Running back De’Veon Smith cut from USFL team for wanting pizza over chicken salad

Tonight is opening night for the USFL as the Birmingham Stallions battle the New Jersey Generals at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, AL. This is a night where we’ll learn a lot about the new spring league, including all of the weird stuff apparently.

During the pregame show, it was revealed that Pittsburgh Maulers running back De’Veon Smith was cut from the team because he requested pizza at the team hotel instead of chicken salad. Yes, you read that correctly.

Here’s Smith himself confirming it after the story was shared.

Yeah, I don’t even know where to begin with this. Why would Maulers head coach Kirby Wilson find this so egregious that he’d can his top running back before the season even began. Just an all around weird story.

Smith is a former running back at the University of Michigan who spent the first few years of his professional career bouncing around practice squads in the NFL. He’s spent the last few seasons trying his hand in different spring leagues, first playing for the Orlando Apollos in the short-lived AAF in 2019 before turning some heads with the Tampa Bay Vipers in the XFL in 2020. He had a brief stint with the BC Lions of the CFL in 2021 before being released.

The Maulers brought in former Michigan State running back Madre London to replace him.