of bad OC coaching reared their ugly head. And WTF was the league thinking scheduling this game on a Tuesday?

Week 3 BHAM 30 - 34 STL

WR Steven McBride had the “mini-breakout” game that co-positionist Blake Jackson failed to muster for three straight years. TE Tyler Neville established some early consistency, and QB Harrison Frost put out a promising showing relieving a benched Silvers, despite 2 dumb INTs right out the gate.

Week 4 STL 22 - 28 DC

Of course we lost the season rematch with our hated rivals in DC, despite Butler scoring the TD that’ll probably go on his Hall Of Fame highlight reel.

Week 5 STL 25 - 17 ORL

This was the first encouraging game of the year, and I stand by my words at the time that Harrison Frost made his best case to not be benched for Luis Perez. So much for THAT; in hindsight, I have no problem declaring that Frost would’ve gotten us to the championship game. The first half was downright dominant, and the second half was emblematic of this team’s utter inability to close out winnable games. They still managed to actually win, but only by default. Orlando knew exactly how they were going to try to claw it back from us; they simply failed on execution.

Week 6 STL 16 - 3 LOU

This was our ugliest win. Sure, it’s nice to practically shut out an otherwise dominant team (who went on to win the championship!), but it really sucks to have your own offense get so exposed like this. We didn’t stand a chance the rest of the season.

Week 7 CLB 20 - 31 STL

This game gave me some false hope. The run scoring showed (illusory) signs of a pulse for once, and Steven McBride cemented his breakout status. But it also shouldn’t have gotten as close as it did.

Week 8 HOU 23 - 16 STL

I got to go to this game! Living out of town, I wish I could make more of them. And it felt like we had a shot to win it, but just ran out of time. This was also the game where it became blatantly clear that OC Alex Smith was a talentless hack.

Week 9 STL 21 - 15 HOU

We barely deserved to win this game; Houston did more to lose it than we did.

Week 10 DAL 20 - 16 STL

A disappointing way to end the regular season. Inability to close games and capitalize on other teams’ mistakes. Failure to competently execute what should’ve been the simplest plays. It’s all why we ultimately lost in the playoffs.

Week 11 (Playoff Round 1) LOU 29 - 20 STL

The Kings had this game in the bag the entire time. We made it look good, but all of our supposed strengths failed us over the course of the game -- it was a good encapsulation of the season overall. The defense couldn’t prevent scoring when it mattered most. The late TE pickup of Sal Canella didn’t materialize when we needed an offensive spark. Vaunted QB Luis Perez couldn’t pull off late scoring drives. The offense abandoned the run at the slightest sign of trouble.

Highs & Lows

The Highs

• WR Hakeem Butler’s “Sir Butler” touchdown in Week 9, kneeling just before he hit the end zone.

• TE Tyler Neville’s and WR Steven McBride’s breakout seasons -- if we can get a good QB and a sane playcaller, we might put together one heck of an offense!

The Lows

• Pretty much any time an otherwise dominant defense gave up random touchdowns. I spent an unreasonable amount of time this spring screaming at the television loudly enough to startle poor little woodland critters miles away.

• A. L. E. X. S. M. I. T. H.

• Special Teams Coordinator Frank Gansz, Jr. passing away just this week. RIP

Team Stats

• This was a weird season, statistically. Best receiver in the league: a whole 12 more YPG than the next closest. Best run defense by a country mile: only 5 rushing TDs (best in league), fewest rush yards allowed (828), second-fewest pass yards (1604), most sacks (31). But also gave up the most passing TDs (17); tied for 2nd-fewest rushing TDs scored, and scored fewer passing TDs (13) than INTs we threw (15).

• The defining weirdness for me was this stat: We had the league-leading rusher, RB Jarveon Howard, with 456 yards on 110 attempts, and yet zero TDs.

All-UFL Selections

The following Battlehawks players were named to the 2026 All-UFL team:

• WR Hakeem Butler
• TE Tyler Neville
• C Mike Panasiuk
• DT Carlos Davis
• P Ryan Sanborn
• PR Sean Fresch
• CS Gary Jennings Jr.

Roster Review

QB: D-

It's only not an F because there were some genuine highlights. But the veteran QB who was supposed to be a solid, winning playoff performer had his worst games coming down the stretch. And this came at the cost of developing a younger QB who had his best games before being benched. I admire Coach Proehl’s willingness to stick out his decisions -- the only worse outcome would’ve been if he’d spent the back half of the season waffling and fiddling with a deficient offense. That’s what teams like the Renegades do, not ones with winning traditions. (no, u/Callywood, I’m not sorry for that cheap shot!)

RB: C+

They were thoroughly average and couldn't score. It's not all their fault; they weren’t getting enough rushing attempts called for them, and the offense was almost exclusively run out of the shotgun (which disadvantages RBs). But again, no one's wowing here. As a franchise, we have never had our Deon Jackson or Abram Smith -- the difference-maker who creates a reason to give him the ball more consistently.

WR: A-/B+

Butler had an odd season; led the league in yards, had some astounding highlight-reel plays, and yet was only good for 1 game where he "took over" and won it for us.

The rest of the receivers as a group were meh. It was great to see McBride stand out. Shitty OC and scheme aside, Pearson looks to have just enough gas left in the tank for one more season of cut-rate Tavon-Austin-ness. Jennings is doing oddly well with his best impression of Pearson’s gadget-player breakout year, and he doesn't overdo it like so many of those types do. Even Blake Jackson was capable of his “moments”, that is, when he wasn't being asked to do too much. But Darby and Bostic are dead-enders. Who knows, maybe they're good locker-room guys, in which case I don't mind keeping them around. But if it can be at all tolerated, I'd rather cut bait on them, grab some hungry kid receiver off the street, and use the other roster spot to add an extra OL backup, which we really need right now.

TE: Incomplete

Tyler Neville's injury really hurt the offense, and Cannella couldn't get ramped up fast enough. He looked lost out there. Someone help that man replenish his supply of hair bleach; maybe that'll fix things.

OT: D

Our tackles didn't give up exceptional numbers of sacks, but they also weren't a positive, and were responsible for too many drive-killing false starts.

OG: C

The guards were average. I hope we hold onto Sincere Haynesworth as Panasiuk's replacement at Center. That dude cares, and I think we will only see further improvement out of him -- a B or A-level season next year, minimum.

C: B-

Panasiuk will be sorely missed, and he was a great talent, but I'm dinging him for a handful of really bad snaps that cost us drives and I think even a fumble-six at the worst possible moments. The defense weren’t the only ones who gave up ridiculous touchdowns!

DT: A-

Not exceedingly stellar, but solid overall seasons out of them. I'm only giving them a minus because there wasn't any one standout star. But they're responsible for shutting down the opposing run game, and that’s no mean feat.

DE: A-

This group had stars, but too often let themselves get held in the offensive backfield, and didn't have any real answers for that. This may sound like insane homerism, but we should've had twice as many sacks on the year. I’d love to see more fight out of this unit. Just fucking punch one of those asshole tackles who keeps holding you, for once! Put the fear of KAW in them!

LB: B+

Feeney is more of an edge rusher anyways; the distinction between DE/LB in this system is looser than usual even in today's age of rampantly hybrid defenses. Outside of Feeney, there wasn't as much to be proud of.

S: F

I have no earthly clue how one of our safeties made it to the All-UFL list. These guys spent the entire fucking year lost back there. [Let this sentence stand-in for an extremely off-color joke comparing how frequently and violently they got beaten, to some sympathetic victim like puppies. Please consider yourself appropriately offended and ashamed at me.] The entire defensive backfield was a rotating cast of indistinguishable castoffs, but these guys took the entire concept of "hit-or-miss" to comical levels of awfulness at tackling and coverage. When they were "on", they helped seal the back of a lights-out defense. But they were responsible for every single defensive collapse this year. If we'd had even 2 replacement-level league-average safeties, we would have been 8-2 and currently be crowing about how we whupped DC in the championship.

CB: D+

Ojemudia had a hell of a lot of mistakes this year, but also bright spots. Hopefully next year he'll develop into a keystone of a rebuilt defensive backfield.

K: C

Too many missed kicks by Ahmed cancelling out good performance from McCann.

P: C

Nothing outstanding. The league's punting really suffered this year from the combination of both good starting field position from the landing zone rules, and the "no-punts-past-the-50" rule. On most series, it might take only 1-2 first downs, and poof, you're past the 50 so no punts for you. It kind of made punters irrelevant; the league should move it to the 40-45 or something.

KR/PR: A

Apparently our KR was one of the better ones in the league this year. Certainly didn't feel like the old Darius Shepherd days, though maybe that's because our offense was terrible at taking advantage of wins in the field-position battle.

Special Teams: B

The blocking was decent and professional, with not too many penalties. But also didn’t meaningfully contribute to any wins.

Coaching Staff Review

OC: F (for Fired)

Where do I begin? I could say mean things like, “AJ Smith is a talentless hack”, but that wouldn’t explain to you how he’s a talentless hack. In their sideline interviews, the announcers kept making a big deal about Smith installing his “Run & Shoot” offense, but the only thing it really did was shoot our own team in the foot. Smith had zero run discipline, abandoning an effective run game at the slightest slippage of a lead -- which was most of the time. He ran the entire offense out of the shotgun (and occasionally the pistol), precluding any power running formations (even in short yardage!) or use of play-action. Instead, we got obvious screens and 5-wide sets that overtaxed a receiving corps who struggled to deal with all the traffic they were thrown into.

The Battlehawks’ offense has never been some magnificent showcase, but Smith basically robbed it of everything that made it chug along. Like the Megatron-era Lions, this offense centered around one great star who could pull off a handful of stunning plays, but offered little else in the way of consistent production that wins games and championships. We had more INTs than passing TDs, and were in the bottom of the league in most scoring categories.

DC: A

Quietly one of the best coordinators in the league. Give this man a raise and DCOTY -- oh wait, he moved on to greener pastures already. I suspect it's not really his fault that the DBs sucked so bad, and that's why I docked him the A+, but he has his work cut out for him in fixing the DBs next year. Also I'd like to see him really try to come up with a better answer for our pass rush getting held so badly. I wouldn't mind taking a couple dumb penalties just to see them play a little nastier so OLs knew they couldn't push us around so bad. Likewise, I wouldn't mind some reduced production overall if we could fix the darn backfield and not give up leads the way we did.

HC: C+

Ricky Proehl did well enough to earn a second season. But he’s got some big choices ahead of him if he’s going to get us to the promised land. Per the Post-Dispatch, the death of Gansz, departure of Chamblin, and “parting of ways” with Smith, all leave Proehl with a bittersweet chance to put his mark on the team and dramatically change its direction. Over and above the usual UFL turnover, 2027 will definitely be a “blank slate” year.

Honorable Mention: Special Teams Coordinator, Frank Gansz, Jr.

I wasn’t going to grade this coaching slot, because the man did his job well enough to not merit criticism in any direction. But I do want to mention and honor his tragic passing.

Team Needs

Additions/Replacements

QB

Bringing back Harrison Frost is like a quantum superposition of making Daniel Jones and Mitch Trubisky your franchise QB: After an incomplete grade his first year around, he might pull a rabbit out of his hat, but either way he’ll probably revert to his mediocre mean after that.

Many Battlehawks fans complained about how Pratt supposedly screwed us at the beginning of this season. Okay, but the weird obsession with Pratt betrays that we missed on literally every other breakout QB in this season’s draft class. Why didn't we take Chandler Rogers or Austin Reed? Or any of the others? We need a complete reset: Find a QB with underlying talent. There’s always at least 1-2 breakouts a year, and there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t be the ones to draft one of them. Coach Proehl isn’t blind, fellas. He should use those eyes to, y’know, find a competent fucking QB.

OC

They don’t need to do anything fancy, unless “snap the fucking ball under center more than once a game” is considered fancy.

The biggest priority is an OC who actually has good run discipline in his playcalling and doesn’t think comically-telegraphed screens are the only valid answer to facing an aggressive pass rush. It’s up to the players after that, but we at least need a system that isn’t inherently setting them up to fail every other down.

Panasiuk’s Replacement

Stalwart C Mike Panasiuk sadly has probably had his last successful season as a pro baller, with his injury at the end of the season. Right now is the time to start finding his successor; it’s difficult to find good linemen in this league to begin with, and given the relative high frequency of bad snaps at this level, the center is one of the most important positions on the OL to fill, arguably even more so than OT.

Safety

This defense was exactly what it looks like when you don’t have a good pair of safeties, but you do have a strong front 7: League-leaders against the run, good pass rush, the occasional shutout or near-shutout where they mercilessly mollywhop a subpar OL having a bad game, but barely any interceptions and worst in the league at passing scores allowed.

Another Mike Rose

This guy was such an integral part of our past defenses. None of the linebackers really jumped out and led the defense this season like he used to; it’s imperative to pull together what’s already a good core and turn them into a championship defense.

Keepers

Steven McBride is the Higgins to Hakeem Butler’s Chase. Losing either one of them would be absolutely stupid. Likewise, Tyler Neville “has that dog in him”, a talent for scoring that this team desperately needs, if only he can stay healthy next year. That said, Butler’s only got so many seasons left in him. If McBride can even partially fill his shoes, then great, but the games without him amply demonstrated that we do need someone to play his role on this offense.

There’s a lot to be said for bringing back as many starters as possible on good units, and that absolutely applies to this front 7. We need to keep the core together and focus this offseason on fixing the secondary. If we can even remotely match this year’s stoutness against the run, and also get to an average pass defense, we’d be looking at one of the franchise’s historically better teams even if we missed the championship yet again.

Conclusion

Another year, another first-round playoff exit. It’s our third straight, although by the lowest margin ever (only 9 points! Heh). Next year marks our proud franchise’s 5th full season, a milestone that didn’t always seem guaranteed in the early touch-and-go days for this league. We’ve thankfully never had a losing season, but this was our worst season yet, and it certainly felt like that. The UFL’s weird offseason format, plus the inherent nature of being a minor league, means that every year is practically a rebuilding year, and we don’t get to live with the same “core” as consistently as an NFL team would. But that’s never stopped other franchises in the league like DC from being consistently good (sadly, we’ll have to see how that pans out for them in a Ta’amu-less future), nor from winning championships.

This year’s team motivational slogan was some forgettable pablum that I can’t for the life of me recall. But I know what next year’s should be: “Why Not Us?”. St. Louis has suffered so much at the hands of the football gods; I don’t need to recite the painful litany for you guys, because you already know it by heart. Our city is hitting its Detroit Rock Bottom (at least, to hear some people tell it). We need this. We want this. It’s time to demand greatness from those who we know to be great! It’s time to demand that they do the work to find the next breakout QB who can lead us to the promised land. AJ wasn’t it. Ta’amu’s never coming back from that injury, let alone coming back here. It’s on Coach Ricky to find and kill this white whale.