XFL Championship Game: D.C. vs Arlington Odds to Win, Point Spread, Preview, Predictions, and Picks

Several of this spring’s sporting events can claim the moniker of Cinderella’s ball. March Madness was overtaken by middle-seeded teams as #1 and #2 kingpins were eliminated early on. Phil Mickelson finished 2nd at the Masters Tournament at age 53. The Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche, each a Stanley Cup betting favorite throughout 2022-23, have been eliminated in the NHL’s opening playoff round. In Colorado’s case, defeat came at the hands of a fledgling team, the 2nd-year Seattle Kraken … a pro version of the “Miracle on Ice.”

But can any league say that a below-.500 brand managed to qualify for the postseason on its last regular-season week, knock off a substantial favorite in the playoffs, and reach the championship game against a team that has only lost once? The XFL can, at least.

Arlington is 5-6, has a single win over an XFL club with a positive W/L record (last week’s triumph over Houston), and could win the new league’s title with a 6-6 overall mark. That’s historic in its own weird way. The New York Giants have won a pair of Super Bowl trophies following seasons that hovered around .500, but there’s never been an American football champion – not a national champion – that won its title tilt to “secure” a .500 mark. (We haven’t gone through the history of ALL college teams, aka Division 2 through NJCAA, to verify these claims, but the broad playoff systems of NCAA, NAIA, and Juco pigskin would certainly seem to make the “.500 champion” scenario just as absurd in those divisions.)

It helps Arlington to have emerged from 2023’s XFL field of only 8 teams, of course. But it’s remarkable how many superior rosters had a chance to reach the XFL Championship Game and fell woefully short, while the Renegades snuck through the format’s cracks. The Seattle Sea Dragons sported the XFL’s most dangerous passing attack this season, while the Houston Roughnecks and St. Louis Battlehawks fielded good QBs and fierce defenses. D.C. spent most of April as a dodgy betting favorite, losing to 1-9 Orlando and failing to cover point spreads. Surely, we could find a stronger final opponent for the Defenders than a 5-6 enterprise.

It’s fitting, though, that Arlington’s newly acquired QB Luis Perez has reached a spring championship game. Perez, a talented pelota-pitcher who taught himself to play American football with YouTube and a few home gym bells and whistles, has toiled faithfully in minor leagues since joining the short-lived Alliance of American Football in 2018. Perez’s style behind center is somewhat like an old NFL pro for a quarterback of ordinary height and scrambling ability, with many safe short throws and patient vigilance downfield. That’s an appropriate fit for Arlington’s offense, a unit on which an impatient QB would go mad.

Arlington’s aerial game finally began to click for its browser-clicking quarterback in Week 11, with Perez throwing for over 10 yards-per-attempt and nearly 300 yards while suffering only a single sack. While the Renegades’ freak 17-point rally in the 2nd quarter could be viewed as a deceptive turn by Las Vegas handicappers looking at Week 12’s championship game, it’s also true that the underdogs didn’t need to press the issue after 30:00, with Houston losing by so many latter-half points in Arlington’s eventual 26-11 win. The Renegades, if nothing else, utilize one of the XFL’s best pass-defending units when opponents have the egg, and the Arlington edge-rushers managed to sack opposing QB Cole MacDonald 3 times.

Meanwhile, the D.C. Defenders’ secondary assumed a Week 11 role similar to Arlington’s DBs earlier this season, snagging the ball away from Seattle quarterback Ben DiNucci and helping to pull the XFL’s frontrunners through some tight spots in the opening half. Seattle’s defense chose to defend D.C.’s 11 vs 11 ground game with all kinds of stunts and pressures at the line-of-scrimmage, to which Jordan Ta’amu’s offense adjusted at halftime before punishing the ‘Dragons with long passes and quick TD drives. Abram Smith, the consensus best RB of this year’s XFL ranks, only gained 48 yards on 23 carries as Seattle’s stout LBs played the run. However, that doesn’t mean D.C.’s running game won’t be a huge factor on Saturday.

The D.C. Defenders are (-270) moneyline favorites for May 13th’s final skirmish, giving (-6.5) points on the spread in a game with a healthy Over/Under (46.5) point-total betting line. The expectation of a reasonably fluid contest and close to 50 total points scored seems to say that odds-makers anticipate Arlington crowding the line and forcing the issue on D.C., a natural game-plan following Seattle’s half successful try at the same gambit last weekend. But there could be reason to think that Saturday’s odds, and prevailing handicap, are each deceiving.

Saturday, May 13th: D.C. Defenders vs Arlington Renegades Main-Market Odds, Forecast, and Best Wager

WagerBop has told readers to observe for instances of “Monty Hall Problems” at the sportsbook, in which 3 potential wagers across a main-market display (such as 3 moneyline picks for a soccer match) appear to be more-or-less equally promising, except for an overlooked piece of given information – the “goat” from the Monty Hall Problem – which should let speculators know a certain pick is either far more likely, or less likely to win.

Going into the 2023 XFL Championship Game, our blog finds itself thinking of an even older point-of-logic that wasn’t invented by a 1970s game show: “Don’t miss the forest because of the trees.” FanDuel Sportsbook’s (-6.5) point spread on the 10-1 D.C. Defenders joins the media’s hopeful anticipation of a Cinderella effort from Arlington as tall, towering “trees” which distract from the bettor’s actual task at hand, which is to predict Saturday’s score.

Arlington’s lively Week 11 turn on offense is a pretty big “tree” as well. The D.C. defense, dominating at the start of the XFL season, became porous in the club’s final regular-season wins, allowing the Renegades to have their best 4th quarter of the campaign so far in Week 9, when the Defenders hung on for a 28-26 victory despite a 300+ yard outing for Perez. D.C. finished 10 games with the curious stat of leading the XFL in rush defense, and yet placing dead-last in passing defense and in overall opposing yards-per-game average. Perhaps it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Perez, written off after getting traded to a lousy offensive team in midseason of 2023, put together another efficient game on Saturday night.

But that Over/Under line of (46.5) points – generous for an XFL game this year – is a clue as to the short-view deception at work, even if the O/U market doesn’t provide Saturday’s absolute best pick. There’s a solid chance that the Defenders are yet another early division-clinching team for which coaches pulled-back on the throttle once a playoff bid was secure. That development would mean Sin City’s being a tad too cautious with its Week 12 lines.

There’s a long list of American football champions who’ve clinched top seeds, fallen back in power rankings to close the schedule, and then regained fine form for a terrific postseason. Clemson’s “Power Rangers” lineup from 2019 is merely one such example, surrendering googolplexes of 1st downs, completions, and yards to South Carolina on Rivalry Weekend, then massacring the Alabama Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff. QB Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals lucked into an easy divisional crown in the 2000s, then looked like hell for weeks-running as coaches substituted players liberally in a 9-7 regular season finish. It’s not necessary to recap the dramatic Arizona-Pittsburgh title game that came later.

On the flip side, there have been lots of elite-level teams like the 2007-08 New England Patriots, whose problems late in the regular season were a precursor of trouble in elimination games to follow. Which category of late-season enigma do the Defenders fall into?

Scores seem to show a nation’s capital that’s been hanging onto 4th-quarter leads by the gloss of its helmets, even before Ta’amu and the Defenders were able to clinch a divisional crown and home-field advantage in the playoffs. But look closer, and another reality emerges. Orlando’s surprise win was a matter of catching an overconfident, unbeaten favorite with its pants down, but Seattle’s “1-point loss” to the Defenders which followed in April was made closer thanks to an academic score with :31 left. D.C. didn’t panic when Seattle’s stout defenders finally made things rough for Smith, Ta’amu, and substitute dual-threat quarterback D’Eriq King on the ground. The winning play was a 70-yard TD bomb from Ta’amu to WR Chris Blair, whose massive game was his biggest as a professional and immediately transformed the XFL’s stat leaderboard for wide receivers.

The scenario was much the same in Week 9 against Arlington, taking the steam out of any angle that counts on the Renegades to cover (+6.5) thanks to having played D.C. in a close game once. Wade Phillips, following his Houston Roughnecks’ loss to Arlington in the XFL semifinals, made a big deal out of saying that it’s hard to defeat the same club 3 times in a single year. The head coach is right, but Arlington’s played (and lost to) the D.C. Defenders merely once in 2023, and that’s not all that makes Week 12 vastly different from Week 11.

When There’s an “Under a TD” Point Spread … XFL Style

HC Reggie Barlow made sure the Defenders stuck to their ground game against Seattle, even though a once-and-future prolific backfield was stuck in the mud against the Sea Dragons. That’s a sign that Saturday’s favorites are confident in an offense that’s more complete now than it was when D.C.’s original win streak began. It’s not hard to be confident in a passing attack that’s sealing games with 70-yard bombs, or roaring for 4 TDs in the 2nd halves of playoff games. The Defenders have a finger-wagging rush weapon in the 11-on-11 style, quarterbacks ready to slice through the hashes with big plays. But for now, fear of that weaponry has caused defenses to load-up in the trenches and be punished overhead.

Set aside the typical bookmakers’ angles, and the 10-1 D.C. Defenders are a true double-digit favorite in the XFL Championship Game. Perez is not athletic enough to make things happen on his own, meaning that Arlington is likely to be eking-out FG drives while the Defenders plow ahead and convert TD series against a defense that’s been slipping in the Red Zone. Average TDs + conversions in the XFL are worth 8 points, not 6 or 7. Are we prepared to invest real money in the idea that D.C. isn’t a TD + XP favorite over Arlington?

Perhaps a “home-field advantage” is factored into Arlington’s betting lines, not because the 2023 XFL Championship Game is a home-game scenario, but because a crowd of largely neutral XFL enthusiasts in San Antonio on Saturday could be easily swayed to cheer for the Texas franchise and not for the interlopers from Washington. However, the Renegades shouldn’t be rated as a fast-paced, thrill-a-minute team thanks to one strange contest last weekend. Arlington remains the type of ball club that doesn’t inspire many roars. The championship game is unlikely to rest on QBs firing ahead of frantic edge-rushes.

Not to sound like Caine from “Kung Fu,” but Arlington’s streak of glory is the trees. The superiority of a 10-win XFL team over the middle tier of the league is the “forest” that represents most of Saturday’s probable final scores, all tipping toward the favorite. Don’t be dismayed by D.C.’s poor passing yards-against stats, since opposing teams have been pitching downfield passes all season to try to keep up with Ta’amu’s dynamic attack. The Renegades cannot afford Seattle’s game plan of selling-out to stop D.C.’s option game, since Arlington’s meager scoring punch means that a handful of complete bombs for the opponent can vanquish any chance for the underdogs to win. NFL postseasons should have taught Las Vegas how it looks when a complete team meets exactly half of an elite roster with hardware on the line.

There’s only one legit gambling angle keeping Arlington’s moneyline from heading for 3-to-1. In case it hasn’t occurred to anyone holding a D.C. Defenders “futures” bet from earlier this season, those who’ve got the Defenders to win the XFL Championship Game at a nice, fat payoff price already are encouraged to pick Arlington to win, and enjoy a “heads-I-win, tails-the-sportsbook-loses” Saturday of cheering for whichever outcome pays off the best.

Considering that the Defenders started the season as a 5-to-1 futures pick, it’s safe to say there’s some Arlington moneyline bettors who’ll be cheering for D.C. to win anyway.

WagerBop’s Pick: D.C. Defenders ATS (-6.5)