This past weekend during the Pittsburgh Maulers vs. New Orleans Breakers game Tre Walker of the Maulers and Keith Washington II of the Breakers got into a little bit of a scuffle after a play.

USFL After The Whistle With Mike Pereira

During USFL After The Whistle show on YouTube that aired yesterday, Mike Pereira, the USFL head of officiating, and Referee James Carter discussed the incident. The question came up should players have been ejected for fighting? Mike Pereira stated this one was a confusing play because there were three fouls on the space, which all started right after the snap where there were 12 men on the field for the Maulers; after the play near the sidelines, both Walker and Washington went into a fight where Washington II grabbed Walker by the neck and flipped him over and was then on top of him throwing punches.

Mike Pereira said on the show that he heard many of the fans on social media called this the National Hockey League brought into the United States Football League. James Carter said he did think an ejection was named for both players. Mike said he is anti-ejection because you play with a smaller roster size and the issues with competitive advantages and disadvantages.

During the broadcast of this game, they were reviewing the original call on the field and the penalty when somehow Mike Pereira missed the punches from Washington II, while the referees on the field were telling Mike in their headset they were going to eject both players, Mike came back and said no and overruled the ejections from the refs, mainly as we now know because he didn’t know this happened. He would later comment to Fox broadcasters that he missed the call, and both should have been ejected if he’d seen it upfront.

Boogie Roberts Suspended for Week 7

The biggest shocker to come out of this set of suspensions for Walker and Washington II was that Boogie Roberts was also suspended. Now relooking at the video and the play on the field from my DVR, I can still see Boogie Roberts came off the sidelines and pulled Washington II off his teammate; it appears that Mike Pereira also suspended him as well, which makes no sense in the following tweet by the league with Pereira announcing the suspensions states.

“We continue to provide USFL fans with an exciting brand of football that is fast-paced and old school physical, but during last week’s game between the Maulers and Breakers, I was moving way too fast and missing punches being thrown during a player altercation. As I said later during the television broadcast, these players should have been ejected immediately, and we’ve since reviewed the incident. We have suspended Keith Washington of the Breakers, Boogie Roberts, and Tre Walker of the Maulers for this weekend’s upcoming games. We have told our players that behavior like this has no place in the USFL; moving forward, our officials will take immediate action on such incidences, but we continue to tell our players to have fun while providing the most entertaining football for our fans to enjoy. This is the USFL, and we remain united by football.”

I tweeted out once the USFL issued this statement via Twitter the following, which as we can see Boogie Roberts himself replied.

He also retweeted the announcement as well stating;

I am hoping Mike Pereira or the league themselves can provide more information on this because we know why Keith Washington II and Tre Walker were suspended based on the video of the play, which you can see the incident below starting at the 7:44 mark of the video where Mike Pereira and James Cater discuss the situation. At least during this clip, we can see Boogie pulling Washington off of Tre, but Boogie Roberts threw no punches during any of the altercations, and he was, in my mind, defending his teammate to get Washington off of Trey.

If there are any updates from Boogie himself or Mike Pereira, I will update. Still, the Maulers are now down Trey Walker and Boogie Roberts going into the game this Sunday against the undefeated Birmingham Stallions. Both Trey Walker and Boogie Roberts are significant contributors to the team, which could affect the overall.