Christian Hackenberg never played in a NFL regular season game.

Sunday, he’ll start his first career contest in the Alliance of American Football league.

Express head coach Mike Singletary announced his depth chart on Friday ahead of the team’s matchup with Birmingham, and Hackenberg, the former Penn State All-Big Ten freshman of the year and onetime New York Jet, was on the first-team line at quarterback ahead of Brandon Silvers and Zach Mettenberger.

Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. on Sunday. CBS Sports Network will televise the game.

“It didn’t make sense to do it just to say, ‘Hey, I’m on an NFL roster, but I’m sitting there watching practice’,” Hackenberg told PennLive about the decision to accept a NFL practice squad deal or come to the AAF.

“Where I was at in my career, I’ve got to go play. So we came here.”

It turned out to be the right call, as he’ll take the franchise’s first snaps. The new spring league, which was co-founded by longtime NFL executive Bill Polian and television producer Charlie Ebersol, debuts this Saturday on CBS.