The St. Louis Battlehawks will secure a spot in the XFL playoffs if they beat the Seattle Sea Dragons on Sunday.

But for the second game in a row, the Battlehawks might have to play without quarterback AJ McCarron. And against the Sea Dragons, the former Alabama All-American’s backup won’t be available either after Nick Tiano went on the injured list on Thursday.

That leaves St. Louis hoping McCarron can recover in time for Sunday’s game, or they’ll be using third-stringer Manny Wilkins, who hasn’t taken a snap this season.

“Right now, AJ is doing exactly what he did last week, except he has more time to just get his body right,” Battlehawks coach Anthony Becht said on Thursday during an appearance on ESPN Radio’s “Fitz and Harry.” “Every day, we try to take those strides. It’s all hands on deck at the quarterback position. …

“Nick broke and fractured his foot in (last week’s) game. He’s actually going on IR, so it’ll be AJ and Manny Wilkins now taking the reps this week and then we just signed on Vincent Testaverde as our third quarterback, so that’s where we’re at. And again, I trust my players regardless of who’s in there. We’re heading on the right trajectory, but we’re preparing for everything, and again, if AJ can go on game day, which it’ll be a game-time decision, then we’ll feel good about it. If it’s Manny that has to go, then again, we’ll get him up to speed and prepared throughout this week like we always do. It’ll be his show if things cause it to be a situation where he’s the guy.”

McCarron leads the XFL in touchdown passes with 17, and he threw three in St. Louis’ 24-15 victory over the Houston Roughnecks on April 2.

But McCarron took a trip to the sideline medical tent during that game after being tackled on a scramble. While McCarron came back and finished the contest after missing three plays, the shoulder injury prevented the quarterback from playing last week.

Tiano had played only the three snaps that McCarron missed against Houston this season, but he went all the way at quarterback as the Battlehawks beat the Vegas Vipers 21-17 on April 8 in the XFL’s first overtime game of the season.

Tiano completed 19-of-34 passes for 194 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions and ran for 51 yards on eight carries. He also completed a scoring pass on St. Louis’ first overtime attempt as the Battlehawks won by succeeding on their first two tries while keeping Vegas out of the end zone on both of its overtime attempts.

With two weekends left in XFL’s regular season, the D.C. Defenders lead the North Division with a 7-1 record. The Battlehawks own a 6-2 mark, with both losses coming to D.C., and the Sea Dragons are 5-3. The top two teams in the final standings advance to the playoffs.

St. Louis defeated Seattle 20-18 on Feb. 23. In that game, McCarron completed 22-of-36 passes for 184 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and led the Battlehawks’ ground game with 41 yards and one touchdown on five carries. In the final 81 seconds, the former St. Paul’s Episcopal star maneuvered St. Louis into position for a game-winning field goal on the last snap.

With another victory over Seattle, the Battlehawks will enter their regular-season finale against the Orlando Guardians on April 22 with a postseason position secured.

If Seattle wins, it will catch St. Louis in the standings and keep its regular-season closer against Vegas on April 23 meaningful.

After head-to-head results, the second XFL tiebreaker for a two-team knot in the standings is division record. If Seattle defeats St. Louis and Vegas, the Sea Dragons and Battlehawks would have identical 3-3 division records.

The third tiebreaker is strength of schedule, and that will be affected by what else happens in the league over the final two weekends.

The Battlehawks and Sea Dragons will square off at 2 p.m. CDT Sunday at the Dome at America’s Center, where St. Louis’ previous home games have drawn the three largest crowds in the XFL this season. ESPN will televise the game.

“Coachspeak, it’s just another game, right?” Becht said. “But we’ve been there, done that. This is a do-or-die game. This is a game that ultimately separates you from what you want to do. We control our destiny in this game. If we go out there and we handle business and we control what we can control and we can win, then we’re in. If we don’t, then the football gods come into play – scores, tie-breakers, all these different things — with us having a loss against each other.

“We want to handle business this week as does Seattle. They’re a very good team. They’re very good on offense. They play good defense. They’re well-coached. Very seasoned, obviously, with coach (Jim) Haslett. I know him. I played under him. This will be a challenge for us, so we got to be at our best. We ask our fan base to be at their best, like they always are. It’s a great environment for football. It’ll be a great environment again.

“Yeah, man, whatever we got in the toolbox, we got to pull it out and use it in this game. This is an extremely important game for us to control our destiny, and I think that’s what every player, coach, anybody wants in sports. If they can do that, take advantage of it.”

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