De’Veon Smith was supposed  to be one of the top running backs for the USFL’S Pittsburgh Maulers in 2022 season. However, Smith was released in early April and replaced him with former Michigan State and Tennessee running back Madre London Sporting News reported.

A documentary about the lead-up to the start of the USFL season, revealed that Smith’s release was due to him requesting pizza at the team hotel instead of chicken salad.

“He crossed the line,” Maulers coach Kirby Wilson said. “So we had to deal with it.”

In the documentary, Wilson and John Peterson, the USFL’s Director of Football Operations, called Smith into a hotel room for a meeting according to Sporting News. At the meeting, Wilson told Smith that he was letting him go because of the incident. Wilson didn’t go into detail about the incident. Smith talked about what took place in the interaction about his preference for pizza over chicken salad.

“I didn’t say anything disrespectful,” Smith said. “He said, ‘Is that gonna be a problem?’ I say yes. I walked away. I didn’t think that was disrespectful.”

As of now its unclear who is the “he” Smith was referring to about, but Smith explained that he doesn’t eat chicken salad and was just simply trying to get another food option. He saw the pizza and asked about it. Then, he was told he couldn’t have any.

“He said, ‘Is that gonna be a problem?’ I said, ‘Yes,’” Smith said. “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.’”

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Smith’s explanation, however, didn’t change Wilson mind and the team has a policy about being “disrespectful” to players, coaches and USFL and hotel staff. Wilson told Smith the matter was “done” and wished the running back “good luck.” On Monday, the Maulers released a statement to provide more context and indicated Smith had violated multiple team rules.