The coronavirus pandemic has impacted sports all across the world with several big-name events being delayed or even canceled. One such event was the 2020 debut campaign for the XFL, which stopped after just five games. With the spring league cutting its inaugural season short, any players who took part are now allowed to sign with an NFL team, according to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert.
For many of the XFL’s players, playing a handful of live games this spring has allowed them to put some tape together and hopefully impress both scouts and general managers. Plenty of small school prospects that likely just got missed previously got a chance to show what they could do against some standouts.
With the NFL in the middle of free agency and a whole new market of players opened up to sign, here are seven players the Baltimore Ravens could be interested in bringing aboard.
WR Cam Phillips
Phillips played for the Houston Roughnecks and ending up leading the XFL in all three major receiving categories. Phillips finished the season with 31 receptions for 455 yards along with nine touchdown catches.
Phillips was an undrafted free agent out of Virginia Tech in 2018 although he did spend most of that season with the Buffalo Bills. Phillips played two games for the Bills, catching his only target for nine yards.
The Ravens need to get more out of their wide receivers in 2020 and haven’t really addressed the position in the early stages of free agency. Phillips’ production for the Roughnecks makes him a player that should certainly be on the radar of most NFL teams.
TE Donald Parham
Parham is an absolute monster of a man. He stands 6-foot-8 with 35.5-inch arms, giving him a 92nd percentile catch radius at tight end. Parham dominated the college competition during his four years at Stenson, gobbling up 180 receptions for 2,591 yards and 20 touchdowns. Despite these numbers and his incredible size, Parham did not attract any attention from NFL scouts.
He was offered an XFL chance by the Dallas Renegades, and like Phillips, he made the most of his opportunities in the neophyte league. Parham saw the second-most targets in the entire league, drawing 44 looks on his way to 24 receptions for 307 yards and four touchdowns.
The tight end is a position of extreme importance in the Ravens’ offense and the team is suddenly down a man in that group after trading away Hayden Hurst to the Atlanta Falcons. Parham is undoubtedly far from the most polished tight end around but as a mismatch weapon in the passing game, he could make an immediate impact for somebody in the NFL.
CB Deatrick Nichols
Nichols spent the 2018 NFL season being alternately cut then re-signed to the Arizona Cardinals’ active roster. He ended up playing in two games, with his entire workload limited to 11 special teams snaps.
During his time with the Roughnecks, Nichols led the XFL with three interceptions, while also chipping in with 25 total tackles and one quarterback sack.
The Ravens have two All-Pro cornerbacks in Marcus Peters and Marlon Humphreys. But Brandon Carr will not return in 2020 and Jimmy Smith is still a free agent, leaving Baltimore a little thin at the position for their liking. Nichols could offer some depth while also chipping in on special teams. He could even be an option as a slot corner if the Ravens wanted to limit the number of inside snaps taken by Humphrey or if Tavon Young takes a little while to get back up to speed after his season-ending injury last year.
QB Jordan Ta’amu
The Ravens are set at starting quarterback, with Lamar Jackson’s 2019 deeds earning him an MVP award. Behind him, the Ravens have Robert Griffin and Trace McSorley but there’s a case to be made for Baltimore being interested in Ta’amu as well.
Playing for the St. Louis Battlehawks, Ta’amu was an adequate passer. He finished third in the XFL with 1,050 passing yards while pacing the league with a 72.4% completion percentage. But it was what he did with his legs that may make teams like Baltimore sit up and take notice. Ta’amu was seventh in the league with 217 rushing yards. That’s seventh across all positions.
A mobile quarterback who is an efficient passer of the ball sounds like the type of player that the Ravens might like to get a closer look at in 2020.
There’s also no guarantee Baltimore keeps Griffin and McSorley at this point either. With Griffin earning some trade inquiries, the Ravens might decide to send their backup quarterback packing for some more ammunition in the 2020 NFL Draft. In that case, Baltimore would have a perfect opening for a guy like Ta’amu on their roster, even if just for training camp.
WR Tre McBride
McBride was a seventh-round pick by the Tennesse Titans in the 2015 NFL Draft. He didn’t do an awful lot across three NFL seasons, two with the Titans and one with the Chicago Bears. McBride appeared in 17 games and caught 10-of-19 career targets for 152 yards and had one touchdown reception in his rookie season. McBride also bounced around the practice squads of the New York Jets, Washington Redskins and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
As a member of the Los Angeles Wildcats in the XFL, McBride reeled in 16 of his 24 targets for 271 yards and four touchdowns. He finished No. 5 in yardage as well as No. 2 in yards per reception across the league. McBride’s 16 grabs averaged 16.9 yards each.
S Will Hill
If this name seems familiar to Ravens fans, that’s because it is. Hill played four seasons in the NFL between 2012-2015, with the final two spent with the Ravens. Hill started 22 of his 26 games for Baltimore, posting 106 combined tackles and nine tackles for loss. Hill also defended 10 passes and picked up a pair of interceptions, taking one back for a touchdown. He also famously returned a blocked field goal for the game-winning touchdown against the Cleveland Browns in his final season, an event dubbed the “Kick Six.”
Hill played for the Battlehawks in the XFL and had a pair of interceptions along with 33 total tackles, finishing sixth in the league in tackles. Hill is 30 years old which puts him towards the backend of his career but he certainly still has the talent to find a place on an NFL roster.
Hill’s time in the NFL was not uneventful off the field, however, which led to his eventual departure from it. He’s been suspended three times — once for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs and twice for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. He was released prior to the 2016 season when the Ravens learned that he had failed another drug test, landing him a 10-game suspension. This could be a major stumbling block in the bid to forge a reunion between him and the Ravens.
K Austin MacGinnis
The Ravens are a team that likes to encourage competition, even among its star players. So that’s why it always makes sense for the team to bring in kickers during the off-season on the off chance that they unearth someone better than Justin Tucker. To date, they have not done so but that also hasn’t stopped them from bringing in an extra leg nearly every year.
That practice has paid off for Baltimore in the past. Just look at what the Ravens were able to do with kicker Kaare Vedvik, turning solid training camp and preseason performances into a fifth-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft via a trade with the Minnesota Vikings. There are no guarantees Baltimore would be able to do the same thing with another kicker but you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
MacGinnis has all the makings of a player the Ravens would be interested in bringing on board for training camp. He knocked through nearly 80% of his field-goal attempts for Kentucky between 2015 and 2017 (51-of-64) as well as 102 out of his 104 extra-point attempts. As a member of the Renegades in the XFL, MacGinnis was a perfect 10-of-10 on his field-goal attempts, including four from between 40 and 46 yards out.
