XFL Week 4: Defenders at Vipers Odds and Saturday-Sunday Betting Predictions

It’s time for a reality check on the XFL’s quarterback situation.

No, the league doesn’t have the next Aaron Rodgers or Pat Mahomes taking snaps for any of its 8 teams, unless an unheralded signal-caller is ready to blossom beyond imagination. That fact, however, does not mean that the XFL’s stable of QBs is “bad” or lacking in talent.

When coaches say “quarterback is like any other position,” what are they really saying? Hopefully not that QBs aren’t any more important than backup WRs or nickel cornerbacks. That would be demonstrably false. But it’s like any other position in that the pop-dichotomy of “good” vs “bad” top-level players is just as crazy as when applied elsewhere on the gridiron.

You’ll notice when Kurt Warner talks about QBs in the NFL, he doesn’t talk about The Shield’s passers being “good,” “bad,” or “terrible” the way a majority of semi-literate carnivores rap about quarterbacks on Facebook and Twitter. Instead, the Super Bowl legend speaks in terms of QBs “having success” or “not having success.” Talent is important, but just as important is whether the guy taking snaps and his supporting cast have developed chemistry, field-awareness, and a formula for winning. Jimmy Garoppolo’s job description is very different than Tom Brady’s or Deshaun Watson’s – all 3 QBs are “good” at some skills and probably “bad” with others – yet all 3 are successful.

As for whether XFL quarterbacks are accurate enough to hit the broad side of a barn with a pigskin, let’s try an experiment. Here’s some practice footage of an FBS quarterback who wasn’t even starting in college…someone who wouldn’t be considered good enough to reach a pro league like the XFL (supposedly having a “QB crisis” in its 2nd season) as a backup.

Wow, he must have really sucked! Right? Let’s watch and see.

Apologies for the cheesy New Age music. But the video shows that gutter-talk about “trash” pro quarterbacks who “can’t throw” is not valid at all.

Millions of little kids try to play QB. The many thousands that emerge as the best of that group get a shot with a High School or college team. The best few hundred of that group get a shot to turn pro. The best 100+ out of that group can earn a roster spot in the NFL or XFL. The smartest and hardest-working 1/3 of that group usually become the starters. Professional starting QBs are the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. Period.

If you got the 50 greatest handicappers in the world together, would you assume #50 couldn’t pick her ear because Billy Walters’ record is superior by-comparison? Thinking of pro players at any position as categorically “great” or “terrible” is a fast track to making poor predictions.

So I’m not interested at all in the “XFL quarterback crisis.” Even if the starting QB’s of Vince McMahon’s league are ranked somewhere 100-through-200 on the totem pole, they can still eat so-called “awesome” college QBs for breakfast. Quarterbacks of the XFL will look better, post better stats, and get more credit as their offenses improve and develop identities. The proper handicapping angle is simple – which of the 8 brand-new teams will make their QBs look good in Week 4, and which will make their signal-callers look bad?

The QBs themselves probably have less to do with it than you might think. But with ragged units still trying to figure out who they are in a fresh landscape, it does help when a quarterback can scramble – and turn “bad” plays into good ones. Who in the league can take off and score when the pocket collapses on them, and which XFL passers are dependent on solid blocking to survive?

L.A. Wildcats at New York Guardians

It’s also a bad idea to overreact to small sample-sizes of games. That’s what XFL ‘cappers have been doing, though, and it showed up bigly in Week 3. As if there’s really a gigantic discrepancy in size, speed, skill, or coaching on clubs that launched a month ago and have been designed to produce fair fights?

Los Angeles was a heavy underdog last weekend. The Wildcats won by 30 points. (Which didn’t seem to teach Las Vegas anything if at all, but we’ll get to that in a moment.) Seems like it’s a nice boost for XFL teams to play at home even though crowd noise isn’t quite to the level of ruining an opposing OL’s blocking scheme just yet. Players who have felt embarrassed on the road don’t want to blow their shot to impress a hometown audience. You’ve got to give the Wildcats credit in-specific for the Week 3 performance too, though – L.A.’s defense embarrassed Defender QB Cardale Jones while Josh Johnson effectively distributed the egg to nearly 10 Wildcat receivers.

New York, meanwhile, was blown away by an underrated St. Louis team at America’s Center. As predicted, Marquise Williams and AAF standout Luis Perez are starting to look like viable QB options for the Guardians, but that’s as due to Matt McGloin’s susceptibility to injury as it is due to his big mouth.

Williams rushed for nearly 100 yards his senior season at North Carolina and averaged 5.7 yards-per-carry in the AAF. He might be able to avoid the L.A. edge-rush while the New York defense puts pressure on Johnson. That makes the Wildcats’ (-7.5) point spread almost as silly as last week’s spread on the Defenders.

Pick: Guardians ATS

Seattle Dragons at St. Louis BattleHawks

Okay, enough with the long-winded analysis where it isn’t needed.

St. Louis is a fine football team for having played 3 games. That’s still no reason to cast any XFL club under any circumstances as an (-11.5) favorite this early in the organization’s existence. Not against visiting Seattle on Saturday. Not against anyone.

Instead of treating a tiny sample-size like a tiny sample-size, handicappers and gamblers appear to be inflating the importance of the opening 3 weeks of XFL results as if the outcomes are teaching us 10x more than ordinary gridiron results. Just because we haven’t seen where the teams are headed yet doesn’t mean we ought to pretend like we know – quite the contrary in fact.

Seattle may lose, but I’m taking its big fat moneyline on principle. Maybe this will be the week Keenan Reynolds runs wild from the Wildcat formation (even though he went to Seattle and not L.A.).

Pick: Dragons to win (+375) 

Houston Roughnecks at Dallas Renegades

Now these betting lines are more thoughtful. Unbeaten Houston is a (-3) and (-150) favorite to beat Dallas on Sunday in a state rivalry game between 2 rivals in a state of playing their 1st game together.

Dallas would certainly be more than a (+3) favorite on the road, so it’s worth mentioning that the 2-1 Renegades are 0-1 in Big D. Bookmakers are willing to shrug-off the Week 1 loss to the St. Louis BattleHawks in Arlington because the hosts were unprepared and sloppy on offense that day, but has Dallas really evolved all that much in 20 days?

It’s fair to say the Renegades had a good Week 3 on offense. Landry Jones tossed a couple of picks, but at least the passing game looked alive. You can’t say the same for a lot of other offenses in the XFL at this point. Cameron Artis-Payne is proving to be an effective running back behind a solid blocking scheme, even though coach Bob Stoops is determined to play wide-open and doesn’t employ many tight splits or TE-laden packages.

Houston is still the far-more efficient offense through 3 games and was probably unlucky to face a tight finish in Tampa last weekend after holding 2 Viper QBs to mediocre stat lines.

This scrum is likely to come down to the pass rush, and multiple Roughnecks are among the XFL leaders in sacks and hurries.

Pick: Roughnecks ATS

D.C. Defenders at Tampa Bay Vipers

How about an Over/Under pick on a Sunday evening? The O/U line for Dallas-Houston looks a little high to the naked eye at (50.5). But it’s also true that a game between the 2 wide-open Texas teams could turn into a shoot-out. Could D.C. at Tampa ((44.0) O/U total at Bovada Sportsbook) also turn into a high-scoring contest?

The solid chance of a close game makes me lean “Over” considering the XFL’s points-after-TD rules that encourage 8 and 9-point touchdowns in the 2nd half. But true to this weekend’s theme, we’d better take a look at those QBs…and how the blockers, rushers, and receivers are faring around them.

Cardale Jones has been extremely loose with the pigskin for D.C., tossing 4 interceptions to the Wildcats in Week 3. But the Defenders scored nearly 60 points in their 1st pair of scrums and Rashad Ross leads a competent D.C. wide receiver corps. Jones needs more support from his running game, but HC Pep Hamilton is an NFL veteran whose tendency won’t be to force the run. He’ll call for more passing despite last weekend’s failures in that department. Defender tackles should be able to handle the Viper pass rush OK.

Tampa Bay coach Marc Trestman is a stereotyped thinker who makes “obligatory” play calls as an OC, like Piddling Run Right on 2nd and 10 and Predictable Screen Left on 3rd and 20. As a head coach he’s more experimental, though, and has given reps to multiple QBs trying to get the Viper offense going. As of Week 3 the work was paying dividends. It would be irrational to expect the Tampa attack to regress at home after a promising performance vs Houston – my current favorite to win the XFL title in 2020.

Whether it’s Taylor Cornelius or Aaron Murray taking snaps for the home team, the circumstances appear to be favoring 45+ points scored on what should be a gorgeous day with very little wind in Tampa.

Pick: Over