Charles "Charley" Puleri (born March 1, 1969) is a former professional football

quarterback The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...

Career

Puleri signed to the Sacramento Gold Miners in 1993. He spent the vast majority of his career in the

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nort ...

s, playing at various points in his career with the Miami Hooters, Texas Terror, Iowa Barnstormers, Detroit Fury, Buffalo Destroyers,

London Monarchs The London Monarchs were a professional American football team in NFL Europe and its predecessor league, the World League of American Football (WLAF). The Monarchs played their final season in 1998 as the England Monarchs. In 1999, they were re ...

and, during the 2000 preseason, the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...

. Unusually for a quarterback, Puleri played ironman in arena football, seeing limited playing time on defense and special teams. Puleri is best known for his time with the New York/New Jersey Hitmen of the XFL. In 2001, Puleri, a native of

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, signed with his hometown team. Puleri would be the starting quarterback in the XFL's first game, leading the Hitmen against the Las Vegas Outlaws on national television. Puleri's tenure as the Hitmen's starting quarterback proved to be a disastrous embarrassment for both him and the league as a whole, as he was repeatedly sacked and turned the ball over numerous times, making the league's level of talent look bad and partially prompting the mass decline in viewers as the season progressed. After a short quarterback controversy, Puleri was benched in favor of Wally Richardson (a former NFL backup for the

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and

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The Falcons were founded o ...

) during the second week of the season. Puleri's struggles were later attributed to the ball's slippery texture, which was later solved by using sandpaper and wirebrush to roughen the surface. (excerpt from ''This Was The XFL'')

References

1969 births Living people New Mexico State Aggies football players Miami Hooters players Texas Terror players Iowa Barnstormers players New Jersey Red Dogs players Detroit Fury players Buffalo Destroyers players New York/New Jersey Hitmen players London Monarchs players Players of American football from the Bronx Sacramento Gold Miners players American football quarterbacks 20th-century American sportsmen {{Quarterback-1960s-stub