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The 2023 USFL season is officially upon us! Sportsbooks are now available on that device in your pocket all over the world, and so this is going to be a Spring Football season like no other. I'll be here every week providing sports betting advice for USFL action, so join me here and pay homage to the original "fun" league. Be sure to also read all our other weekly USFL Fantasy Football articles. If we ever start expanding into the realms of the European League of Football, Indoor Football League, Fan Controlled Football, and/or (I can only hope) the CPBL of Taiwan come baseball season – I'll be right here to discuss the full happenings across the board.
They might not be the #1...or #2 leagues...but damn it, we've congregated here because we love sports. So, when the powers to be in professional sports decide to supply our hungry demand for more year-round action, it would be fundamentally and morally wrong of us to not take a head-first dive into Spring Football education so that we can continue to enter DFS contests and place anxiety-inducing bets on games that most of our friends and family probably won't even know are being played – and if you're still reading this paragraph, I am fully confident that you share my sentiment on that point. Anyway, let's get to talking about the Spring Football league that started it all with the likes of Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Reggie White, Doug Flutie, and near-Congressman Herschel Walker.
The chaos came and went – now a new storm will sweep in. Four teams survived and made it to the 2023 USFL postseason, which starts this weekend with the Division Championships. What potential matchups might we end up with, how have these teams changed (for better or worse) since the last weeks of the regular season, and who will play their best football of the year en route to representing their divisions in the USFL Championship? So many intriguing questions – so let's talk about them.
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North Division Championship in Canton: Pittsburgh Maulers vs. Michigan Panthers (Saturday, June 24th, 8 PM)
PIT (-3), PIT (-155), MICH (+130), O/U 38.5
Best Bet: Maulers (-3) & Under 38.5
Wow. We find ourselves here – entering the 2023 USFL North Division Championship...without the Philadelphia Stars or the New Jersey Generals, and either the Pittsburgh Maulers or the Michigan Panthers will have turned their ships around to the tune of a USFL Championship berth. It will once again be E.J. Perry under center for the Panthers while Josh Love is inactive, and that didn't go too well last time. Perry was quite inefficient in his passing, and while his legs were good for some gaining, the Philadelphia Stars outgained the Panthers 330 to 205.
Michigan might not have needed any turnovers to cut Philly's season short, but they did need a lot of big plays from their defense, and I still think that this Maulers team is designed to be Panther Kryptonite. If Perry can continue to run on the stiffer Pittsburgh defense like he did on Philly and improves on his passing accuracy, this could be a tighter game – but without those components, this could quickly turn into a long day for Michigan. Troy Williams, the whole lot of Pittsburgh's receiving core, and even Garrett Groshek all made solid contributions across the board in their 26-6 routing of New Jersey in Week 10, and the defense completely shut down an offense that had put up 37 on the Stars the week prior.
The Michigan Panthers might have a head of steam going into this game, but the Maulers are feeling themselves too in a worst-to-first attempt, and Michigan hasn't made up nearly enough ground as a team to avoid a loss by a range of 17-10 to 21-7, so lay the points with Pittsburgh and once again take a Maulers under.
South Division Championship in Birmingham: Birmingham Stallions vs. New Orleans Breakers (Sunday, June 25th, 7 PM)
BHAM (-3), BHAM (-150), NOLA (+125), O/U 44.5
Best Bet: Stallions (-3) & Over 44.5
Much like the North Division Championship during the XFL playoffs, the two best teams in the league will be squaring off in this postseason matchup, and it is simply a damn shame that one of these two teams will have to be eliminated. And, much like the XFL playoffs, I will be very concerned for the team that survives this contest as they look forward to what on the surface will be a far less daunting task in the USFL Championship Game.
Both of these teams took care of business by a touchdown in their Week 10 intra-division matchups, both of these teams have a win against the other through the regular season, and both of these teams have had rock-solid stalwarts on offense throughout the entire year. For the New Orleans Breakers, McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Wes Hills, and Sage Surratt continue to lead the charge, and for the Birmingham Stallions; C.J. Marable, Jace Sternberger, and likely USFL MVP Alex McGough have looked like a continuously evolving force on offense all Spring.
If I had to give the edge to a defense, I think that might slightly edge for the Breakers with a slew of playmakers like Vontae Diggs, but from a bird's eye view, these two squads are extraordinarily comparable. As an overall team and even from the offensive side, the advantage here lies with the Birmingham Stallions, who have looked like the best team in the league for many weeks and have failed to appear lost for any longer than MAYBE a single week early in the year. Based on all of these factors, I think we have to feel most confident in laying three points with the Stallions by a probable final score range of 24-20 to 31-27, especially in front of a Birmingham home crowd.
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