Once upon a time the XFL BattleHawks quarterback AJ McCarron was almost the savior of the Cleveland Browns

A.J. McCarron was almost the face of the Cleveland Browns franchise for a time.

Let’s go back to 2017, aka the Deshone Kizer Era. A second-round pick out of Notre Dame, many “experts” heralded Kizer a borderline first-round talent, that was a steal for the Browns in the second round. Was he? Not based on what we saw, but we also have to remember that his head coach was Hue Jackson, so it’s unlikely that anyone would’ve done well in Cleveland. That didn’t stop the Browns front office from thinking that Kizer, and not Jackson was the problem because instead of firing Jackson during the midst of a 0-16 season, the Browns instead went out and got A.J. McCarron.

A deal was struck between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals to send backup quarterback McCarron to Cleveland, and many, including the folks at 92.3, thought that McCarron was better than Andy Dalton, the Bengals’ then-Pro Bowl quarterback, and that his arrival would shore up the quarterback position for years to come.

Somehow they were wrong about that, and so many other things. McCarron was never better than Dalton, nor was he the franchise savior. Even better yet, he never actually made it to Cleveland. Despite the trade being finalized, some shoddy paperwork held up the deal and the trade deadline came and went without the trade being approved by league offices.

McCarron would leave the Bengals after the season, end up in Buffalo when it was all said and done, and bounce around the league until he stopped getting his calls returned. Now the XFL is here, and McCarron is hoping to be the savior for the St. Louis BattleHawks, a role he never got to play out in Cleveland.

A.J. McCarron has the chance to lead the St. Louis BattleHawks

McCarron’s NFL career was marred by bad luck. The failed trade to Cleveland, a messed up shoulder in Buffalo cost him a starting gig, then getting stuck behind the chronic offender in Houston, and finally, a torn ACL in Atlanta saw the journeymen quarterback finally get to the end of the proverbial line in the NFL.

Now in the XFL, he’s already off to a wonderful start. The BattleHawks had a massive comeback in the final three minutes of their 2023 debut, with McCarron leading a comeback and going 11-13 through the final quarter of the game.

In this one instance, he looked exactly like so many had hoped he would in 2017, connecting with Austin Proehl, a veteran of the secondary leagues, and completing a three-point conversion to the second-generation pro, and eventually the go-ahead touchdown.

The BattleHawks was one of the better teams in the XFL in 2020, thanks to then quarterback Jordan Ta’amu (now with the DC Defenders), and maybe, just maybe under McCarron, the BattleHawks could once again be a team to beat.

If anyone deserves a shot at redemption and glory in the XFL, it’s the Browns’ player that never was, A.J. McCarron.