After two seasons of trying to deliver wins for the St. Louis Battlehawks, quarterback AJ McCarron is hoping to beat the United Football League team next season.

The Battlehawks announced they had released McCarron on Friday. McCarron took being let go as part of the football business. But the manner in which St. Louis handled his departure has left him rankled, as the former Alabama All-American detailed during his appearance on Tuesday’s “McCready and Siskey” podcast.

“It sucks that I had to find out from (son) Tripp and find out through Instagram and not be given a heads-up or a call that it was happening,” McCarron said.

The Battlehawks released a statement from coach Anthony Becht that read: “The UFL continues to be a league of opportunity, and we have come to the decision to move forward looking at new opportunities at the quarterback position. A.J. McCarron has been a tremendous part of the success of our team the last two seasons, and we are grateful for all of his contributions. It’s with respect for A.J. that we wanted to provide him a clear path forward as he decides what is next in his football future.”

McCarron said if that statement made it sound as though he was through playing, it shouldn’t have.

“I’m talking to other teams to see if it’s a good fit,” McCarron said. “If there’s any way possible, I want to come back with a vengeance and I want to face them twice. I want to go to somebody that faces them twice a year and put it on them. We’ll see if there ends up being a fit and if it ends up working out, but I just felt like it wasn’t done the right way.”

The UFL teams that play the Battlehawks twice annually are the other members of the league’s XFL Conference – the Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders and San Antonio Brahmas. The other UFL teams are the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats and Michigan Panthers.

McCarron said his desire to “put it on them” did not extend to the St. Louis fans.

“I absolutely love the city of St. Louis,” McCarron said. “Unbelievable people. The love for football, the passion, the way they treated my family, everybody in the organization from every coach I got to deal with, I truly had an unbelievable time. The fans were unreal. Some of the best, literally, in the country. It’s sad that the NFL got taken away from them because that city, whether it’s hockey, soccer now, baseball with the Cards, it’s unbelievable passion there.”

McCarron said he was not surprised by his release, but by the timing.

“I knew we were going to part ways,” McCarron said. “It’s one of those things you could just feel at the end of last season. From a coaching style, environment, everything, it was just different, so I knew we were probably going to end up parting ways. I hadn’t heard anything, so what it came down to is I had multiple coaches that I know in the league that I have respect for, they have respect for me reach out multiple times. This was probably two months ago, a month ago: ‘Hey, word is they’re going to start gearing up to try to trade you out of St. Louis.’ And I told these coaches, ‘Well, I’m not going to be traded. I’m not going to let them decide where I go, if that’s the case. I’ll just refuse it.’ And it kind of died down. And then I had even more coaches reach back out to me about two weeks ago, and say, ‘Hey, word is it’s about to start’ as we get closer to January, when everything starts gearing up for the UFL.”

McCarron said, he received a call from Becht last week.

“He said, ‘Listen, it’s not performance-based by any means. I still think you’re the best quarterback in the league. I appreciate everything you’ve done,’” McCarron said. “And I thanked him for all the things we had as a team and all that. And he said, ‘We’re going to part ways and go a different route,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s understandable.’ It’s part of the business.

“And then he said, ‘Hey, we called some teams today about trading you.’ And our GM (Dave Boller) kind of butted in, and I said, ‘Who’d you call?’ And he said, ‘We only called one team.’ And I said, ‘OK, well, you said teams.’ And he said, ‘We haven’t heard back from the team we called.’ And I said, ‘If you’re trying to trade me, I’m just going to deny it and refuse the trade.’ And he said, ‘What do you mean? Are you done playing? Hanging them up?’ And I said, ‘No. I’m 34. My body feels great.’ Hell, before I had that high-ankle sprain last year I felt like I was playing the best ball, moving, everything the best I had done in years. He said, ‘Well, we own your rights forever as long as you want to play in the UFL.’ And I said, ‘No you don’t.’ My contract ended in August. … I said, ‘You only have my rights until January or February.’ It’s sometime in that timeframe. And I said, ‘I’ll just wait till my rights run out, and then I’ll choose to sign with a team if I want to sign with somebody else. But I’m not going to allow you to trade me. Since we’re not on the same team anymore, I’m not in the business of helping you out … because I know if you trade me, you’re going to get multiple – at least two – good players from the other team, and I don’t want to hurt my new team as well. And if I want to play, I want to be able to choose.’”

McCarron said the Battlehawks told him they wanted to make a joint announcement about his departure, but that didn’t happen.

“(Becht) said, ‘Hey, well, I want to send you out the right way,’” McCarron said. “‘We’re going to make a post eventually. It’ll be some time, and we’ll get back in touch with you so it will allow you to make a post with us and get it out there and show your appreciation for the city and all that.’ We hang up. I thought everything was great. I’m like, ‘Well, at least they’re giving me that opportunity to make a statement with the team’ – an organization I’d also sacrificed a ton for and tried to bring a love and a good product on the field and played through a lot of injuries. I don’t need to talk about them, but Becht knows what I played through and especially that injury last year, when he asked me to play because I wasn’t going to play. I’d even talked to him about, ‘Hey, I’m done from playing this year. I’m just going to go back home and get this surgery and get rehab early.’ So I stuck it out.

“But we come home after school two days later or a day later – I think it was maybe two – and we’re upstairs and Tripp comes to me and says, ‘Dad, are you done playing with the Battlehawks?’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘They said they released you.’ And so that’s how I found out. I saw a post. I was not called, I was not warned, was not given an opportunity to put out a post with team and the organization like I was told. And so I read it. I think the part that really pissed me off more than anything was not giving me my due to put something out with the team and the organization and do it the right way. And kind of just make what I thought was kind of a half-ass post and to have AB’s quote in there and not have a quote from me thanking the city and everything, I felt like was (expletive) on his part.”

In 2023, McCarron completed 203-of-295 passes for 2,150 yards with 24 touchdowns and six interceptions in nine XFL regular-season games with St. Louis.

After the season, he returned to the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals. But McCarron was back with the Battlehawks in 2024, when he completed 164-of-255 passes for 1,582 yards with 15 touchdowns and four interceptions in eight regular-season games.

“I know I can play at a high level,” McCarron said. “I just want it to be the right fit and a team that really wants to win and win a championship and have that experience.”

An All-State football and baseball player at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Mobile, McCarron served as the starting quarterback for two BCS national-championship teams at Alabama. While with the Crimson Tide, McCarron won the Maxwell Award, finished as the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and set the Crimson Tide’s career records for passing yards and yards of total offense, among other marks.

A fifth-round draft choice of the Bengals in 2014, McCarron also played with the Oakland Raiders and the Houston Texans in the NFL before a knee injury sustained in an Atlanta Falcons’ preseason game sidelined him for the entire 2021 campaign.

McCarron returned to football with the Battlehawks in the resurrected XFL in 2023.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.