Nick Bond: So, as a white guy from Long Island named Brad, I think we can all safely assume you know a lot about lacrosse, but can you briefly tell our readers what your specific experience with the sport is?

Brad Hill: From the moment I picked up a lacrosse stick in 4th grade³, the sport pretty much dominated my life. On top of playing for our high school team⁴, I was a defenseman on numerous “travel” teams that went all over the east coast (and sometimes a bit beyond). I was recruited to play in college as well and ended up going to West Point my freshman year, but things didn’t really work out there.

Nick: They didn’t work out because you found out that they use actual bullets in the war you'd be sent to had you graduated from there, or at least that's always been my understanding.

So, given that context and your continued love of the game, I have to ask: Is this weekend -- which is going to have the first round of the NCAA tournament, the semi-finals of the National Lacrosse League (NLL) playoffs and the beginning of the 2026 Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) season -- the second or third greatest weekend of your life (obviously behind the birth of your daughter, but potentially ahead of your wedding)?

Brad: Definitely a top 3 weekend for sure. The NCAA tournament seems especially stacked this year, so I am fully expecting some great games in the first round.

Nick: The PLL showing up on the schedule this early is unusual/an added bonus, I assume?

Brad: Absolutely - this season is starting a few weeks earlier than they have in the past. Generally, the PLL started their season the weekend after Memorial Day (which is the traditional end of the NCAA lax season with the Final Four).

Nick: Do you think this was done as a way to get more eyes on the league as they look to expand into the realm of individual team ownership⁵? Or just a situation where the schedule worked out the way it did? 

Obviously, we don't have any inside information on this kind of stuff (Yet!), but given the relative dominance of college lacrosse in terms of popularity, as an outsider, this does feel like it's at least trying to capitalize on that. Or am I just crazy? 

Brad: To be honest, I was a bit surprised by this move from the league. College lacrosse is still way bigger than the PLL, so it seems odd to directly compete against college playoff games. 

I’d maybe understand it if they were expanding the schedule, but with the same number of teams playing the same number of games, I just don’t understand the decision.

Nick: So, it might just be them attempting to provocative, get the people going, basically. Which seems in line with Paul Rabil -- the president and one of the main driving forces behind the league's marketing, presentation and operations among other things -- and his whole deal, as far as I've seen. There's a documentary on him and his brother trying to get the league going, right?

Brad: There is! It’s called “Fate of a Sport” and shows how Paul and his brother Mike created the league as an alternative to the already existing Major League Lacrosse. As it’s framed, their goal is to create a league focused on the players themselves and maximizing their value. 

Don’t get me wrong, the salaries for professional lacrosse are still comically low, but as someone who follows the business side of this league as much as the on-field product, I really enjoyed it.

Nick: In terms of that on-field product, it seems like this year has the potential to be particularly interesting for a number of reasons and especially after what felt like an odd draft. It was the first time ever that an SSDM was drafted first overall, and it also seems like there may even be a potential generational talent (or at least points scorer) entering the league in Joey Spallina. 

First things first, though: What the fuck is an SSDM? And why don't they usually get drafted high?

Brad: A SSDM is a short stick defensive midfielder (as opposed to a long stick defensive midfield). It is definitely strange to have an SSDM taken with #1 overall pick as it is more of a specialist position. 

That said, Aidan Maguire (the SSDM in question here) also has a good transition game - so he isn’t purely a defensive player.

Nick: For those unaware, can you give a VERY QUICK overview of how the three different basic positions -- attack, midfield and defense -- work, and how an SSDM fits into that as a specialist role?

Brad: Simply put, the attack position are the offensive players - similar to a striker in soccer. They will score a lot of the goals and can only play on their offensive half of the field. 

Midfielders are the workhorses that have free range to go anywhere on the field and typically play both offense and defense. 

The defenders are pretty self explanatory - they play defense and are easy to pick out as they will be playing with the long poles (6 foot long stick). They will typically stay on the defensive half of the field aside from instances where they are clearing the ball over midfield.

In the instance of a SSDM, they are obviously much more defensively focused and will specialize in that role. You may see a SSDM bring the ball into their offensive end of the field, but they will typically look to pass to someone else and then quickly sub off.

Nick: They literally just, like, run off the field like a hockey player at shift change? Are they the only ones who do something like that?

Brad: Yep! Subbing works just like hockey and there is an area at midfield where players will sub on and off the field. However, unlike hockey, a player has to be entirely off the field before their substitution can enter the field. 

The other positions that work in mostly the same way would be the long stick defensive midfielders (LSMs) I mentioned earlier and FOGOs, which stands for “Face Off Get Off,” a name that should be self-explanatory.

Nick: I love the idea of being so good at face-offs and so not good at everything else that you’d be drafted by a team and paid to play for them, but literally just to get the ball a couple more times a game.

Brad: Yeah, we had a kid on our high school team who was really good at face-offs but not good at anything else. And he knew it. He’d refer to himself as a FOGFO.

Outside of those positions, though, due to the amount of running that the midfield position requires, they will make up a large majority of the substitutions that occur.

Nick: Just a constant rotation of dudes named Bryan with a-”y” and Ja(x/ck)son. Speaking of generic names for lacrosse players (and Long Islanders), this Joey Spallina kid, who is originally from Mt. Sinai on the North Shore of Eastern LI, seems like he's pretty good. 

Does he have potential to make an impact this season? Or do players take a bit to transition to the professional game like most other sports?

Brad: That’s actually an interesting question for this season. Although it isn’t uncommon for rookies to make an impact on their new PLL teams, given the early start (and previously mentioned overlap with the college season), a lot of the new players will be missing at least 1-2 games in a season with only 10 games. 

There are certainly growing pains that can be expected with the transition from college to pro given some of the different rules:

That last one changes the actual game itself. You probably won’t see a ton of two-point goals in a game, but like with basketball’s three-point line, it “reshapes the field” and results in the defense needing to make adjustments accordingly as the offense moves.

It also means that defensive players — whose longer sticks can create a lot more torque or momentum or whatever it is — get a little more involved in scoring, because shooting from out there isn’t just something done out of desperation, and the increased open space farther away from the goal allows them to get a full follow-through on their shots that they might not get closer to the net.

Nick: For a rookie like Spallina -- who it feels important to mention, is now the all-time leading scorer in Syracuse (the school with the most national titles) history with 313 points (and counting, given their season is still going) -- you have to assume that he's going to hit the ground running even with those adjustments, but what type of competition is he going to be up against?

Are there any players in particular that he (or we) should be looking out for this season?

Brad: Focusing primarily on offensive players (both attack and midfield), there is a massive amount of talented players out there. Connor Shellenberger was last season’s MVP and Attackman of the year. Tom Schreiber is one of the greatest midfielders in lacrosse history and a rare breed as an American who also had a successful box lacrosse career. 

Jeff Teat and Brennan O’Neill were both selected #1 overall in both the NLL and PLL drafts, although the former is Canadian and the latter is from two towns over from where we grew up⁷so they took pretty different paths getting there. And O’Neill won the World Lacrosse Championship with Team USA in 2023 while still a college player at Duke.

Nick: Correct me if I am wrong, but box lacrosse is basically the Arena Football version of lacrosse, right? And in both versions, being exceptional/dominant on defense -- which, as you mentioned earlier, you played for over 10 years at a pretty high level -- is difficult, bordering on impossible, individually and as a team, as far as I can tell. 

Are there structural reasons for that inherent to the game? Or do all the best kids just playing farther up field for the obvious reasons of "it's easier to score a shit ton of goals" and "less likely to get a lacrosse ball whipped in my face"?

Brad: It probably isn’t totally fair to compare box lacrosse to arena football as box lacrosse is really its own unique game (with a die hard and mostly Canadian fanbase). It is definitely not the gimmicky sport that arena football is. 

As far as why people play certain positions probably just comes down to the basics when getting started in the game. I was always a bigger kid and loved the idea of swinging a stick at people as part of playing defense. As I learned the nuances of body position and timing checks, I began to love the position even more. More importantly, I sure as shit wasn’t going to run my ass up and down the field, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance as a midfielder.

Nick: So is the issue for defense in lacrosse mostly structural/inherent to the game?

Brad: I feel like defense is the same in almost every sport. It’s a combination of positioning, keeping your head on a swivel, communication, and thinking two to three passes ahead. After playing the sport for as long as I did, I became pretty good at seeing how a play was going to develop before it happened.

Nick: I guess what I am asking, in terms of defense is -- and this is something we've discussed a bunch, because we are weird and talk about this stuff even when it isn't going to be posted on the internet -- that, essentially, there aren't many dominant/shutdown defensive players or system. One of my favorite stats about lacrosse is there has LITERALLY NEVER BEEN A SHUTOUT IN THE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL LACROSSE. Ever.

And while defensemen, as a group, are (I would presume) more valuable than, say, an SSDM, they’re not coveted exactly in the same way that an attack or middie might be. Like, this century, there have been two (2) defenseman selected first overall in the PLL/MLL drafts, and the second was part of a weird wave in 2023 where the first three picks in the PLL draft were defenseman.

Having played it, is it just hard to stop an offense from getting a shot on goal the way in, say, basketball, you can shut a guy down almost completely?

Brad: Well, for a bit of context, even outside the professional game, shutouts are pretty rare in lacrosse. Sure you may get some due to the imbalance between teams on the high school level, but lacrosse doesn’t lend itself to being able to shut down a player or team like basketball.

The ball is too small to easily intercept and the field is just too large, so players can find a way to get or get rid of the ball in ways that are almost impossible to stop. Especially since a player will start with possession (as opposed to an inbounds pass in basketball). You can certainly play a type of shutdown defense when you guard a play especially close, but it is extremely difficult for a complete shutdown of a player. In most cases you’ll see a good player getting held to one goal and two assists or something. 

A shutdown defense in lacrosse typically results in slowing down the offensive production of a player rather than shutting it off entirely.

Nick: Are there any particularly good defensive teams in the PLL? And does that usually translate to overall success the way it does in other sports? (I.e., does "defense wins championships" apply to lacrosse?) 

On the other side, who do you think/assume are going to be the best offensive teams this season? Or at least the most exciting to watch? Do you have a particular preference for any team? Or do you just hope all the teams have fun?

Brad: This is where things will get interesting with the earlier start to the PLL schedule. We already mentioned the rookies missing the first 1-2 games at a minimum. 

However there are two other types of players that will be impacted by this:

1. The PLL players who are also high school/college coaches and are in the middle of the playoffs⁸ 

2. Players who are also in the NLL and in the midst of a playoff run

So, get ready to see a lot of the teams finish with 5-5 or 4-6 records. 

Regarding your specific question, though, I wouldn’t say there is necessarily one team that is defense-first. However for a league where the teams are extremely even across the board — which makes it hard to predict who will finish where until you actually start to see them play on the field — a solid defensive unit could certainly give a team the extra boost it needs. It’s not just about scoring as many goals as you can. 

The Denver Outlaws and New York Atlas (who are the defending champions) have three of the players⁹ I mentioned earlier, with O’Neill on the Outlaws and Teat/Schellenberger on Atlas. So, for that and other reasons, those would probably be considered the best offensive teams in the league at the start of the season.

As far as personal team preference goes, I started rooting for the Whipsnakes before the first season in 2019 and they then went and won the first two league championships. So it seems silly to change now, despite them officially being the Maryland Whipsnakes (though they thankfully have brought teal back into their logo and uniform).

Nick: You've always been fashion-forward when it comes to your sports teams, and for that, you'll forever have my respect.