When the XFL gave it a go in 2020, 3 QBs became relevant in the NFL, Josh Johnson, PJ Walker, and Taylor Heinicke.
Josh Johnson is a little different than Walker and Heinicke because he had been a journeyman, so the XFL wasn’t exactly a spot for him to prove his worth or even act as a true second chance for him. He’s played for 16 different teams between 3 football leagues. He just played in the NFC Championship for the 49ers. He’s not a bad backup to have because he’s shown that he can learn an offense quickly and not automatically lose a game for you.
Walker and Heinicke became starters for their teams, the Carolina Panthers and Washington Football Team/Commanders respectively. PJ eventually lost his job because of bad performance, but Taylor Heinicke was largely responsible for his team not being an absolute disaster, which is just about as high of praise as you can give a guy for being a quarterback on a failing franchise like the Washington Commanders.
Now, Heinicke’s chance at NFL “stardom” was not due to how he did in the XFL because he was the backup quarterback for the St. Louis BattleHawks and never saw the field.
He was a backup for Jordan Ta’amu who was pretty good in the XFL. In 5 games Ta’amu threw for 1050 yards, and 5 TDs, with a completion percentage of 72%. He also could use his legs and rushed for 217 yards and a TD. He was entertaining and he got a “chance” in the NFL when he got signed by the Kansas City Chiefs to be a backup to Patrick Mahomes. He never got to see any real game time in the NFL, but still, it had to be a pretty okay payday for him.
The point is that the XFL does have relevance to the NFL, especially this season when they’re going to be collaborative with the NFL, rather than a competitor or supplement.
The XFL assigned Quarterbacks to each team before the draft. The Battlehawks were assigned 3 Quarterbacks, Nick Tiano, Ryan Willis, and AJ McCarron. Let’s get to know what’s going on with them.
Nick Tiano:
Tiano is 26 years old, 6’4, and 231 pounds. He played his Redshirt year in college at Mississippi State in 2016, but then he moved on to play at The University of Tennesee at Chattanooga. That’s not the University of Tennesee that you’ve heard of; UTC is an FCS school in the Southern Conference. He graduated in 2019 after 3 years of starting at UTC.
He hasn’t had any NFL playing time. He got signed by the Texans in April of 2020 but got released by them before the season started in July 2020. He’s been signed to a couple of CFL teams but has no registered stats for either of the two teams.
What we have to go off of is his career at UTC. He only played 4 full games in 2017 until he got hurt for the rest of the season, but when he was healthy he was a “Middle of the Road” to “Good” quarterback for his level of competition. He completed 57.6% of his passes for 4,921 yards, 29 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions.
Summary of Tiano’s Draft Analysis from NFL.com:
I’m not gonna copy and paste the analysis because It’s not fun to read, and I don’t know how plagiarism works so here’s a summary:
Nick Tiano has a big body, a strong arm, a notable pocket presence, and confidence. Unfortunately, he’s inconsistent, inaccurate, indecisive, and he’s not performed in more important spots.
In College Football, defensive backs can get exposed if they have a lack of discipline and bad coverage schemes. At a professional level (Yeah, XFL is professional), the delivery of the ball is very important. A late throw mixed with inaccuracy and indecisiveness can get exposed in the same way by a higher level of competition.
Ryan Willis:
Willis is 26 years old, 6’4”, and 211 pounds. He played a couple of years of college ball at Kansas.
In 2015 he played in 10 of 12 games. He threw 9 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and a little over 1700 yards for a 52.1% completion percentage. He got sacked 31 times.
In 2016 he played in 6 of 12 games. He threw 3 touchdowns, 7 interceptions, and a little over 800 yards for a 61.5% completion percentage. He got sacked 16 times, twice as many times as the next closest QB on his team).
He transferred to Virginia Tech in 2017, but couldn’t play that season because the NCAA had rules that they don’t have anymore. He played better at VT, which isn’t really surprising since those Kansas teams were bad, and I mean BAD bad. In 2018 he got the starting position after another QB broke his leg. He played in 12 of 13 games. He threw 24 touchdowns, 9 interceptions, and 2716 yards for a 58.5% completion percentage. He once again got sacked a lot; 22 times this season.
In 2019, he lost his job as a starter to a guy named Hendon Hooker. Hendon Hooker currently plays at Tennessee and was in talks for the Heisman until he messed up his knee. Willis played in 5 games. He threw 9 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, and 906 yards for a 61.5% completion percentage. He got sacked 10 times.
The main takeaway of his college career is that he struggled with accuracy. If you’re throwing 31 interceptions in 33 games, there might be an underlying issue. As for the sacks, they’re potentially not as much on the quarterback as interceptions are, but 79 sacks are 79 sacks, and 79 sacks in 33 games is not what you want. Like, even a little bit.
To be fair to Willis, he suffered through and played with a lot of injuries. A tough quarterback can be appreciated.
After he went undrafted in the NFL, he went and played in The Spring League where he played great. In a 6 games season, he led the league in passing yards (1680) and touchdowns (13). His team, The Linemen, went 5-1, won the championship, and Willis won the League MVP.
The Spring League is a developmental league and is probably more comparable to the XFL than Willis’ college career, making these performances more uplifting than what we saw from him for his first 3 years of college. Duh.
AJ McCarron:
McCarron is a different case than the other Quarterbacks in the room. Everyone else is trying to do that thing that I mentioned before: try to make a statement to get into the NFL.
McCarron made it to the NFL and he was there for a pretty long time. He was picked by the Bengals in the 5th round of the 2014 NFL draft. He was a career backup for his career. He spent time behind Andy Dalton with the Bengals from 2014 to 2017, Josh Allen with the Bills in 2018, Derek Carr with the Raiders also in 2018, and Deshaun Watson with the Texans from 2019 to 2020. He also signed a contract with the Falcons in 2021 but he got an ACL in the preseason. He only saw a handful of starts in preseason games and a handful of starts in meaningful games.
Now he’s a Battlehawk. He’s also 32 years old. I know that in our current football world, being a 32-year-old quarterback might not necessarily sound that daunting given the success of older guys in the NFL. You’ve got Tom Brady at 45 and as old as dirt, Aaron Rodgers at 39 who looks older than dirt, Russell Wilson at 34 who may or may not be completely washed up, Matt Ryan at 37 who made it to a Superbowl when he was 32.
The point I’m trying to make is that there are guys who are successful past their 30s. There are also a whole bunch of guys who aren’t. There is reasonable thought to think that the successful guys might be outliers. McCarron may fall more into the norm, but he’s also not playing in the NFL, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his experience outweighs some of the potential setbacks due to his age.
Normally I would go into some of the college statistics for a guy, but in McCarron’s case, they’re not as relevant since we’ve seen him play at the highest level. We know that he can at least make it to the league and experience that you get in those games where you play with live bullets, is invaluable.
AJ McCarron is going to be an easy guy to root for, but the potential for his athleticism to not match up to that of younger guys might be a cause for concern.