The XFL is back — and it’s got new owners and new spring football competition. Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson and RedBird Capital Partners have taken over Vince McMahon’s twice-failed league (once via pandemic, once via terrible decision making) and will vie against the revived USFL for viewers this February.
While we already knew the eight teams that would make up the latest incarnation of the institution that gave us He Hate Me and Tommy Maddox and who’d be coaching them — Wade Phillips! Bob Stoops! Hines Ward! — we didn’t know who’d make up those rosters. In fact, without a published list of eligible players we couldn’t even accurately wonder who might follow in the footsteps of PJ Walker and Jordan Ta’amu as the stars of XFL 3.0.
Until this week, where a three-day draft process filled the league’s roster with former college standouts and a handful of NFL veterans. The majority of this year’s XFL draftees will be known primarily to fans of whatever universities they played for — guys like Andre Mintze or Charleston Rambo or Mataeo Durant. That doesn’t mean there won’t some familiar faces in the crowd when the Seattle Sea Dragons and St. Louis Battlehawks face off next spring.
So who are the most notable veterans? Here are 15 players who most NFL fans should recognize, ranging from former All-Pros to players most of us forgot about years ago.