Beat the Guru: AFL Week 5
Adam Markowitz
Thursday March 27, 2008
Oh, and I get to serve out a bunch of humble pie to an unnamed SaberCats fan who has made fun of me about saying the Dallas Desperados are going 19-0 all season. Now that your Cats have lost to Dallas without Clint Dolezel, how does it feel my green and gold glasses-wearing friend?
Meanwhile, the 8-Ball had another miserable week, going just 2-6 and dropping to 9-23 on the young season. How’s the pick of Columbus to win the ArenaBowl look for you now, Mr. 8-Ball?
Though no one beat me this weekend, props go out to four of you who successfully matched my 6-2 mark from a week ago. You should be proud of your feeble attempts to beat me, and know that you would’ve made a lot of money had you flown to Las Vegas last week. Honors go to phillysoul04, InsideSix, Rush43, and es46ne10.
Disclaimer: This information should be used for entertainment purposes only. Should you choose to actually lay real money on these games, that’s purely your choice, and neither I nor ArenaFan are responsible. All lines are courtesy of Olympic Sports as of Thursday evening.
Arizona Rattlers (+14.5) @ Chicago Rush: All residents of Arizona, please be on the lookout for the following signs: “Missing: Siaha Burley. If found, please contact Jeff Smoker at 1-800-NOSCORE.” Coming into last week’s game with the New York Dragons, Smoker had run eight TD drives on the season. Not bad, except for the fact that the Rattlers had been stopped on the other 13 possessions he led. I really don’t care that he went 22/31 against a lousy Dragons team. Let’s see what the nasty Chicago Rush defense can do. This one should get ugly early.
Guru’s Pick: Rush by 27
8-Ball’s Pick: Rattlers
Tampa Bay Storm (+8.5) @ Philadelphia Soul: Wait a second. The Storm opened up as double digit dogs in this game without Tony Graziani? Boy is this a lot of respect for the Soul! All three teams to come off of bye weeks have been beaten soundly in their next outing this season. Let’s do some math, shall we? The Soul just beat LA by 27. LA beat New Orleans by 17. New Orleans beat Tampa Bay by 21. 27 + 17 + 21 should = Beat Down City. In the words of college football analyst (and fellow FSU graduate!) Lee Corso would say: “Not so fast, my friend!” Nobody gets the boys rallied for a big game like good ol’ Tim Marcum, and especially after getting blown out in the Bayou two weeks ago, he’s got plenty of motivating factors for his squad.
Guru’s Pick: Big time upset special: Storm by 1
8-Ball’s Pick: Storm
San Jose SaberCats (-8.5) @ Kansas City Brigade: The quote of the week was actually made last week by Brigade Head Coach Kevin Porter. “You look at our division, and everybody has at least one loss, and Chicago and Colorado play this week, so one of them will two. We’re in good shape.” Yep Coach, you’re in good shape all right. After watching a QB in his first career start (James MacPherson) drop 92 on you, do you still think you’re in good shape? Oh yeah, the defending champs are coming to town, and they can’t be in too pleasant of a mood after losing at home to Dallas last week. How does that big contract of Porter’s look now to Brigade fans? If James MacPherson can drop 92 on you, how many points is Mark Grieb going to put up?
Guru’s Pick: SaberCats 108-50
8-Ball’s Pick: SaberCats
Orlando Predators (-3) @ Columbus Destroyers: Alright DawgMan, here’s your shot. Your Destroyers are finally in the win column, and now get to take on my Preds. Here’s a neat little trend for you. The Predators are only 3-7 against the spread (and 3-7 straight up, for what it’s worth) in their last 10 games away from the Jungle. Throw out a game in New York that Rohan Davey started and a game in Las Vegas, the Preds have only averaged 45.1 ppg in their road games dating back to last season. The good news is that the Destroyers have lost their last three at home as well. When it comes to handicapping this game... Lucy, we have a problem. Is Tom McCabe reffing this game? No? Oh well, there goes our chance at a cover by the black and red.
Guru’s Pick: Predators by just 2
8-Ball’s Pick: Predators
I think this next game is the first time we’ve seen a pick ‘em line this season, so I’ll take a moment to explain. The “pk” symbol represents “pick ‘em,” which basically means Vegas thinks there’s a 50/50 shot that either team could win the game. The team you’re taking against the spread when the line is “pk” is also the team you’re taking to win the game without exception. That aside…
Georgia Force (pk) @ Utah Blaze: I said three weeks ago that if the Force had lost to the Los Angeles Avengers at home that there was a reasonable chance for them to be an 0-6 team. They won that week, but last week in the Jungle were robbed by the refs on the last play of the game. Before the game, I told ArenaFan’s own Matt Eichenblatt that when it rains, it pours on teams in this league, and it just appears that Georgia is a snake-bitten franchise this year. Meanwhile, what in the world is going on in Utah? A Danny White team is 0-4? This is a very dangerous spot for the Force, who risk falling two games in the rear of everyone in the South if they lose this one.
Guru’s Pick: Bla-zay by a tuddy
8-Ball’s Pick: Blaze
Los Angeles Avengers (+3) @ Grand Rapids Rampage: Isn’t this a little obscene that the Rampage suddenly go from one of the biggest laughing stocks in the AFL to a 3 point favorite against a solid LA team in one game? Like I said at the beginning of the season, it was only a matter of time before Rampage HC Steve Thonn inserted MacPherson the Greater in place of McPherson the Loser, and MTG (James MacPherson) responded by putting up the second most points in AFL history. The Avengers just got absolutely crushed by the Soul and have to be smarting. All of a sudden, this game looks important for the playoff picture in the American Conference, but I still don’t think the Rampage are quite there yet.
Guru’s Pick: Upset Special, Avengers by a deuce
8-Ball’s Pick: Avengers
Dallas Desperados (-13.5) @ New York Dragons: Poor Furrey4… The man he idolizes, Rohan Davey has been released. Enter Aaron Garcia for the third time this season. The good news for the Dragons is that there’s almost no way they can lose by 53.5 points per game that the ‘Rados whooped them by in two games last season. The bad news is that Aaron Garcia has started two games and finished none of them. Still this is a case of giving me a home team with double digits against a team with a backup QB coming off of their biggest win of the season. Dallas will march yet another step closer to 19-0, but it’ll be closer than this line suggests.
Guru’s Pick: Desperados by just 11
8-Ball’s Pick: Dragons
New Orleans VooDoo (+1.5) @ Colorado Crush: Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the biggest trap game of the weekend. The ‘Doo have won their last two games by a combined 60 points. The Crush have lost their last two games by a combined 46 points. Yet somehow, the Crush are the chalk in this game? Something seems fishy, and you know what I’ve always said about things that smell fishy… If it looks like a fish, and smells like a fish, it’s probably fishy. The books are begging for you to put money down on the VooDoo in this one, but I’m not falling into that trap.
Guru’s Pick: Crush by 4
8-Ball’s Pick: VooDoo (silly 8-Ball)
To review the selections from Week 5…
Guru’s Picks
Rush -14.5
Storm +8.5
SaberCats -8.5
Destroyers +3
Blaze pk
Avengers +3
Dragons +13.5
Crush -1.5
8-Ball’s Picks
Rattlers +14.5
Storm +8.5
SaberCats -8.5
Predators -3
Blaze pk
Avengers +3
Dragons +13.5
VooDoo -1.5
AFLJunkie has come back to the pack and has almost gotten caught by me, though the rest of the field is still well in his rear view mirror.
Beat the Guru’s Top 10
(must have at least 12 games selected to qualify)
AFLJunkie: 21-11 (65.6%)
SoulPhan71: 7-5 (58.3%)
Phillysoul04: 14-10 (58.3%)
InsideSix: 18-14 (56.3%)
Rush43: 13-11 (54.2%)
Es46ne10: 16-16 (50.0%)
Kronuckle: 11-12 (47.8%)
EKUVolley: 15-17 (46.9%)
BiffNixon: 11-13 (45.8%)
TDTommy: 14-18 (43.8%)
AFLGuru: 21-11 (65.6%)
Arena Guru: 20-12 (62.5%)
8-Ball: 9-23 (28.1%)
Make Your Picks
See how well you can do against the Guru. Make your picks here. Winners will be recognized weekly.
Adam Markowitz is an accountant living in Orlando. Adam is an old school AFLer, having followed the AFL since 1991. He attended or covered well over 200 games, including 17 ArenaBowls. Adam worked for the Arena Football League for two years as a columnist and historian before retiring in 2017 when the 50-yard indoor war left the Sunshine State. Adam still muses about the AFL on ArenaFan from time to time, and you can follow him on Twitter @adammarkowitzea.
