3 UFL Championship players Eagles fans should be watching

The Philadelphia Eagles ended their spring workouts on Tuesday, and now we’re in a six-week dark period that feels like six months. Fortunately, if you’re fiending for ball and want one last game to tide you over until August, the UFL championship between the DC Defenders and the Michigan Panthers is on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. If you’re looking for a rooting interest, go with DC; If they win, it means the Washington Commanders won’t have the most recent championship win for the city.

You’ll also see some good talent. The entire point of that league is to get some guys who have pretty much only been practice-squad players at the NFL level some meaningful film, and for them, there’s no more meaningful film than what they’re going to be doing in a championship game. 

Two guys who could help the Eagles, and one guy who is a delight

There have been a handful of guys who took the spring league route to the NFL and made a pretty solid name for themselves. QB Taylor Heinicke came from the St. Louis Battlehawks, receiver/return specialist Kavontae Turpin came from the New Jersey Generals, and kickers Jake Bates and Brandon Aubrey came from the Michigan Panthers and Birmingham Stallions, respectively.

It stinks that Turpin and Aubrey are good at what they do since they’re both Dallas Cowboys, but the point is that there are some solid players on spring-league rosters. These are three guys you can look at during the UFL Championship game could potentially pay dividends for Philly this season.

Derick Roberson, Edge, DC Defenders

The Eagles can always use more edge rushers. Right now, we’re just looking at Nolan Smith, Jalyx Hunt, Azeez Ojulari and Josh Uche as viable players. Smith and Hunt are blooming into something special, but the other two guys have been plagued by injury problems and just a lack of overall consistency. 

Roberson can be a guy to add some training camp depth, and he has decent upside. In 10 games this season, he had six sacks (T-3rd in the league), 41 pressures (2nd) and 26 hurries (1st), and he was pretty solid against the run. 

The Panthers have allowed only 15 sacks this season, and only seven of them have come on their current starting quarterback Bryce Perkins; he’s pretty solid at getting out of hairy situations. If Roberson can show up and get after it on Saturday night, he’d be a nice guy to see in August.

Gunnar Oakes, TE, Michigan Panthers

Dallas Goedert and Grant Calcaterra are a great one-two punch at tight end, but behind them, it’s Harrison Bryant or Kylen Granson. Neither of those guys is a sure thing, and with Goedert’s injury history, you can pretty much guarantee the Eagles’ TE3 is going to get some playing time.

When that guy is on the field, you can bet that he’s not going to be anywhere close to being one of Jalen Hurts’ first targets. That means how good they are at run blocking is going to be super important.

Of the tight ends in this game, Gunnar Oakes is the best run blocker. He’s 6-foot-4 inches tall, which is slightly smaller than what the Eagles like. However, he’s 252 pounds, so he fills his frame out pretty decently.

He’s also a solid pass catcher (14 catches for 162 yards and two touchdowns), but Michigan runs the ball a whole lot, so we should be able to see a lot of what Oakes can do in the run game.

Joseph Wallace, DT, DC Defenders

There are a few things that make Joseph Wallace special: his size, his effectiveness and his consistency (in that order). Watching him play football is an all-around good time. 

He is just 5-foot-10 inches tall, but he’s listed at 290 pounds and he looks every bit of it. The man is spherical, and it rocks. He’s notably shorter than everyone around him, but he’s a bowling ball. It’s very fun to watch a guy who doesn’t look like he belongs at his position blow people up.

How can you not enjoy watching that? He’s just a human-sized bowling ball. 

He makes those kinds of plays a lot, too. He ended the regular season with 38 total tackles, 10 tackles for a loss and four sacks. It helps that he’s also on the field for almost every play. He played 424 snaps this season, which was 79.6% of his team's defensive total. If everything remains the same during the championship game, you’re going to be seeing a lot of DC’s meatball.

His size is probably going to stop him from being an NFL guy, so me saying that he’s a "guy to watch" is more just about seeing something that you don’t see on Sundays in the fall.