Daryl Johnston, former Cowboys star and aspiring NFL GM, heads local ties to merged UFL
It’s the second week of the UFL season and Daryl Johnston is on the move.
As the head of football operations of the new spring football league, which came about by a merger between the USFL and the XFL, Johnston has many places to go and no time to waste.
The good news is that Johnston, a three-time Super Bowl champion with the Dallas Cowboys, is at home in Dallas-Fort Worth, where he has remained since his retirement from the NFL in 1999.
Just like the XFL, the UFL runs its base operations out of Arlington with all eight teams practicing at local high school stadiums — Dragon Stadium in Southlake, Pennington Field in Bedford and Vernon Newsome Stadium in Mansfield — and Choctow Stadium in Arlington.
He moved to the new new league after being head of day-to-day operations for the Birmingham-based USFL the past two years.
With two eight-team leagues merging into one eight-team league, making its home base in North Texas was one of the many compromises coming out of the merger.
Four teams from the USFL remained — the Birmingham Stallions, Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers and Houston Gamblers (rebranded as the XFL’s Houston Roughnecks) — to go along with the Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders, San Antonio Brahmas and St. Louis Battlehawks from the XFL.
The 2023 XFL champion Renegades play at Choctow Stadium and lost to the 2023 USFL champion Stallions at home in a game that saw Colorado coach Deion Sanders, UFL co-owner Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Hall of Fame Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman in attendance in Week 1.
But this week all eight teams are on the road and Johnston is challenged to make sure all the planes take off smoothly and the teams have successful debuts in their home markets.
On Saturday, the Brahmas play at the Showboats at 11 a.m. (ESPN) and the Renegades are the Battlehawks at 7 p.m. (ABC)
On Sunday, the Stallions are at Panthers at 11 a.m. (ESPN) with the Defenders hosting the Roughnecks at 3 p.m (FOX).
“We’ll be growing up this week,” said Johnson from his car en route to watch Memphis practice in Mansfield. “It’s exciting. These are the little things that show that the league is maturing and growing. This is going to be one of those weekends logistically where all the details go into it to travel teams on the road during the course of the week.”
But it all starts here at home.
And the DFW market it the perfect place for it.
Houston and DC practice at Pennington Field, San Antonio and Michigan practice in Southlake, Arlington and Birmingham at Choctow and St. Louis and Michigan are in Mansfield.
“You’re talking about an area that has the facilities that Texas is able to provide from high school football programs and it’s it’s amazing,” Johnston said. “These facilities in Southlake, Pennington Field and out in Mansfield are amazing. It gives our players kind of a big-time feel of being in that environment just during practice.
From a budgetary standpoint, from a facility standpoint, it just is a perfect fit for what we are trying to do. When you talk about starting this league up, you know, being fiscally responsible, but also kind of providing that professional atmosphere for guys to work in during the course of the prep week.”
It’s about growing the game and having a sustainable spring football league.
One day, it will hopefully, be about serving as minor league system for the NFL.
Johnson played a role in the Cowboys signing punt returner KaVontae Turpin and kicker Brandon Aubrey from the USFL in back to back years with both players turning into Pro Bowl performers as rookies.
But that’s not realistic for everyone in the UFL.
Of the 400 guys in the UFL, 315 have been in the NFL or signed NFL contracts, per Johnston. The goal is to stick and stay the next time they get called up.
“Turpin and Aubrey are success stories that you never expect to have,” Johnston said. “We are more about you know that depth player on an NFL roster. We’re never thinking about potential Pro Bowl players. We got a number of those guys that have gotten back into the NFL and they’ve been able to stay there for a couple of seasons. That’s our big thing. It’s not it’s not getting these guys back to the NFL. Our charges to make sure that they stay there this time.“
Getting back to the NFL remains the ultimate goal for Johnston, too.
In addition to serving as game analyst for FOX Sports since he retired, Johnston has also worked in various roles in previous spring football leagues.
In 2019, he was the general manager of the San Antonio Commanders in the American Alliance of Football. The league ceased operations in the middle of its first season.
In 2020, Johnston was the director of player personnel for Dallas Renegades of the previous startup XFL, which was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnston joined the USFL in 2021 as vice president and then became president in 2022.
But the base of his foundation remains what he has learned from the Cowboys and he has worked to build on that.
“This has been great because I learn more about the business side of football every day,” Johnston said. “I’m able to see all the hard work that goes in behind the scenes that I never appreciated as a player and what the Dallas Cowboys organization was able to do to make everything seems seamless with our travel or training camp. I have so much more respect for football operations in the professional organizations, for personnel building those rosters. The only way you’re gonna get better doing this is actually getting out and doing it and it’s been awesome.
But his ultimate goal remains to run his own team in the NFL.
“I think everybody wants to be able to compete at the highest level,” Johnston said. “We’ve been a part of championship teams. You’ve been around a lot of really smart football people. You always want to see if you can create that championship environment at the highest level of competition. So yeah, that would be huge.”
As of now, he’s on the move to make UFL a viable and sustainable spring football league.
