Week 10 - Arena Football

Week 9 was a good week. I finally got my head free of my ass and made some decent picks. Here are the results (my correct picks in bold - my incorrect picks in italics).

Philadelphia Soul 43 Chicago Rush 54
Orlando Predators 69 Las Vegas Gladiators 34
Columbus Destroyers 32 Tampa Bay Storm 34
Utah Blaze 48 San Jose SaberCats 69
Grand Rapids Rampage 71 Los Angeles Avengers 75
Arizona Rattlers 45 New York Dragons 67
Nashville Kats 62 Dallas Desperados 69
Georgia Force 72 New Orleans VooDoo 57
Colorado Crush 45 Kansas City Brigade 42

W00t! a 7-2 week. That is the kind of week I needed. This takes my year to 47 and 32 not spectacular but at 59% I am getting back into the realm of actually picking the winners and getting out of pure guessing range. The experts at arena football all have me beat by percentage but I am creeping up there.

From ArenaFootball.com
Michael Murillo 69.84%
Gary Reasons 68.25%
Jenn Boehm 68.25%
Wayne Morris 68.25%
Peter Schwartz 68.25%
Mike Rose 66.67%
Ryan Altizer 65.08%
Nate Boudreaux 61.90%
Ray Bentley 60.32%
Me 59.49%

This week watch for Dallas and Utah, Predators at Georgia, and Colorado visiting Chicago to be big games. Each one features a team with only one loss against a team with a winning record. Orlando, Utah or Colorado can do a lot damage by getting an upset this week. New York looks like they can make some noise with the return of Andy Garcia - the playoffs might be beyond reach for the dragons but the next few weeks will show the kind of team they will be next year. The bubble teams like Columbus, Utah, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Nashville andLos Angeles look to start making a run to the playoffs. I think the best game this week will be the Monday night game between Colorado and Chicago. Colorado is chasing Chicago in the central division. The Crush can get within a game of the Rush with a win.

Week 10
New York Dragons (2-6) at Columbus Destroyers (4-4)
New York with Garcia back is a different team than we saw in the first half of the season. Columbus is not going to be able to take this Dragons team lightly. The Dragons with Garcia take another game keeping hopes of a 500 season intact.

Orlando Predators (5-3) at Georgia Force (8-1)
Georgia beats the Predators keeping the pressure on Dallas and Chicago.

Dallas Desperados (8-1) at Utah Blaze (5-4)
Dallas dominates the Blaze.

Kansas City Brigade (4-4) at Philadelphia Soul (4-4)
Philly stops the slide and wins at home to keep a winning record.

Nashville Kats (4-5) at Grand Rapids Rampage (2-6)
Nashville gets back to 500, Grand Rapids is already looking at next year.

San Jose SaberCats (5-3) at Arizona Rattlers (2-7)
San Jose pulls further ahead of division rival Blaze with a win over the struggling Rattlers.

Tampa Bay Storm (2-6) at Austin Wranglers (3-5)
Tampa Bay fails in the quest to gets a third win against the Wranglers.

Los Angeles Avengers (4-4) at Las Vegas Gladiators (1-8)
Las Vegas loses to the Avengers becoming the first team to guarantee a losing record this year.

Colorado Crush (6-3) at Chicago Rush (7-1)
This is a tough game to call - both teams are capable of winning. Most of the experts at arenafootball.com are picking Chicago except for Michael Murillo who thinks that the Crush can pull off the upset. I am going to call for the upset and call for Colorado to tighten up the central division race.

New Orleans VooDoo (4-5) has the bye this week