DEFENDERS OUTDUEL PANTHERS TO WIN 2025 UFL TITLE
The DC Defenders became 2025 United Football League champions with a comfortable 58-34 victory over the Michigan Panthers in St Louis on Saturday night.
What started out as an evenly-matched encounter was blown apart in the second quarter as the Defenders capitalised on a special teams turnover to open a gap on their opponents that Michigan were never able to close. With eventual MVP Jordan Ta’amu dissecting the Panthers secondary, DC outscored their rivals 31-6 in the second period alone, leaving counterpart Bryce Perkins and Michigan with too much to do after the interval.
Ta’amu went 21-of-28 for a UFL record with 390 passing yards and four touchdowns as he erased previous championship game disappointments and brought the XFL Conference its first title after the Birmingham Stallions won for the USFL side of the merger a year ago. Trailing 13-6 at the end of the opening period, Ta’amu built on an early second quarter field goal from the boot of ‘Mr Consistency’ Matt McCrane with his second touchdown toss of the night, but it was a fumble by Michigan’s Xavier Malone on the ensuing kickoff that turned the game in DC’s favour, with Ta’amu taking over on the Panthers’ seven-yard line and adding a rushing touchdown to his personal haul just a few plays later.
Remarkably, the two teams continued to trade blows right to the end of the half, including a touchdown apiece in the final 90 seconds before the Defenders went into the break with a 37-19 advantage. A second turnover, this time with Perkins guilty of throwing up a desperate interception, allowed DC to stretch their lead on the back of Deon Jackson’s second score of the game, but the third quarter proved to be less explosive than the second, with just nine points being added to the board, all in the Defenders’ favour.
Michigan’s task then became harder still as Ta’amu found Briley Moore for his fourth and final touchdown pass of the night, but Perkins gave Panthers fans a brief spark of hope by twice hooking up with WR Malik Turner to narrow the margin heading into the final five minutes, using the UFL’s 4th-and-12 alternative to an onside kick to retain possession. Those dreams were dashed for good, however, when the Defenders found paydirt for an eighth time to set a new championship game record of 58 points.
Ta’amu aside, stars of DC’s victory included Jaydon Mickens, who hauled in six his quarterback’s 21 completions for 132 yards and the Defenders’ opening touchdown, and Jackson who, despite trailing teammate Abram Smith’s 63 yards, added two scores on the ground, as did Ta’amu and WR Chris Rowland. Ta’amu’s 390 air yards were spread around his receiving corps, with Ty Scott and Cornell Powell joining Pickens and Moore on the scoresheet.
In a game dominated, as expected, by the two most-explosive offenses in the league, the Defenders’ defense garnered two sacks to accompany the interception and forced fumble that turned the tide in their favour, but were still gashed by Perkins, who went toe-to-toe with Ta’amu with 338 yards and four touchdowns of his own, three of which went to Turner, with Siaosi Mariner corralling the other. Nate McCrary added the Panthers other touchdown while going for 62 yards on just six carries.