The UFL 2025 season is inching closer. All eight teams will soon be reporting to training camp in Arlington, Texas, coaches on the 24th and players on the 27th. The league’s regular season kicks off a month later on Friday March 28th.
Year two of the merged USFL-XFL, sees a lot less chaos and turnover than the buildup to year one of the UFL, where the new league condensed 16 teams into 8.
Continuity and familiarity are two of the UFL’s biggest strengths in 2025 as many teams are returning largely intact from a year ago.
Established familiar faces in Spring Pro Football, like quarterbacks Luis Perez and Jordan Ta’amu are back for more. The two have carved out lengthy pro careers away from the NFL, thanks to the existence of leagues such as the AAF, XFL, TSL, USFL, and now the UFL.
The anointed ‘Spring King’ Perez, who led the UFL in multiple passing categories last season, is about to embark upon his seventh season playing spring ball.
There are also familiar Spring League standouts arriving to the UFL this year after excursions into the NFL.
One quarterback returning is Alex McGough with Birmingham. After two years in the NFL, moonlighting as a QB and WR, The USFL MVP in 2023 for the reigning three-time champion Stallions steps into the spotlight vacated by UFL 2024 MVP Adrian Martinez, who is currently a member of the New York Jets.
Returnees in the UFL help strengthen the league’s team identities, something that only time can foster. However, it’s also new arrivals at the Quarterback position to Spring Pro Football that bring forth added intrigue.
Here are three new Quarterbacks gearing up for play in the UFL this coming season, who will be looking to make the same impact that other signal-callers have in the Spring.
Top 5 New Quarterback Arrivals For The 2025 UFL Season
Quarterbacks: Kellen Mond, San Antonio Brahmas, Anthony Brown, Houston Roughnecks, Max Duggan, St. Louis Battlehawks, Rocky Lombardi, Michigan Panthers, & Chevan Cordeiro, St. Louis Battlehawks
The UFL has intriguing new arrivals at quarterback this season. They all fit the mold of the type of players who desperately need a league like this to play and grow.
Two of them are rookie quarterbacks in the Michigan Panthers Rocky Lombardi, and St. Louis Battlehawks Chevan Cordeiro.
Lombardi, a Michigan native, went undrafted in the 2024 NFL Draft, signing with the Cincinatti Bengals. He was released by Cincy in August. The Panthers drafted Lombardi in the fifth round of the 2024 UFL College Draft.
Cordeiro, who was also selected in the same round as Lombardi by St. Louis, went undrafted, briefly spending time on the Seattle Seahawks roster. The first-team All Mountain West player shares a similar byline to Lombardi, in that both quarterbacks are older than your typical rookies. (25 and 26), and share similar collegiate paths being transfer players. They both might get a shot to impress in the UFL but have some hurdles in front of them. Nevertheless, their journeys as pros are continuing.
There are new UFL quarterbacks who have more extensive NFL pedigrees who will be afforded an immediate opportunity to shine in 2025.
From former 2021 third round pick of the Minnesota Vikings, Kellen Mond, who returns home to San Antonio after starring at Texas A&M but taking a backseat on the bench in the NFL. To 2023 Los Angeles Chargers draft selection Max Duggan. The former Davey O’Brien award winner and Heisman runner-up at TCU will try to relaunch his pro career with the St. Louis Battlehawks.
Then there’s Anthony Brown, the newly signed Houston Roughneck, and former Pac 12 leading passer at Oregon, who went undrafted into the NFL. He has spent time with four different NFL teams as a fringe roster backup the last two years. Most recently as a Buffalo Bills practice squad player, signed with a sole purpose of simulating Lamar Jackson before Buffalo’s playoff victory against the Ravens last month.
Mond (25 years old), Duggan (23), and Brown (26) have a combined total of 52 passes in NFL regular season games, With 49 of them belonging to Brown three years ago.
Recently, NFL Analyst Marcus Whitman, host of The Franchise Guy show on YouTube, posted on X, his wishes for the NFL to start sending quarterbacks to the UFL for seasoning, with the idea that the league would help aid in developing players who need playing time and reps.
Mond, Duggan, and Brown, who are not currently on NFL rosters, but have been recently, all fit that criteria of young developmental quarterbacks who need genuine playing time.
Unbeknownst to many NFL fans, that’s something that by default has been occurring in non-NFL pro leagues like the UFL for a while now. Unofficially for now but perhaps one day a formal arrangement can occur, much the same way it did over two decades ago when NFL teams sent allocated players like Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Jon Kitna, Brad Johnson and others to NFL Europe teams.
There are many people who have suggested over the years that that an entity like the UFL assume the role of a G-League for the NFL.
Although, the UFL’s aim is to be standalone pro sports league, by default, they play a developmental role as a proving ground that extends beyond players, coaches, and executives to on-field and broadcasting innovations.
Look no further than the XFL adopted kickoff by the NFL or the gradual changes to a replay assist system.
Since the return of prominent spring pro football in the United States six years ago with the AAF, hundreds of players have signed NFL contracts, some of them getting first, second or even third chances to further their careers. Some have become All-Pros, while others have been gainfully employed for multiple years in the NFL.
As of press time, there are 75 former NFL draft picks on UFL rosters, and dozens of young undrafted players that have been on NFL practice squads within the last few years, looking to make their way back to the big league.
The quarterback position is a tricky one because there are only 32 starting spots in the NFL. Most teams carry only two signal-callers on game days. The third, fourth and even fifth strong spots become no-mans-land for young signal-callers. Even if you occupy one of those positions, it’s a tenuous job. Quarterbacks in that pecking order, get at best, minimal reps in practice, and some playing time during preseason games.
Over the years, there have been multiple quarterbacks who have played in non-NFL leagues and have launched or relaunched their careers as a result. Even if the pathway back doesn’t guarantee a position better than the one, they occupied when falling out of the quarterback shuffle.
But beyond the Jeff Garcia types from the distant past, there have been recent non-NFL league Quarterbacks who may not have become stars but who ended up getting significant playing time and an extended run in the NFL. Passers like Taylor Heinicke and P.J. Walker have played a combined nine seasons in the NFL after being a part of the XFL in 2020. They have played in 57 NFL games, with 38 starts combined.
It’s that kind of proof positive result that provides motivation for young Quarterbacks who appear to have washed out of the NFL mix, to keep on swimming in a new ocean. It might lead them back into NFL waters or into the type of lengthy playing careers, Luis Perez and Jordan Ta’amu have attained.
1 Comment
by Ken Granito
Congratulations to Luis Perez, Jordan Ta’amu, Quinten Dormady, Matt Corral, Alex McGough, J’Mar Smith, EJ Perry, Troy Williams, Jalan McClendon, Anthony Brown, Danny Etling, Bryce Perkins, Kevin Hogan, Jarrett Guarantano and Kellen Mond who have decided it’s better to compete and play the game you love as opposed to live ONLY for a paycheck that may or may not come. These players bet on themselves to play and better themselves. Over the past two years I have as many passes in a game that counts in the standings as Jake Luton, Jacob Eason, Nathan Peterman, Nate Sudfeld and, Ian Book and like me they remain unsigned. All of these players have given up playing quarterback long ago or they would have signed with the UFL. Last year, I questioned why Kellen Mond wasn’t in the league. I am happy he is betting on himself this year. I hope Luton, Eason, Peterman and Sudfeld are enjoying semi-retirement. They are quarterbacks in name only, pretty much as much as I am. I imagine they have millions saved, an opportunity to share time with their family and have become businessmen and I am happy for them if that is what they want. When Le’Veon Bell decided to hold out with the Steelers it was a sign to the whole league that maybe it was more about the check than playing football. That doesn’t make him a bad person. He could have pretended to play, but try to fein injury or something. When the love of the game is gone so is the football player. Case Cookus and AJ McCarron remain unsigned, but I truly enjoyed watching them play. Glad those guys were game.