At the beginning of camp, I make an article for each UFL team trying to predict a final 50-man rosters. In the past few days, teams have made their final cuts and it felt like a good time to revisit those predictions to see where I was off. There was no way I could predict all the additions and trades made in camp so today I will be looking at the players that I cut in those previous articles that beat the odds and made the initial rosters. This article will only detail the USFL division as I already covered the XFL ones in an earlier article. Let’s jump into it.
Birmingham Stallions
Offense: WR Kevin Austin, WR Gary Jennings, TE Marcus Baugh, T Darius Harper, T Derwin Gray, G Zack Johnson
The Birmingham offense is stacked with talent so it’s no wonder that I would be off on a few of the final players. At receiver, there were a few surprises with Victor Bolden and Slade Bolden both missing out on final roster spots. That meant that WRs Kevin Austin and Gary Jennings made the cut. Austin was on the Jaguars the last 2 seasons but fell under the radar due to a loaded receiver room and I didn’t view Gary Jennings as a threat at returner but he was seen returning kicks during camp on social media which made his inclusion a certainty.
Beyond them, Marcus Baugh made it as a 3rd tight end when I thought they would only keep 2 and 3 lineman made the roster with 2 returning lineman in T Darius Harper and T Derwin Gray and an NFL Journeyman in Zack Johnson. They all earned spots after some surprising cuts with Cohl Cabral and Calvin Ashley who failed to make it despite being some of the better starters last year in the USFL.
Notre Dame WR Kevin Austin Jr. with a 4.37 40 yard dash#NFLCombine pic.twitter.com/nFSrsaBFnD
— Tom Downey (@WhatGoingDowney) March 3, 2022
Defensive: DL Jordan Thompson, EDGE DaMarcus Mitchell, LB Damon Lloyd, LB Scooby Wright, CB Madre Harper, CB Lorenzo Burns, S JoJo Tillery, S Daniel Isom
Few of my predictions…