AJ McCarron wants to be a championship quarterback again. He has a desire to lead teammates in pursuit of achievement on the football field. McCarron has done so before, most notably with Alabama’s BCS national title teams for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

McCarron sees that opportunity returning in the XFL, and this time, he’ll be taking up that challenge as the father of three sons.

McCarron will be at quarterback for the St. Louis Battlehawks when the XFL season opens this weekend. The Battlehawks visit the San Antonio Brahmas at 2 p.m. CST Sunday for McCarron’s first game since he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during an NFL preseason game with the Atlanta Falcons on Aug. 21, 2021.

“I haven’t had that thought of hanging them up,” McCarron said on Wednesday. “Guys are playing for so many years now, and my body feels great. In ‘21 was a freak deal – non-contact ACL. I started football at the age of 3, and that was the first injury that knocked me out a whole season. I really never had that thought.

“The decision for me was: Do I wait around and join somebody’s team in the NFL late, try to do these workouts and fly here and fly there or do I just want to go play? Listen, I’ve made enough money in my career. I don’t live a crazy lifestyle, and I have everything that I’ve ever wanted. For me, it’s back to just playing. I love to play. I love to help lead a team and lead a group of guys to try to achieve greatness, and that’s the biggest thing for me.

“Coming home now, these kids can work iPads like it’s unreal. My 6-year-old, he knows how to get to YouTube faster than I can pull up a text message. Seeing him on YouTube and watching highlights of me and coming home one day and he just talked about, ‘Dad, I want to see you play football again.’ For me, it hit deep to where, ‘Man, do I really need to go somewhere and sit this year and just be another backup or can I take this opportunity to go play, create memories for our family and friends and have my boys be a part of it? Come out and be ballboys at practice and be around an organization.’ And for me, that was bigger for me than going and making more money and being a backup on somebody’s team. You never know what the future holds. We could be back in that role later in life, but for right now I’m enjoying this everyday process and creating these awesome memories for me and the boys.”

Gone since folding halfway through its 2020 season, the XFL has returned under new ownership led by actor and wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and business partner Dany Garcia.

“I’ve loved this process,” McCarron said. “I can’t thank DJ and Miss Dany enough for giving us all this opportunity. It’s a blessing to have this opportunity. But to be a part of this team with such a good group of guys has been unbelievable. It’s better than I could have ever imagined. We really don’t have any bad apples on this team. Everybody has a good head on their shoulders, and it’s been awesome to come to work every day and play a game for a living.”

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Battlehawks coach Anthony Becht said the team targeted McCarron because of his experience and had been rewarded by getting a quarterback who “handles himself like he’s in the NFL” and had become “an extension of our coaching staff” on the field.

“Being an intelligent quarterback is something we put a premium on when we started recruiting in the quarterback process and started working guys out,” Becht said. “… He’s like another coach on the field. It’s important to have someone who can lead the crew when the play’s delivered and also make sure that because of what we’re giving him option-wise to get us out of trouble versus the defensive coordinators that we’re going to face in this league. I just feel like he’s one of the smartest quarterbacks period that’s available to us, so he’s done a fantastic job. …

“Of course, the leadership qualities and the championship pedigree he comes from from college, it better work out for us because that’s what we’re leaning on and that’s what we expected to be a bonus for us when we talked him into, recruited him into playing for us.”

Learning the offenses of five teams during eight seasons in the NFL prepared McCarron to soak up the Battlehawks’ attack scheme quickly, and the former St. Paul’s Episcopal star thinks training camp knocked off any rust that might have accumulated while missing the past two seasons.

“I feel great,” McCarron said. “My body feels great. My knee’s been healthy for a while now. I’m 100 percent. Playing the game of football’s like riding a bike. You spend a little time away, but you get right back. It might take you a day or two just to get back in the groove – timing and stuff like that – but we’ve been working for a while with each other and us as an offense, and we have a lot of great timing and chemistry between each other as a group and looking forward to showing that on Sunday.”

After their opening game on Sunday, which will be televised by ABC, the Battlehawks visit the Seattle Sea Dragons on Feb. 23 and the D.C. Defenders on March 5 before making their home debut in the Dome at America’s Center on March 12 against the Arlington Renegades.

A fan festival held in St. Louis during training camp gave McCarron a preview of the fervor for football in a city that lost its NFL team to Los Angeles in 2016.

“The passion that they have and the city of St. Louis has for football, you can tell right off the bat, and it reminds me of college. It really does,” McCarron said. “The expectation to win and to win a championship reminds me of Alabama, and it’s something that I love. I loved playing at Alabama because they expected to win a national championship every year. Our ‘09 class really helped create that monster, if you want to call it that, at Alabama where the expectations are that high every year. But I truly believe that’s when you perform at your best is when the pressure is on and expectations are high. I think it creates and gets the best out of you, and it’s something that I really love and want to be a part of.”

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