ESPN features an outstanding documentary on the fall of the United States Football League, the long defunct, and soon-to-be revived, challenger to the National Football League. Titled "Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?," the program points the finger at New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump, who comes across as a real villain. Though depicted as the ultimate businessman on "The Apprentice," the Donald Trump of "Small Potatoes" is an egomaniac whose greed for fame and fortune undermines the league. Specifically, Trump's arrogance in seeking to move the USFL's season from spring to fall, and thereby take on the three-letter pigskin behemoth head to head, and his big-spender ways undermining a more prudent fiscal model, are cited as ways in which the real-estate mogul derailed the league.

Though the USFL lasted just three seasons in the mid 1980s, its impact on the NFL continues. The USFL instituted instant-replay officiating, giving coaches a red flag to challenge questionable calls. When the NFL limited point-after conversions to the one-point kick, the USFL adopted the more traditional model of offering a two-point conversion as well. Faced with competition willing to pay out big bucks to such future NFL stars as Reggie White, Sean Landetta, Mike Rozier, Herschel Walker, Doug Flutie, Kelvin Bryant, Sam Mills, Jim Kelly, and Steve Young, the NFL necessarily responded by paying players--who made an average of $90,102 in 1981--far more than they had prior to the arrival of competition.

Though a USFL seeks a return this spring, the timing couldn't be more off. The NFL, suffering through lopsided Super Bowls and strikes in 1982 and 1987, was a mess when the USFL launched. Its popularity has probably never been greater than it is now. Arena football (it lives!) and the new UFL, combined with the NFL and college football, may induce a pigskin overdose in some fans. Then again, there are some football fans who have built up such an immunity to pigskin overdose that a new league will always find grateful viewers. This is especially true during that post-Super Bowl/pre-Opening Day sports lull, when hockey and basketball trudge through their almost meaningless regular seasons.

Unlike the ABA, WHL, and AFL, whose happy fate was to be absorbed--in whole or part--by the leagues it challenged, the USFL's fate was to watch its inovations and players find their way into the NFL but its teams dissolve. Thankfully, ESPN keeps memories of the days of spring football alive in this excellent documentary on the death of the USFL.

Trump egotistical and arrogant?! Say it ain't so!!

And how's about all of those XFL'ers that were absorbed into the NFL? Too many to count.