One common name that has been brought up as a staple of spring football over the last six years is DC Defenders quarterback Jordan Ta'amu.
Ta'amu just finished up his fifth season in spring football last year for the Defenders as he led them to their first league champion. He finished the 2025 season passing for 2,153 yards (second in the UFL) and 17 touchdowns to four interceptions, adding another 178 yards on the ground and two more scores.
From the XFL to the USFL to the XFL again and now the UFL, he has been in his own right the "Spring King" as well for being a consistent performer who gets better over the years. Going into his sixth season in the league, Ta'amu is focused on getting the Defenders to repeat again as he spent time with reporters at UFL Media Day to talk about multiple topics.
Jordan Ta'amu talks DC Defenders training camp
This is the first full training camp that the Defenders have Shannon Harris as their official head coach with plenty of new faces on the roster. With two-thirds of the roster overturned from the 2025 title team, Ta'amu told UFL NewsHub how training camp has been going for him and the Defenders through two weeks.
"Yeah, first two has been nothing but great. We had chemistry with the old guys that came back, just rehashing the playbook, and then having new guys come in there learning and really adding another fire, another weapon to our offense means a lot. We've been looking good, offense and defense. Everyone's been flying around, everyone's hungry. Coach Harris has been doing a good job of getting us ready, even if it's a walk-through day. He gets us hyped up, and we're ready to go to war for him."
What Jordan Ta'amu is focused on personally with his game
Over the last two years in spring football, one thing that has been discussed with Ta'amu is the accuracy not quite where it needs to be. He completed 57.5% of his passes in 2024 and that dropped to 54.4% in 2025.
To Ta'amu's credit, he acknowledged to UFL NewsHub that the one thing he would like to focus on this season is completing more passes to his pass catchers in 2026.
"This year, I want to focus on more completions, just being better than last year. Coach Harris and Coach Dave done a good job of breaking down my incompletions from last year and learning from those mistakes. If I can learn from those mistakes, and there were little mistakes that I could have fixed or I could have changed the protection, or I could have hit my hot routes, those little things. If I put that into this year's game, we're going to be unstable as a whole."
Which Defenders players should UFL fans watch out for?
There are lot of new faces and some familiar ones as well. UFL NewsHub asked Ta'amu if there were any players at camp that no one is talking about or knows that is going to make an impact in 2026. He had a list of players to keep in mind.
"I would have to say, I mean, everybody knows Keke (Coutee), right? So he's coming back this year. We missed him last year, but he's coming back. I think he's going to be a really good add to our team again. And then, you know I like Erik (Ezukanma). Erik is one of our wideouts. Then (Montrell)Trell Washington, too. He's quick, he's fast, and he's hungry to learn. And that's something that you don't see every day. And he's always trying to get better, always asking me what I want. And as a quarterback, that's exactly what we need as wideouts."
One new player that was asked about was former Arizona State running back Xazavian Valladay. Ta'amu had a ton to praise about Valladay joining a loaded backfield with Deon Jackson and Abram Smith.
"He's been tremendous. He's hungry, too. We were just actually going over tempo plays and what he has, and just seeing him being able to catch that ball so smoothly as a running back, and then also read gaps and run downhill. And that's what we need, guys that are like X. So tremendous player, very smart dude, and he's always ready to learn and always appreciative of what we do."
Big differences between 2025 DC Defenders and 2026 DC Defenders
UFL NewsHub asked Ta'amu about the big differences between last year's team and this year's Defenders squad besides the new faces. With the same coaching staff and a lot of the players back, he sees a different connection from what has been seen in the past.
"I think just the connection, I think, is a huge thing with our wideouts. We started a little bit later last year. We did start off slow, but now I'm seeing it, how we're clicking at all seven there's pretty early. So if we continue to build on that, continue to show that we can also throw, we'll change our offensive game."
There is no doubt the Defenders will be in the conversation to win it all again as long as Ta'amu is starting at quarterback as he is playing the best football of his career.