Beat the Guru: AFL Week 6
Adam Markowitz
Thursday April 3, 2008
“We’re in good shape.”
I love it. Since making that quote two weeks ago, Porter is now starting going with his third different QB, the team still hasn’t really come anywhere near winning a game yet, and the sin of the whole thing is that they really still are ok… for now. It’s really a sin that both KC and Utah are in the same conference at this point, especially since both Arizona and Colorado are in the same boat.
Anyway, last week was pretty much horrible for everyone. I had a 3-4-1 week, which was matched by a whole slew of y’all out there in Beat the Guru World. However, there were two people who posted winning weeks. No surprise that AFLJunkie is once again amongst the winners. He went 5-2 and is now a stupidly impressive 27-12 on the season. The other winner on the week was SoulPhan71, who went 4-3.
I’m now two up on the Arena Guru of AFO, and I’ve maintained my 12 game cushion on the lousy 8-Ball, who must be wallowing in self-pity along with DawgMan and Stern after watching John Vaughn boot the game-winning FG that dropped the Columbus Destroyers to 1-4. You can check out the Arena Guru’s fantasy football and spread analyst at ArenaFootballOnline.com.
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.
Kansas City Brigade (+10) @ Georgia Force: Where else to start than with the aforementioned Brigade? The John Fitzgerald experiment is over and Matt Kohn is still nursing a sore finger, so the hopes of the Brigade rest on D. Bryant. Wait. D.? Is that really this guy’s first name? Turns out that it’s D. Alvin Bryant and the D must stand for Duke, which is where he played three years of college football (and a season of college basketball for what it’s worth). So on Friday night, Bryant will become the second QB in AFL history to be a Duke alumnus. The other shocked the “you know what” out of me. It’s none other than former Preds QB Ben Bennett. The most TD passes Bennett ever had in a season is 50, and since that’s about how many TDs the Brigade are giving up a game, unless D Bryant is that much better than B Bennett was, I wouldn’t count my chickens that this is the week that the Brigade get into “good shape.”
Guru’s Pick: Force by 30
8-Ball’s Pick: Force
Los Angeles Avengers (+4) @ Colorado Crush: What? Kristy Lee Cook survived another week on American Idol? Cook and her step-brother John Dutton have something in common. They’re both constantly in the bottom three of the respective positions! With last week’s game within just a few yards of victory, Dutton threw his fifth INT of the season to seal defeat at the hands of the surprise New Orleans VooDoo. That’s 15 picks in his last 11 games. Yikes. How many more games are the Crush going to have to lose before Mike Dailey gives up and puts in Brandon Kirsch? Where’s Anne Robinson when you need her? You know, that British host from The Weakest Link? “Dutton Family: You ARE the Weakest Link! Good-bye!”
Guru’s Pick: Upset Special, Avengers by 1
8-Ball’s Pick: Avengers
Utah Blaze (+17.5) @ Philadelphia Soul: The USS Blaze is about set to go down in flames, but at least it won’t contain former assistant coach Hunkie Cooper. Arguably the second greatest Ironman of all-time may have been great on the field, but his defensive coaching skills obviously weren’t up to snuff. Utah has allowed a league-worst 64 points per game this year, and for it, Cooper was removed from the coaching staff. Everyone’s going to jump on the Soul bandwagon, but this game just reeks of trap for Philly, who has to travel across the country to San Jose next week. Don’t be overly surprised if the Blaze can pull this sucker off.
Guru’s Pick: Soul by just 3
8-Ball’s Pick: Blaze
San Jose SaberCats (-1) @ New Orleans VooDoo: It’s time for my best Chris Berman impression. “C’MON SABERCATS!” I’m not sure which is more frightening, the fact that San Jose still hasn’t woken up from their offseason slumber, or that they’re still 3-2 and in first place in the West. This is about the time of year that the Kitties wake up, and what better place to start than the site of their last defeat in 2007. It’s a revenge spot for San Jose after last year’s 67-54 defeat in the Graveyard, and the magic just has to wear off in the Big Easy at some point… right???
Guru’s Pick: Reluctantly, SaberCats by 6
8-Ball’s Pick: SaberCats
Tampa Bay Storm (-3.5) @ Columbus Destroyers: I guess if Columbus made the ArenaBowl on smoke and mirrors last season, New Orleans may be able to do it this year, but at least luck has run out for the defending National Conference Champs. At 1-4, it’s time for Doug Kay to push the panic button. As for the Storm, they’re the best 2-2 team I’ve ever seen and they really don’t play a ridiculously difficult game until the end of the month. The time is now for Coach Marcum and the Storm to turn on the jets and bolt to the front of the Southern Division. These two teams hooked up in the regular season last year for one of the ugliest games of the season, a 34-32 victory for Tampa Bay. Some young whippersnapper named Brett Dietz came off the bench and salvaged the Storm’s season in that game. He should get the ship righted again this season against a much weaker edition of the Columbus Destroyers.
Guru’s Pick: Storm by a dozen
8-Ball’s Pick: Destroyers
Grand Rapids Rampage (-5.5) @ New York Dragons: Someone take a picture of this. The Rampage are road favorites. The last time that Grand Rapids was favored in a road game was back on April 5, 2003 in Indiana. Of course, something else hasn’t happened since 2003 for the Rampage either. P… pl… pl… pla… pl… oh goodness, I can’t say it. Give me a hand Jim Mora… “PLAYOFFS?!?!?!?” As for the Dragons, Aaron Garcia successfully made it through an entire game, which is always a triumph, and the team put up a great effort against a stout Dallas squad. Three weeks ago this game looked like a total snooze-fest. It really could be a decent game now.
Guru’s Pick: Upset Special, Dragons by 1
8-Ball’s Pick: Rampage
Cleveland Gladiators (+12) @ Dallas Desperados: Welcome back Clint Dolezel, and not a moment too soon! The lowly Dragons almost spoiled the perfect campaign in progress. It’s not often that a safety is the winning score of the game, but that was the case in Dallas’ 33-31 victory on the Island last week. All the offense needs to do is be efficient, because the ‘D’ is only giving up a svelte 40.8 ppg. The Gladiators have to be licking their wounds after getting crushed in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, and the crash back to earth should be pretty well complete after this one is said and done.
Guru’s Pick: ‘Rados by two tuddies
8-Ball’s Pick: Gladiators
Chicago Rush (-7) @ Orlando Predators: The last time the Preds were dogs of at least a TD in the Jungle was back in 2002. That alone should be quite a bit of bulletin board material for Jay Gruden and the men in black. Marlon Moye-Moore and Chas Gessner were both given league honors for the first portion of the season, Shane Stafford is well on his way to destroying all of the team passing records, and TT Toliver is inevitably going to demolish all of the team records for total yardage and yards per game. Still, all that being said, I don’t buy this team yet. They’re a very questionable 3-2 with three wins against iffy competition, but they haven’t looked awful since Week 1 (and the last second loss to New Orleans is looking better and better as the weeks go by). Still, this is an incredible Chicago team coming to town. I’m not sure which is going to be more exciting, the game itself, or seeing how many times the fans (and potentially Coach Gruden!) have to get bleeped by the ESPN crew…
Guru’s Pick: Rush by just 4
8-Ball’s Pick: Rush
Let’s review, shall we?
Guru’s Picks
Force -10
Avengers +4
Blaze +17.5
SaberCats -1
Storm -3.5
Dragons +5.5
Desperados -12
Predators +7
8-Ball’s Picks
Force -10
Avengers +4
Blaze +17.5
SaberCats -1
Destroyers +3.5
Rampage -5.5
Gladiators +12
Rush -7
Beat the Guru’s Top 10 (must have 16 games selected to qualify)
AFLJunkie: 27-12 (69.2%)
SoulPhan71: 11-8 (57.9%)
PhillySoul04: 17-14 (54.8%)
InsideSix: 21-18 (53.8%)
Rush43: 15-16 (48.4%)
Kronuckle: 11-12 (47.8%)
Biff Nixon: 14-17 (45.2%)
Es46ne10: 17-23 (42.5%)
AvengersFan: 10-14 (41.7%)
TDTommy: 16-23 (41.0%)
AFLGuru: 24-15 (61.5%)
Arena Guru: 22-17 (56.4%)
8-Ball: 12-27 (30.8%)
Make Your Picks
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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.
