ufl sack leader carlos davis anchors stallions’ dominant defensive line

APRIL 19, 2024 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

By Steve Irvine

The scary thing, at least according to the sack leader in the UFL, is that the Birmingham Stallions defensive line is really just scratching the surface on how good they can become.

“We’re still not there yet,” said Stallions defensive tackle Carlos Davis. “We need to get better every week.”

Fully understanding the impact of that statement includes a quick glance at what the Stallions have done thus far. Through three weeks, the Stallions have 17 sacks. No other UFL team has more than nine sacks thus far. Birmingham nearly had that last week alone. The Stallions sacked Memphis quarterbacks eight times and had an end zone sack by Jonathan Garvin, which would have resulted in a touchdown, negated by an offside penalty.

A year ago, the New Orleans Breakers had a USFL best 28 sacks in 10 regular season games. The Houston Roughnecks led the XFL with 35 regular season sacks. The Stallions led the USFL with 27 regular season sacks in 2022. Obviously, this year’s Stallions defense is on pace to surpass those totals and with the defensive lineman contributing on all of the sacks.

“That group has been unbelievable,” said Stallions head coach Skip Holtz. “We had 17 sacks in three games. Last year we had 17 all year.”

The defensive line was revamped during the offseason. Jordan Thompson and Dondrea Tillman, who have been with the team since 2022, are the lone two holdovers on the active roster thus far.  Newcomers include tackles Marvin Wilson and Jaylen Twyman and ends Jonathan Garvin, Damarcus Mitchell and Taco Charlton. All have performed well. None of them have matched the production of Davis.

Through three games, Davis has 6.5 sacks with at least 1.5 sacks in each game.

“I just think it’s the timing,” said Davis, a 6-foot-2, 312-pound Blue Springs, Missouri native, who played at Nebraska. “Just being in this room, playing for this defense, having an opportunity to be with the Birmingham Stallions. Them embracing me, just like they embraced my brother, I just think it was the perfect recipe for success.”

Speaking of his brother – former Stallions defensive tackle Khalil Davis – Carlos also has a little competitive reason for adding to that sack total.

“The most sacks that my brother has is eight,” Carlos said earlier this week. “I told him, I have 6.5, I’m trying to beat him. I’m trying to raise the bar. I told him that, literally, yesterday.”

For the record, Khalil Davis had his eight-sack season as a senior at Nebraska. Furthermore for the record, the competition between the twin brothers began, almost literally, at birth. They both grew up playing and competing against each other in the same sports. Both were football and track and field standouts in high school. Competition didn’t start and end on playing fields.

“Man, that competitive nature is never going to stop,” Carlos said. “We really had to learn to be competitive with ourselves because we were always competing against each other. I think we’ve both found by now that competitive nature between each other is never going to stop.”

Carlos quickly answered when asked if he had any good stories about brotherly competition.

“Khalil started discus before I did and he started to get really good at it,” Carlos said.
“I was just a shot putter at the time. I kind of picked up discus as I went along. In high school, I started getting better and better and we were neck in neck. I kind of took away the discus. He has the longest shot put record, between us, but I have the better discus record. I love to tell people that when I can.”

The competition definitely carried over to the home.

“A lot of blood shed, a lot of fighting, a lot of broken things in my mom’s house,” Carlos said. “You have to talk to her about that one. I can’t remember how many things we broke trying to play football. It was knee up, so we played on our knees.”

Confessing to the broken household items wasn’t always easy.

“There was a fine line,” Carlos said. “If it was visible to her eye, she was going to find it. If it was something small, we were trying to put it back together. There was this glass vase, I remember, that she loved. It was kind of one of those times where I turned the corner a little bit too fast and I bumped it. It was like wobbling and I couldn’t get to it fast enough. It kind of happened in slow motion. I just knew it was over. The craziest I think was running our car into the garage in high school. That wasn’t football related but I definitely felt that one for a while.”

Both committed to Nebraska as sophomores in high school and never visited any other school. They followed in the footsteps of their uncle, Lorenzo Hicks, who played defensive back at Nebraska in the late 1980s. Carlos finished his college career with 125 tackles, 18 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks. Khalil totaled 106 tackles, 26 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. Both also not only lettered in track and field for four years but each also earned All-American honors. They were the first Nebraska athletes to be eight-time letterwinners in over 50 years.

Carlos ran a 4.82 40-yard dash during the NFL Scouting Combine. Khalil then followed with a time of 4.75 seconds. Khalil was selected in the sixth round of the NFL draft with the 194th overall pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. About 30 minutes later, in the seventh round, Carlos was chosen with the 232nd overall pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In 2020, as rookies, Carlos was part of a Steeler team that began the season with 11 consecutive wins. Khalil was part of a Super Bowl winning Tampa Bay team.

“It was just a crazy year,” Carlos said. “It was awesome. I’m happy for him. That’s one of the goals that you put on your list, when you go into the NFL. To do that in your first year is amazing.”

Khalil was released by Tampa Bay during the 2021 season and has been with four other NFL franchises since then. He was a key part of the Stallions 2023 USFL championship season, contributing 29 tackles and a sack in the regular season. He signed with the Houston Texans after the USFL season ended and had 32 tackles and two sacks with the Texans.

Carlos played in 11 games over two seasons with the Steelers and was on the Atlanta Falcons practice squad in 2023. He also spent plenty of time in Birmingham watching his brother.

“I went to at least five games last year, so I kind of really knew the group,” Carlos said. “I was familiar with Birmingham and the guys. Deondrae Tillman was one of the guys I trained with this offseason and we kind of built that bond there. Then we took that to here.”

Now, he’s showing the NFL that he deserves another shot. Before that, though, he’s having fun playing  ‘chase the quarterback’ with his friends on the defensive line.

“Absolutely,” Carlos said. “Even in practice, it’s like, ‘Who is going to be the first to get there?’ We always joke around that, “I’m got to start it off. I’m going to pop it off today.’ You see last week, JG (Garvin) had two sacks on the first drive. Now, it’s something we’ve got to continue.”