The USFL has been a pleasant surprise to many as the season is currently in Week 4 of its 10-week schedule. One of yesterday's games featured the Michigan Panthers versus the Philadelphia Stars.
The Panthers are led by former NFL head coach Jeff Fisher, whose last job in the league was being the coach of the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams franchise, from 2012-2016.
Near the conclusion of the game, Fisher made a questionable decision which came back to bite his team as they lost to the Stars by a score of 26-25.
With only 28 seconds remaining in the game, the Panthers were at the three-yard line of the Stars. Instead of taking at least one of the two timeouts that the team had, Fisher chose to allow the clock to run down to three seconds for his field goal kicker, Michael Carrizosa, to win the game.
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As you may have expected by now, that did not happen as Carrizosa missed the kick.
WATCH: USFL's Michigan Panthers lose in epic fashion
Fisher's decision could be considered questionable for a few reasons. One of them being that kicker Michael Carrizosa had missed all three of his field goal attempts and two extra-point attempts entering the game.
To his credit, he did complete a 22-yard field goal earlier in the match, which gave him his first of the season. But with such a shaky resume and being on the three-yard line with two timeouts, the decision is being looked at with a side eye by many.
The kick sailed wide left and the Panthers failed to secure their second win of the season.
Are football fans watching the USFL games?
The ratings for the USFL games have been a success (for the most part). In its opening weekend, the four games averaged more than 1.5 million viewers.
The second weekend of USFL action saw a drastic drop-off, as there were about 661,000 viewers. However, the third week of action saw viewership increase as the games averaged 825,000 viewers.
The league has drawn praise for its competitive games as well as giving fans a good product to watch until the NFL returns for preseason games in August.
The hope is for the USFL to continue to show increases in ratings and perhaps at some point in time, have a few more teams. In the meantime, fans can sit back and enjoy the action.
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