AFL Playoffs: What Awaits This Weekend's Winners
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by user Cobras36
American Conference:
4) Chicago Rush: 12-4. Mike Ditka's personna as rubbed off onto this team. Sporting the Number One scoring defense to go along with an upper half of the league offense, last's year's 7-9, four straight road playoff wins League Champions are not to be taken lightly again. They beat 5 of the six playoff teams they played during the season and only lost to Dallas in Dallas by 4. They get the better of the two Round One winners.
3) San Jose SabreCats: 13-3. Completing the best 16-game schedule Darren Arbet has coached so far (for a franchise that is 62 games over .500 in it's 13 year history), this mostly-ignored-because-they're-on-the-West-Coast perennial power has every facet of the game covered. Last weekend, they became the second team to put up over 1,000 points in a single season, and add to that the 2nd stingiest scoring defense this season. They're 7-2 against playoff teams and are riding a 10 game win streak coming into the playoffs. They've only lost 11 of 84 home games (.867) over the past 8 seasons and finished 8-0 at home this season. Beating the 'Cats in their house is a tall order.
National Conference:
2) Georgia Force: 14-2 Ex-1985 Chicago Bears DB Doug Plank has put together a power house team. He's looking to get the Force back to the title game for the second time in three years, and his QB threw for a record 117 TDs this season to put them almost exactly where they want to be. They're 22-4 over the past 3 seasons at home, and are the only team to hang a loss on Dallas this season. By fate of scheduling, the Force (last Sunday) became the 1st AFL team to score 1,000+ points in a regular season. Georgia also posted an 8-0 home record and won 8 of 10 games against teams in the playoffs....
1) Dallas Desparados: 15-1 The cream of the AFL this season, Dallas is on a mission after wasting the Number 1 seed in last year's conference title game. The last of three teams last weekend to post 1,000 points, this year's Dallas squad holds the single season scored record, with 1,016 points. Throw in the 6th ranked scoring defense, winning games by 1 and 54 points, this is the most tested and prepared squad to take the field. The problem, like last year, is keeping their heads in the game they're in and not on next week's game. Dallas finished 11-1 vs playoff teams and 8-0 at home.
