Less than two months ago AJ McCarron requested his release from the Cincinnati Bengals to play in the debut season of the United Football League. Just six short weeks later he's leading all UFL quarterbacks in passing yards and touchdowns through the first round of games. It's amazing to see McCarron still slinging it over a decade since he entered the NFL after winning two national championships at Alabama.
McCarron finished his first UFL game with 216 passing yards and two passing touchdowns, both leading marks among all quarterbacks from Saturday's action. It's true, much of McCarron's success came on easy underneath work, taking what the Michigan Panthers' defense was giving him. However, he did have quite the highlight moment on a perfect touchdown throw to the front left pylon as he connected with St. Louis Battlehawks' wide receiver, Marcell Ateman.
As our A to Z Cincinnati Bengals beat writer John Sheeran mentioned last month, McCarron made headlines just over a year ago with an MVP season for St. Louis when they were still a part of the XFL (merged with USFL this year to form UFL). The former Cincinnati Bengals fifth round draft pick led the XFL in completion percentage (68.8) and touchdown passes (24) in 2023, the latter being a single-season XFL record.
Despite winning back to back national championships with Alabama back in 2011 and 2012, throwing 46 touchdowns to just eight interceptions in those two years, AJ McCarron couldn't avoid the "game manager" label, falling to round five of the 2014 NFL Draft. Since then he's never been given a fair shot to earn an NFL starting job, and actually washed out of the league following the 2020 season. Thank goodness for the creation of leagues like the XFL, USFL, and now the UFL.
If McCarron continues to find success for his second spring of football in a row he'll have no problem landing back in the NFL. The question will be, where does he land? Back with the Bengals? Somewhere new? And since several teams have such horrible quarterback situations, could McCarron possibly be given his first fair opportunity to start for a full NFL season?
There's a lot of football left to be played this spring, but the former Alabama Football superstar is off to a dominant start in the inaugural season of the United Football League.
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