The Birmingham Stallions signed wide receiver Elijah Cooks and offensive lineman Adrian Ealy on Tuesday, adding two players with NFL and spring-league experience as they continued to reshape their roster. The moves came as part of a broader set of Birmingham roster changes on the same day.
Cooks, a 27-year-old from Santa Maria, California, is 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds. He signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent on May 12, 2023, later spent time with the Philadelphia Eagles and the New Orleans Saints, and has three catches for 38 yards in 11 career NFL games. He also has 12 catches for 193 yards and one touchdown in eight preseason games.
Before turning pro, Cooks built his college profile over five seasons at Nevada from 2019 through 2021, where he caught 115 passes for 1,478 yards and 18 touchdowns. He transferred to San Jose State in 2022, earned First Team All-Mountain West honors, and finished that season with 69 catches for 1,076 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Ealy arrives with a longer trail through pro football. The 26-year-old from Gonzales, Louisiana, is 6-foot-6 and 321 pounds. He was drafted by the D.C. Defenders in the 2026 UFL Draft but did not play for the team, and the Defenders released him on April 1, 2026. Before that, he signed with the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent on May 13, 2021, and later had stints with the Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Ealy also signed with the Seattle Sea Dragons on October 23, 2023, after the team was left out of the XFL and USFL merger that formed the United Football League. The Arlington Renegades then drafted him in the 2024 UFL Dispersal Draft, where he played nine games and started six. Arlington re-signed him on September 27, 2024, and he started seven games for the Renegades in 2025.
His college résumé points to why teams kept looking. Ealy played three seasons at Oklahoma from 2018 through 2020, appeared at right tackle and left tackle in 28 games with 23 starts, and was a two-time Second Team All-Big 12 selection. In 2020, he allowed three sacks on 421 pass plays, according to PFF.
For Birmingham, the additions give the Stallions more size at two spots that can swing a season quickly. They also fit the kind of roster churn that has become routine in the UFL, where Tuesday’s moves can matter as much as training camp depth charts elsewhere. The next question is how fast Cooks and Ealy can turn resumes into snaps for a team still fine-tuning its lineup.
