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15 Questions: Andrew Lewis

It's hard to imagine an online world without the USAFL. In six years, it has developed into a wonderful community of sports enthusiasts from around the world who consider one another the best of friends. "My one hope is that one day we might all be able to get together and have a big party," says Andrew Lewis, the league's founder, commissioner, and GM of the Philadelphia Eagles. "Can you imagine how late into the evening we all would talk? From rehashing old debates on infamous rape-trades, to incredible Super Bowl endings, to songs about Draft Night Wonder Boys that faded into oblivion."

Interestingly enough, Andrew Lewis only competed as a GM in the USAFL for ten seasons after he launched it on the net. Choosing instead to focus on his Commissioner duties and assisting the new GMs in understanding all the unique USAFL features. "For awhile the joke was that I stunk as a GM once real competition showed up," laughs Lewis. "It was partially true. I spent so much time on the league that I neglected my team. But I've tried to not do that in this modern era in the league."

It seems to be working, as Andrew has taken his team to three Super Bowls in thirty seasons, winning twice. "It's not a dynasty," says Lewis, "but I've proven that I know how to get a team to the big game. Ah, but who's kidding who here? Everyone knows my two Super Bowl wins were flukes!"

Even if they were flukes, everyone in the league would not say the same thing about his greatest accomplishment:

................ creating the USAFL back in 1997.

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PHILADELPHIA EAGLES - GM Andrew Lewis

1. It's hard to imagine that this little thing we call USA Sports started six years ago as a friendly little game of football between two brother-in-laws. We've heard that you and your brother-in-law, Jim Maurer, would spend countless hours playing different sports related PC games. How did you stumble across FBPRO and what made you create what we now know as the USAFL?

I recall this one day I was shopping in our local mall, just browsing around for something. Then out of the corner of my eye I see Jim Maurer quickly walking towards me with the biggest grin on his face.

"I've found it," he proudly was proclaiming, "This is what we have been dreaming about!"

He pulled this PC software box out of a bag and handed me his newly purchased copy of Dynamix Front Page Sports Football. The front cover showed a fullback struggling to gain an extra yard with two opposing tacklers bringing him down. Bob Golic, the old NFL Raiders defensive lineman was the featured quote plastered on the front, "If you want more realism, you'll have to suit up on Sunday afternoon."

Although I can't recall the date, I know that happened in 1993. Because Jim had bought the game the day it came out.

For the next four years and after a few software upgrades, the two of us created several leagues exploring all the possibilities of the game. We recruited three other guys to join in our leagues. But remember, this was before everyone was on the net. So all our drafts took place in my dining room, with each GM having their own section of the table to spread out their scouting sheets.

We had so much fun playing it, but it had one flaw. The league was dependant on everyone's work schedule. Sometimes we would go a whole month before meeting again to draft and sim a season. Then other times we would get together almost weekly.

It was during one of those lulls, that I considered publishing our league on the internet. I was nervous though, as FBPRO was considered a Coaching-Sim by it's online community. The online leagues would still do the GM features, but they expected you to coach all your games.

But our league had a special niche the others didn't. Their leagues progressed in real-time. One regular season game per week. Their leagues would take 4-5 months to simulate an entire season. Whereas our concept was to take 2 weeks to simulate an entire season.

I knew it was a cool concept, well, because I knew how much I loved how quickly it progressed. And how within just a few short months you would have over a decade of simulated statistical history to analyze.

But believe me, and I know this statement is used WAY too often .......... but in this case it could not be more true ............ I had no idea what our little USA Football League would turn in to.

2. We've talked a lot with some other GMs who have sat down with us about the state of the USAFL now, with all the GM functions and routines having automated interfaces on the website. How incredible is it for you to see all this happening?

Before I answer that, I have to take a moment to thank my commissioners Garritt Grandberg, Mike Manuel, Todd Ricotta, and Flip Sides. Each one of these men plays a vital role in the operational production of our league. Without them this league would not continue.

Now for the first thirty-or-so seasons of the USAFL, it was the Andrew Lewis Show. You name it, I was doing it. I couldn't have it any other way. I don't mean that in an arrogant manner, I wanted to produce a very high-level of excellence when it came to the league. Mainly because every other FBPRO league out on the net was so shoddy in it's design and over-managed by committees of self-defensive strangers.

I wanted the USAFL to stand out from the other leagues. The USAFL had to have a professional appearance, which demanded near-obsessive-compulsive HTML management on my part, and have an established code of ethics that demanded it's members to act respectfully.

But as the league grew and my relationship with Garritt and Mike blossomed, I realized that the league was limited as a one-man-show, no matter how much work I put into it. I determined that if we found a way to spread out the responsibilities of running the league, it could free me up to dream up new features, not to mention make my life a little easier.

Each one of those commissioners has maintained the high level of excellence that the USAFL is known for. From Garritt's well maintained statistics and programming, to Mike's ever-faithful presence as Draft Moderator, to Todd's amazing creation of the USAFL's own Scheme System, to Flip's massive database of salaries, as well as his Regular Season Schedule generator.

Ever since Garritt joined the USAFL way back in 1997, the two of us have talked about automating the procedural duties in the league. I know for us, these past few months of monitoring it's progress has been a real blessing.

3. In the past several months, the league has rolled out impressive new features. From the Draft Console, to the Depth Chart interface, to the Trade Confirmation interface, to the brand new Free Agency Market application. Each of them an overwhelming success to the league. What goes into the design of these features? How do you make sure each one of them launches successfully?

Going back to our earlier conversation about my observation of other leagues on the net, I noticed how upsetting it was for members of a league to have to endure commissioners who were always changing the rules and re-designing the entire league structure. All because they didn't think their plan through to the end before running with it.

I think we all share a common attitude in that we don't like it when something breaks or doesn't work. Especially when you've invested countless hours into it.

Imagine logging onto your football league's website and discovering that the Commissioner accidentally reformatted his hard-drive proclaiming, "I am sorry, but we will have to start the league over."

Or, "Our Draft Moderator is only available to be online on Tuesday's at 3AM-5AM. So our Annual College Draft will now be moved to Tuesday mornings at 3AM."

Unbelievable, eh? I've seen leagues operate in that kind of fashion. So when we dream up a new feature, it has to pass through tons of error-checking filters before even sees the light of day.

I purposefully will take 1-2 weeks to just think about the legitimacy of a new idea before I consider exploring the feasibility of crafting a proposal. Heck, it will probably be 3-4 months before it might even be launched.

Consider our Draft Console. We beta-tested that application for three drafts before we launched it. That's 9 weeks of testing! That's about 8 weeks more than most $49 game titles on the market get! LOL

The GMs in our league have come to rely on the league's efficiency. Lord willing, they will continue benefit from it.

4. What new features are around the corner for the USAFL?

Well, I am sure everyone has heard that we are slowly progressing to a point where all the player's salaries will be maintained online. Thus taking the responsibility of tracking the salaries away from the GMs. Basically from Draft to Market to Waivers, all of our applications will establish and adjust a player's salary as he passes through those career stages.

But, if you want some real inside, inside, inside information ........ and I mean something that even a couple of the commissioners themselves don't even know about, I have begun working on something brand new to the league.

In our 2nd era of the league, we discontinued publishing the actual rating of rookies in favor of publishing their scouting combine statistical results, based on an application I wrote to determine stats based on their ratings. This enjoyed lukewarm success. Some loved it, some enjoyed it, and a few just didn't like having to spend the extra time having to scout real stats for their rookies. Well, we've talked about moving back in that direction, but I am not confident that it will succeed.

But, what I am exploring right now is this:

Years ago, Tim Arkwright used to write a Draft Preview article every season. Running down the list of a few of the top players, giving a brief physical bio and grading his draft value.

While everyone loved the articles, it was time consuming for Tim to produce and after awhile, he didn't like the fact that he might be revealing something about a player that other GMs might not have noticed. So the articles only lasted a few seasons.

I am designing an application that would auto-generate a Draft Preview, along with a 1st round Mock Draft Board. While some purists might not like to see an article reveal the value of one player over another, the pure entertainment value of the Preview would be greatly beneficial to the website.

Imagine reading the following:

2031 Mock Draft:

1. PIT - RB Ernie Harry 6'0" 204 4.47 (40 time)
Lacks ideal size but runs big and is slippery inside. Stays low to the ground, maintaining good pad level. Has terrific change-of-direction skills and picks the holes and slides into it without losing too much momentum. Has above-average vision and good burst to the hole and shows patience. Doesn't break many tackles and won't overpower many defenders.

2. CLE - OL Doug Palin 6'0" 321 5.15 (40 time)
Is inexperienced and raw. Lacks height and has short arms. Isn't the typical mauler. Isn't overwhelming at the point of attack and must be in good position to sustain blocks. Must learn to finish better. Is naturally powerful and shows great feet. Can pull and trap. Takes good angles and has adequate lower-body strength.

3. BAL - DL Duke McCarthy 6'2" 321 5.20 (40 time)
Is improving and penetrates against most one-on-one matchups. Comes out of his stance low and with good leverage, quickness, and power. Shows goods initial pop and drives guards back. Must show better second moves. Collapses pocket with power and quickness but is not a great athlete and has below average speed.

............... hmmmmmmm the possibilities. Stay tuned sportsfans.

5. Wow ....... how can I follow that? Let's talk about your team, the Philadelphia Eagles. You've won the Super Bowl twice in three appearances. But you are coming off your first losing season, 5-9, since 2023. Expecting a tough season ahead?

Yes, last season was really hard to take. We have a great bunch of young guys on this team that we know can continue to improve and get this team deep into the post-season.

I should remind you though, when we had that losing season in 2023, we came back and won the Super Bowl the next season.

Believe me, I have reminded our players of that fact numerous times the past couple weeks. I don't want them thinking that by just having a winning record will be an accomplishment. That 2024 team settled for nothing but short of a championship. And they got it.

6. We've heard some rumblings about a possible USAFL expansion. The word "Expansion" hasn't been uttered by you since the second season the league was online way back around Christmas of 1997. Is it true? Will the USAFL finally expand from an 18 team league to 28 teams?

While the official response to that question has always been a firm "No", the league is enjoying it's best years with a full compliment of 18 enthusiastically active General Managers. It is highly doubtful that any of them would be stepping down any time soon. So a few months ago I approached Garritt with the concept of expanding.

While it sounded quite intriguing, we both immediately realized that several things about the league had to radically change before we could even entertain the thought of expanding.

Mainly, all of our GM responsibilities needed to be automated so as to make the job of processing them as easy as possible for the Commissioner on duty. But also, the live College Draft would have to be streamlined to accommodate ten more teams added to the selection process.

We then set out to re-design the USAFL's off-season, from a brand new Free Agency Market system, to the Trade Confirmation interface, to a still-in-production Waiver Wire Claim web-application. And as I mentioned earlier, we will have to tools in place to track the player salaries.

Once the Waiver Wire Claim application launches, we will move the College Draft up one week to the day before the Free Agency Market. The Draft will be shortened to four rounds, with the 4th round's selections tradable. Salaries will change for rookies, to reflect where they were selected. Teams that still have empty roster spots after the draft will fill in the holes with Free Agency Market signings and Waiver Wire Claims.

Finally, once all those things are in place all the Commissioners will sit down and determine whether the league should expand. If they do expand, there will be no problem finding 10 good GMs. I have five people right now waiting to for the league to open it's doors. Including a couple great USAFL names from the past!

7. During the league's first two eras, the USAFL had to temporarily shut-down several times due to your health. How are you feeling nowadays? It must be pretty great since the league has yet to have experienced a shut-down since it re-launched in May, 2001.

From October of 1994 through January of 1999 I had six major surgeries to improve my quality of living at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. While the original plan was to only have one surgery, complications rearranged my life for those 5-6 years.

During that time I was the only one running the league and I wasn't sharing any of the duties. So shutting down was a necessity. Those situations combined with fact that running the USAFL can be so time consuming led to my decision to ask for some of the GMs to step up and take responsibility of certain areas of the league.

Now my health situation will no longer interfere with league operations. Fortunately, the past few years for me have been the best of my entire life. I am still highly susceptible to chronic kidney infections, but my docs have me on daily maintenance regimen of CIPRO (no anthrax worries here) to kill off infections and OxyContin for pain.

8. Speaking of health issues, why has the USAFL never had "injuries" turned on in the simulation? Could we see a time when they could be turned on in the future?

The obvious answer concerns regular season roster management. We sim several weeks of games in one evening, with the roster positions locked prior to week one. If we had injuries, we would have to stop the sim after each game to allow the GM to re-order his depth chart. That would be very time consuming.

But considering how much work Garritt has done with his Depth Chart web-application, there could be a time when we might allow access to the rosters during the regular season. I am not sure if we would be able to work in injuries to that, but who knows what the future holds!

9. In our league, there are several different levels of competiveness. Describe your competitive spirit when it comes to the USAFL. What keeps you involved?

I must admit there are times when I am really INTO my team and some times when I am just punching the time clock. I actually get more out of being the Commissioner than I do being the GM of the Philadelphia Eagles.

I love my Eagles, don't get me wrong ..... but most of my passion for this game goes into the league and it's website.

10. What one feature of the USAFL would you say is by far, the best component to the league?

You might think this funny, because this is perhaps one of the smallest nuances to our league.

But I strongly believe that our best component is how we determine the regular season schedule each season. It's a very simple little routine that we run, that schedules the games based on the previous season's W/L record.

If you finished first in your division, you will have the toughest schedule in your division. Finish last and you get to have an easier schedule.

FBPRO tried to implement this in their software but they never got it right. Fortunately, we have some bright people around here that can remedy things like that.

Sure our large features like the Market and the Draft are impressive, but if we didn't have a schedule to balance out the competition, we would not have the parity we enjoy right now.

11. If you could have any ACTIVE player on your team right now, who would it be?

Buffalo LB Russ Calloway.

Weird answer? Not really. I failed to sign him to a contract during the Free Agency Market last week. I don't like to fail when it comes to signing a player.

12. Let's say you do make the Super Bowl this season, which team would you like to face?

I am partial to Garritt's Raiders, as I have known him the longest ......... well, I met Mike about 10-12 days later. But I have to play Mike twice a season whether I like it or not.

13. How many of your family/friends know that you are a hard-core USAFLer? Do you talk about it with them? Or are you a closet USAFLer?

Most of my family knows about it. I've had all the male Rupples (my sister's husband and two boys) participate at one time or another. And my wife and her family can tell you horror stories of how long into the night her brother Jim and I would spend talking about multi-player/pick trades.

As for friends, I am fairly mum about it. Like a few have mentioned before me, when I try and bring it up, they confuse us with the standard NFL Fantasy Football craze. My best example I can give people when they don't get it ....... I ask, "have you ever played SimCity? It's like that, except you are a football General Manager."

14. Describe your environmental setting on a draft night. Do you draft from work/home? Do you order out for pizza/wings/etc? How much paperwork are you looking through to make your selection, or is all your scouting work done on the computer?

Well for food, if I have cash around, I like chicken wings. But I always have a very large glass of iced tea to get me through.

As for the scouting part, I only print out one thing. My roster. Something about sliding back into my chair and giving my players the once over helps me clear my mind on what direction I should go with my draft choice.

On my computer I have the Draft Console up, MS Excel opened up with all the rookies sorted by various formulas I use - both by position and by overall draft value, I also have a text file opened up showing the overall draft order so I can note who is selecting around me and determine when my pick is coming up.

And during the season, I will have Monday Night Football on across the room ...... speaking of which the MNF 2003 NFL season opens up with Tampa Bay visiting Philly (in their new stadium)!

15. Which of the following would you rather have in your trophy case? One Lorne Sundby Cup, three James Maurer GM of the Year Awards, six NFC Championship trophies, four Bing Bennett Most Valuable Player Awards, five Tim Arkwright Rookie of the Year Awards, or ten NFC East Division Championship trophies?

I have always envied Mike Manuel's collection of NFC East Division Championship trophies. His string of 16 consecutive playoff appearances is impressive. I would love to have that level of consistency.

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NEXT WEEK: Washington Redskins GM Mike Manuel