NFL UDFAs spend training camp trying to turn a temporary address into a permanent job. Joe Fagnano finally heard that he had succeeded, then needed to sit down. Baltimore general manager Eric DeCosta had told the rookie quarterback he had made the initial 2026 roster. “Are you serious?” Fagnano asked. The Ravens captured the exchange, including the pause while the news sank in.
He had arrived for a rookie minicamp tryout. Now Baltimore would carry him on a roster with only 53 places, each one somebody else wanted. That brief conversation delivered something no preseason highlight could guarantee: another week of professional football.
The harder part comes next. Making a team opens the door, but staying requires work that survives an opponent’s game plan. Can the cornerback blitz without exposing the coverage? Will the reserve safety finish a tackle when the starter cannot play?
Five franchises offer compelling answers. Their success comes from different players in different roles, from a quarterback earning protection off waivers to a kicker stretching the boundaries of scoring range. The common thread starts with an overlooked skill and ends with a coach willing to use it.
The Job Has to Matter on Sunday
An undrafted rookie can win August with a spectacular catch and spend September watching from the sideline. A more revealing measure asks what happens after the congratulations: starting snaps, reliable coverage work, pressure on the quarterback. NFL UDFAs become valuable when coaches can give them meaningful assignments without shrinking the playbook around them.
These five teams stand out through recent production, repeated opportunities, and contributions when games tighten. Full-season results from 2025 supply the foundation, with 2026 roster decisions showing what has continued. Each franchise illustrates a different way to turn a player the draft passed over into someone the team needs.
Five Teams Making Undrafted Talent Count
1. Baltimore Ravens Give the Long Shot a Real Chance
Fagnano did more than deliver a moving cutdown-day scene. He threw for 509 yards, the NFL’s highest preseason total in 2026, and persuaded Baltimore to keep three quarterbacks on its original roster for the first time since 2020. Outside linebacker Ethan Burke joined him among the undrafted rookies who survived the final cuts.
Keeping Fagnano cost Baltimore flexibility elsewhere. A third quarterback occupies a place that could hold another defensive back, offensive lineman or special-teams contributor. The Ravens decided his performance justified that tradeoff.
That gives their recruiting pitch some credibility. An agent studying possible destinations can look beyond the depth chart and ask whether a franchise actually makes room when an undrafted player performs.
Baltimore has answered that question repeatedly. Its August report counted an undrafted rookie on the initial roster in 22 of the past 23 years. The same report listed 92 undrafted players who earned active-roster or practice-squad roles over five years, the league’s highest total. That broader figure measures opportunity across two roster levels, rather than 92 established contributors.
For NFL UDFAs, the distinction still carries weight. A practice-squad place supplies coaching and repetitions. An active-roster job offers the chance to turn those lessons into film other teams must study.
Baltimore’s approach also begins before the signing. The Ravens’ account describes scouts and coaches working together to explain where a prospect would fit. That conversation gives a player something concrete to pursue: a particular assignment, rather than a vague promise that everybody competes.
Fagnano has earned the first part. His next challenge will involve preparing for games in which he may never take a snap, then staying ready if that changes. Baltimore’s strongest argument lies in giving him that chance after he made himself difficult to cut.
2. Denver Broncos Turn a Cornerback Into a Pressure Threat
Ja’Quan McMillian gave Kansas City two different reasons to worry during their November 2025 meeting. He recorded two sacks and intercepted a pass, attacking both the quarterback and the passing lane. Denver’s game-by-game account shows an undrafted cornerback helping wreck possessions from multiple directions.
His full-season production reinforced that afternoon: four sacks, two interceptions and two forced fumbles. Those plays require different skills. Coverage demands patience and recognition; blitzing requires timing, a clean path and the ability to finish against a much larger quarterback.
A corner who threatens pressure complicates the protection call. Someone must account for him when he comes, while the quarterback must recognize what the defense leaves behind. McMillian gives Denver another way to pose that problem.
The Broncos signed him out of East Carolina in May 2022. By 2025, he had become a defender whose contribution stretched beyond covering his assigned receiver. His progression shows why evaluating NFL UDFAs solely through rookie roster counts misses much of their eventual return.
Denver’s latest cutdown makes that point particularly clear. No undrafted rookie made its initial 2026 roster, only the second such occurrence in 23 seasons. The pipeline did not produce an immediate newcomer this summer, but previous discoveries continued to give the team useful players.
Chris Harris Jr. remains an important part of that history. He earned four Pro Bowl selections during nine seasons in Denver after going undrafted. McMillian does not need to reproduce that career to validate the investment; his own disruptive work already supplies a substantial return.
The scouting achievement begins with recognizing ability. Denver’s coaching challenge then involves finding the assignments that bring it out. With McMillian, the result reaches the quarterback as well as the receiver.
3. New England Patriots Make Specialized Work Worth Keeping
A punt gunner has to escape contact near the line, sprint downfield, and arrive under control. Getting there quickly means little if the returner slips the tackle. Brenden Schooler turned that unforgiving assignment into a place among the league’s best special-teamers.
He earned first-team Associated Press All-Pro honors for the 2024 season after recording nine special-teams tackles, forcing a fumble and blocking a punt. New England’s season review also credited him with forcing fair catches, an outcome that can erase a return without producing a tackle in the box score.
Schooler’s example matters because a roster needs more than players waiting to replace starters. It also needs specialists who perform difficult work immediately. A gunner who arrives cleanly can protect field position on a day when the offense struggles to move the ball.
New England found another useful combination in undrafted edge rusher Elijah Ponder. During his 2025 rookie season, he logged four sacks and 24 pressures, along with 215 defensive snaps and 209 special-teams snaps, according to the Patriots’ May analysis.
That workload gave the staff two reasons to dress him. He could help chase the quarterback and handle duties in the kicking game. For NFL UDFAs competing for a place near the bottom of the roster, that range can make a meaningful difference.
The franchise’s history contains a larger version of the same progression. David Andrews arrived undrafted in 2015 and retired in June 2025 with 121 regular-season starts and two Super Bowl championships. His career turned an inexpensive signing into years of responsibility at the center of the offensive line.
Past success does not supply present availability. Schooler appeared on New England’s September 25, 2026 injury report with a back issue while on the non-football injury list. His absence separates an established developmental success from this season’s immediate contribution.
Ponder’s recent production keeps the argument from resting entirely on old names. The Patriots have shown how a narrow assignment can expand into a job with several ways to help.
4. Seattle Seahawks Give Development Time to Take Hold
Ty Okada spent his first two seasons learning with few defensive snaps to show for it. Across those years, he played just 33 defensive snaps, moving between Seattle’s practice squad and active roster. A quick evaluation could have mistaken limited opportunity for limited potential.
His 2025 season demanded a different assessment. Okada started 11 games, recorded 65 tackles and broke up six passes. Seattle retained him for 2026 through an exclusive-rights tender, preserving a player who had already demonstrated that he could handle a much larger workload.
One December play at Carolina captured the payoff. Rico Dowdle caught a short pass with room ahead, but Okada closed and tackled him for a two-yard loss. Three plays later, the Panthers punted. The safety finished the sort of open-field stop that keeps a routine completion from becoming a damaging gain.
Seattle had kept him learning long enough to make that opportunity count. For NFL UDFAs, that patience can matter as much as the original scouting judgment.
Jake Bobo supplied another timely return. He caught a third-and-long conversion against San Francisco in the divisional round, then scored a touchdown against the Rams in the NFC championship game. Those postseason catches added weight to a regular-season résumé of 34 receptions across his first three years.
Volume alone would undersell those contributions. A reserve receiver cannot choose when the ball comes his way, but he can prepare to make the target useful.
George Holani faced a similar demand in the backfield. After returning from injured reserve during the postseason, he stepped into an expanded role when Zach Charbonnet injured his knee. Seattle had another undrafted player ready when its rotation narrowed.
Okada remains the strongest recent example because his role grew so substantially. Bobo and Holani add a different lesson: depth earns its value when the next player can enter a consequential game and execute.
5. Dallas Cowboys Find Help in Unlikely Places
Before Brandon Aubrey made NFL stadiums his workplace, he worked as a software engineer at GM Financial. His professional soccer career had stalled, and he had moved into a life with a desk and a different kind of deadline.
The idea to try kicking came from his wife while they watched football. Aubrey trained, reached the Birmingham Stallions in the USFL, and eventually signed with Dallas in 2023. The Cowboys’ reporting traces a career rebuilt through practice rather than a direct leap from soccer into an NFL uniform.
That background gives his September 2025 performance against the Giants another dimension. Dallas needed a 64-yard field goal to force overtime. Aubrey made it, then returned to kick the winner. He finished the day perfect on four field goals and four extra points.
The distance makes the first kick startling; the second confirms that he still had work to do. One swing extended the game. Another ended it.
By February 2026, Aubrey had made 36 of 42 career attempts from 50 yards or longer. His route differs from the usual college free-agent story, but NFL UDFAs include players whose first viable professional opportunity arrives through another league. Dallas recognized a skill that could change its scoring options.
Terence Steele supplies the more conventional college example. The former undrafted Texas Tech tackle entered 2026 training camp with 91 starts and a role mentoring younger offensive linemen, including former first-round selections.
That tenure does not make him an All-Pro. It does show that Dallas found a player capable of holding a demanding starting job over several seasons.
Together, Steele and Aubrey give the Cowboys a strong case at two very different positions. One helps keep the quarterback upright; the other makes points available from distances that can leave an offense with little margin for error. Their paths differ, but their work reaches directly into the result.
The Next Opportunity Will Arrive Without Warning
The next test could begin with a starter walking toward the sideline, holding an arm against his body. A position coach turns, calls a name, and sends the replacement into a game that will not slow down for him.
For NFL UDFAs, the work before that moment determines what happens after it. Months of practice must become a protection call recognized, a route covered, or a tackle finished. The opponent will search for a weakness immediately.
Fagnano’s stunned reaction captured the relief of earning another chance. Okada’s stop against Dowdle showed what that chance can become after two quiet seasons. Between those moments sit the repetitions nobody applauds and the coaching decisions nobody watches.
When the starter leaves and the coach turns toward the bench, has the team merely filled a roster spot, or prepared someone it can trust?
READ MORE: NFL Red-Zone Receivers: Who Is Turning Targets Into Touchdowns?
FAQs
Which NFL teams get meaningful contributions from undrafted players?
Baltimore, Denver, New England, Seattle, and Dallas all feature in this article. Their undrafted contributors help through defensive plays, starting jobs, and special-teams work.
How did Joe Fagnano make the Ravens roster?
Fagnano arrived on a rookie minicamp tryout and led the NFL with 509 preseason passing yards in 2026. Baltimore kept him on its initial roster.
What did Ja’Quan McMillian accomplish in 2025?
McMillian recorded four sacks, two interceptions, and two forced fumbles. Against Kansas City, he delivered two sacks and an interception.
What did Brandon Aubrey do before joining the NFL?
Aubrey played professional soccer and worked as a software engineer. He later kicked for the Birmingham Stallions before joining Dallas in 2023.
Did Brandon Aubrey’s 64-yard field goal beat the Giants?
His 64-yard kick forced overtime in September 2025. Aubrey then returned to make the winning field goal.
