UFL Pipeline: United Football League Touts 80 Player Signings By NFL

The United Football League has announced that San Antonio Brahmas defensive lineman Jalen Dalton has become the 80th league player to sign with an NFL team.

Signed to the Dallas Cowboys practice squad, Dalton is one of 18 players from the 2024 UFL class currently in the NFL. He joins Jake Bates, Adrian Martinez, Jalen Redmond and Dondrea Tillman, who have been on active rosters, along with 13 other players on practice squads and one on injured reserve.

One of the UFL’s strongest calling cards is the number of players who have received an opportunity to enter and re-enter the National Football League. In the modern era, several spring pro football standouts have turned their starring turns in an alternate league into steady NFL careers, dating back to the AAF in 2019, through the XFL, USFL, and now the UFL.

Several players have made their mark in the world’s most prominent pro football league.

Among them are NFL All-Pros such as Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey, his current teammate wide receiver/kick returner KaVontae Turpin and Atlanta Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo. But there are many under-the-radar names like Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Michael Dunn, who has parlayed spring football success into five straight seasons as an NFL regular.

Dunn received significant playing time in the Alliance of American Football with Birmingham, and in the XFL in 2020 with Seattle. It enabled him to re-open a doorway back into the NFL after it was seemingly closed when he entered the pro ranks as an undrafted free agent out of Maryland in 2017.

The UFL, which begins its second season next March following the merging of the XFL and USFL earlier this year, has proven to be a quality playing league and an essential pathway to the NFL for players.

The success in doing so is not only a selling point for young pro football players to start and continue their careers, but for veteran players as well.

According to executive vice president of football operations Daryl Johnston, the UFL is trying to shake the label as a G league or minor league for the NFL by proving how major the league’s value is to the football landscape as a standalone entity.

You can find Mike Mitchell on X @ByMikeMitchell.

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