Michael Lev: Lorenzo Burns proves he’s a winner in UFL after infamous ending to Arizona football career

It was like adding insult to ... insult.

It was patently unfair.

It was being in the wrong place at the wrong time — in a file folder on a laptop at the conclusion of a calamity.

A photo of a player generally accompanied score updates on Arizona Football’s social-media accounts. Someone had to take the bullet at 8:25 p.m. on Dec. 11, 2020.

So it was that senior cornerback Lorenzo Burns’ image appeared next to ASU 70, UA 7 in a graphic posted to the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Just like that, Burns — a very good college player who, along with many equally upstanding teammates, had to endure the Kevin Sumlin era — became a mockable meme. He unwittingly became the symbol of a failure caused by the general leading the troops, not the loyal soldiers who were just following orders.

Well, here’s the how it started/how it’s going update on Lorenzo Burns: After being part of a 63-point loss to end his college career, he’s now a three-time champion in professional football.

Burns has played for the Birmingham Stallions the past three springs. After winning back-to-back USFL titles, the Stallions captured the inaugural UFL crown on June 16.

Burns registered a pair of tackles for a defense that blanked the San Antonio Brahmas, 25-0. For the season, he earned the fourth-highest coverage grade among all UFL cornerbacks, per Pro Football Focus.

“It’s been a journey,” Burns said by phone last week. “It’s helped me grow as a player, as a man.”

Burns isn’t where he wants to be, at least not yet. But he’s done his best to position himself for where he wants to go.

Like most of his Stallions teammates, and his peers across the UFL, Burns, 26, is striving for another shot at the NFL. He wasn’t drafted after the 2020 season, such as it was, but signed with the Cardinals. He spent an entire season on the Jacksonville Jaguars’ practice squad and also had a stint with the Cleveland Browns. He has yet to suit up for a regular-season game.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Burns said. “We all want to get film and put out good tape.”

The NFL doesn’t have a sanctioned farm system, so, beyond college, spring football is the next-best thing. Several UFL players have signed contracts with NFL teams, including Burns’ teammate, defensive end Dondrea Tillman (Denver Broncos).

Although it’s essentially one step down from the NFL, the UFL isn’t in the same league when it comes to accommodations and compensation. The former have improved since the USFL and XFL merged, Burns said. But the pay for a UFL season is in the $50,000 range, plus a weekly housing stipend of $400. The minimum full-season salary for a rookie in the NFL is $795,000.

So playing in the UFL requires a true love of the game. The Burns family always has had it. Lorenzo’s father, DeChon, played at USC, coached in the NFL and is the head coach at Linfield Christian School in Temecula, California. Lorenzo’s brother, Simeon, plays for the Indoor Football League’s Green Bay Blizzard. IFL players get paid even less than UFL players.

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The NFL dream remains powerful. It keeps Lorenzo Burns going, no matter how demoralizing it might feel to get so close ... and then get cut.

I asked him if he’s ever thought about hanging up his cleats.

“There’s a point in time in every athlete’s career where you hit a block, you hit a dip, where it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I’m gonna keep doing this.’ But then you realize that if you don’t push through or rise up from the hole that you’re in, you’ll never grow,” Burns said.

“I have definitely had that a couple of times, but I’ve always pushed through.”

Having been around the game his whole life, Burns had that perspective before he received his first paycheck. He had backup plans (real estate, marketing, dog breeding) in mind back then, and they’ll be in play when the time comes. It hasn’t arrived yet.

“We’ll see,” Burns said. “Whatever God has in store. I have a certain timeline in mind in my head. It just depends on if I can find something consistent.

“I’ve lived out of a suitcase for the past three or four years. That’s too much. If that continues, I’ll have to have a conversation with myself and my agent and figure something out at that point.”

Whether it’s the UFL or NFL, Burns views every opportunity as a chance to learn, grow and meet new people. He raved about his experience on Jacksonville’s practice squad, which required mastering the Jaguars’ defensive scheme and serving on the scout team in all three phases.

In the course of winning three championships with Birmingham under Skip Holtz, Burns discovered something unexpected.

“It was a blessing and a curse,” he said, “because when I did start winning more games and became a part of a winning culture, the players weren’t necessarily different. When I look back at what we had at Arizona while I was there the first couple of years, there was a lot of potential. I wish that outcome could have been better.”

Burns played in 42 games across five seasons at Arizona (2016-20). He recorded 192 tackles and nine interceptions. He experienced the thrills of the 2017 season and the agony of a 12-game losing streak — culminating with that humiliating blowout against ASU at the end of a deeply unsatisfying, pandemic-shortened campaign.

Burns didn’t deserve to be the visual representation of it. UA media relations realized as much the next morning and took down the now-infamous post.

Burns didn’t know about it until his brother sent him a screenshot.

“Why are you the face of this?” Simeon wondered.

“I looked at it and said, ‘Wow, that is crazy,’ ” Lorenzo Burns said. “I hope that’s not the last image that people have of me at Arizona.”

It shouldn’t be.

With every ring Burns earns in pro football, that memory fades and new ones are made.