Ahead of the USFL’s return this week, the football league released a new documentary series, United By Football: A Season in the USFL.
A clip from the series premiere circulated social media on Monday, showing Pittsburgh Maulers running back De’Veon Smith, who played at the University of Michigan from 2013 to 2016, getting cut from the team because he wanted to order pizza at the team hotel instead of chicken salad.
In the viral clip, Maulers coach Kirby Wilson breaks the news to Smith, claiming that he disrespected the hotel worker whom he requested the pizza from.
“He crossed the line,” Maulers coach Kirby Wilson said. “So we had to deal with it. Any disrespect of football or members of staff, USFL, etc. will not be tolerated.”
After telling his side of the story, Smith maintained that he didn’t mean any disrespect by his food order. According to the former Michigan running back. he asked the worker for pizza, the worker asked if it would be a problem if he didn’t grant his request, to which Smith replied, “Yes.”
“I didn’t say anything disrespectful,” Smith recalled. “He said, ‘Is that gonna be a problem?’ I say yes. I walked away. I didn’t think that was disrespectful.”
Smith added, “It’s all I said. I didn’t say no cuss word, no nothing. That’s all I said, I promise you. No disrespect, but on my dad’s life. I promise I didn’t say nothing disrespectful besides, ‘Yes.’”
Watch the full video up top.
