We are already up to Week 9 in the UFL’s 2024 season, and the Birmingham Stallions are facing perhaps their last big test for an undefeated regular season when they go on the road against the No. 1 defense in San Antonio. The Brahmas are 6-2 and playing decent football.
Every road team is favored to win this week at top-rated sportsbooks, but Stallions-Brahmas is certainly the top game we have our eyes on this week.
We made our best bets for the Week 9 schedule below.
Picks Summary
- Stallions-Brahmas Under 44 Points (-110)
- Defenders-Showboats Over 46 Points (-110)
- Panthers -3 (-115)
*All odds from Bet365 (check our Bet365 Review)
D.C. Defenders vs. Memphis Showboats
Sunday, May 26, 2024 – 02:30 PM ET at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium
We know the Defenders (3-5) are not returning to the playoffs after blowing a late lead to St. Louis last week. But a team with last year’s Coach of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year in the XFL should still have enough pride to perform against a Memphis team that has been the worst in the league.
Despite hiring a coach who made the playoffs in the USFL last year in John DeFilippo, the Showboats have lost 7 games in a row and have been outscored by 94 points. They are threatening to become the worst team in either the XFL or USFL in the last few seasons.
The Defenders are a 5-point road favorite, but our interest is with the total of 46 points.
Defenders Should Look Good on Offense
This season will go down as a disappointment for the Defenders after how good the offense was last year with quarterback Jordan Ta’amu. This season, Ta’amu is only completing 55.4% of his passes. The only quarterback below him is Memphis’ Troy Williams at 54.5%, and he is averaging 5.8 yards per pass attempt.
The Defenders have the better quarterback in this matchup even with the season not going as planned for Ta’amu. But he should get a boost this week as the Showboats are easily the worst defense in the UFL.
Memphis is the only team to allow 200 points this season, and it is allowing 30.3 points per game. That’s almost a full touchdown more than the Defenders, who rank No. 7 in scoring defense at 24.8 points per game allowed.
Beyond that, the Showboats are terrible against the pass. Quarterbacks complete 72% of their passes against them, which is 8 percentage points higher than the next closest defense. They also allow 8.0 yards per pass attempt, another number that is easily the worst in the league.
The Showboats also rarely get pressure on quarterbacks with 14 sacks, the 2nd fewest of any defense.
The Pathetic Memphis Offense
If the Showboats were going to field this type of offense, they should have just kept coach Todd Haley on staff after he got a 5-5 season out of this team a year ago.
The Showboats are so bad offensively that they are dead last in yards per pass (5.2) and yards per run (3.3). This speaks to poor offensive line play, and that is further confirmed by the Showboats allowing 36 sacks, or 14 more than any other team in the 2024 UFL season.
We already pointed out the poor stats for quarterback Troy Williams, but he couldn’t even rely on a good running game if he wanted to. The Showboats have just 468 yards on the ground in 8 games.
The Pick
While Stallions-Brahmas is the matchup of the top 2 scoring defenses, this is the matchup of the bottom 2 scoring defenses. But with the way the Showboats are so bad on both sides of the ball, this feels like a good opportunity for the over in a 30-17 type of win for the Defenders.
Look for Ta’amu to perk up offensively against this poor defense, and the D.C. defense is not great enough to destroy this Memphis offense, which does thrive on takeaways and oddly on 3rd down.
We’ll take the over here with D.C. doing a lot of the heavy lifting on offense. But before last week’s 24-18 final, the 5 previous Memphis games all went over 46 points.
UFL Pick: Over 46 (-110) at Bet365
Michigan Panthers vs. Houston Roughnecks
Sunday, May 26, 2024 – 02:30 PM ET at Rice Stadium
The Michigan Panthers (6-2) are under the radar a bit despite the fact they will be in the playoffs and will likely face the Stallions in the semifinals in a couple of weeks. They get a chance to improve their record against the Roughnecks (1-7), who gave the Stallions a little scare last week in a 35-28 game.
The Panthers are a 3-point road favorite with a total of 40 points, the lowest total in Week 9. But we are looking at the spread.
Week 3 Recap: Panthers 34, Roughnecks 20
The Panthers did not score many points earlier this year, but they had one of their best games in a 34-20 win over the Roughnecks in Week 3. That was quarterback E.J. Perry’s finest game with 208 passing yards on 16-of-19 passing, and he rushed for 60 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Perry was injured and has not returned to the starting lineup. The Panthers are getting better quarterback play out of Bryce Perkins, though he split playing time last week against Memphis with Brian Lewerke.
Was that the right call? Perkins completed 7-of-9 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown, and he ran for 55 yards too. Lewerke was 6-of-11 for 92 yards and ran for 13 yards. Maybe it should be Perkins as QB1, but the Panthers are in a better place than they were in Week 3 when they already beat this Houston team by 14 points.
It’s hard to say Houston is in a better spot now.
Houston’s Latest Loss
The Roughnecks scored more than expected against Birmingham despite being a 16.5-point underdog last week. However, if not for a fumble giving the Roughnecks great field position late in the 4th quarter, that could have easily been a 35-20 final and another 15-point loss for a Houston team that has been outscored by 64 points this season, the 2nd-worst margin in the UFL.
Houston is still the lowest-scoring team in the league at 15.5 points per game. It ranks next to last in most offensive categories too, only finishing ahead of Memphis in stats like yards per pass or run.
The Roughnecks are facing a Michigan defense that has moved up to No. 3 in scoring and No. 4 in yards. The Panthers have only allowed more than 20 points once this season. They even held the Stallions and Battlehawks to 18 points per game to begin this season.
Holding Houston to a low total should not be that difficult for this team.
The Pick
It may not be the prettiest game this weekend, but we like the Panthers to score enough and run the ball much better than Houston to control the clock in a decisive victory that covers the small spread at -115 betting odds.
UFL Pick: Panthers -3 (-115) at Bet365
Birmingham Stallions vs. San Antonio Brahmas
Saturday, May 25, 2024 – 03:00 PM ET at Alamodome
The Stallions (8-0) keep rolling to perfection, but last week was anything but a smooth ride in a 35-28 win over lowly Houston. The test will be tougher this week as the Brahmas know how to play defense under coach Wade Phillips.
The Brahmas are an 8.5-point home underdog with a total of 44 points at the top sportsbooks. We are looking at that total in this battle of the top 2 scoring defenses.
How San Antonio Can Slow Down Birmingham
The Stallions have not been held under 30 points in 4 straight games as they have taken their offense to new heights since Adrian Martinez established himself as QB1.
But San Antonio has the defense that can hold Martinez in check. Phillips has coached against many mobile, dual-threat quarterbacks in his past, including Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, and Cam Newton. His defense embarrassed Newton in Super Bowl 50 as the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos. He’ll have a plan for Martinez, who has not been as lights out statistically the last 2 weeks despite the points Birmingham is still scoring.
The Brahmas have piled up a league-high 26 sacks this season. They also are the best defense on 3rd down, only allowing offenses to convert 34% of the time. The Stallions convert 51.8% of the time, which is No. 1 for offenses. If the Brahmas can force them into 3rd-and-long situations with a good pass rush, then they can tee off on Martinez with pressures that Phillips loves to dial up.
But it will be important for the Brahmas to defend the run well on those early downs so that they can get into favorable 3rd-down defenses. The Stallions are still easily the No. 1 rushing team with 5.0 yards per carry and the only team over 1,000 yards on the ground this year. Martinez’s legs have a lot to do with that too.
The Brahmas are respectable there as they have allowed the 3rd-fewest rushing yards and allow 4.1 yards per carry.
Why San Antonio Might Not Score Much
Let’s not forget the difficult matchup on the other side of the ball. The Brahmas have become a more functional offense, improving to No. 3 in yards, with Quinten Dormady at quarterback. While they only scored 20 points in a win over Arlington last week, Dormady had 320 yards passing and 2 touchdowns without a turnover.
You might wonder why those numbers only translated to 20 points, but keep in mind San Antonio had just 9 drives, 2 ended with the clock expiring on the half, and 2 more ended with missed field goals from 48 and 38 yards. Those should be makeable kicks. The Brahmas scored on each of their first 4 possessions in that game.
But let’s not forget that Birmingham has allowed the fewest yards and 2nd-fewest points in the league. They are well-coached on that side of the ball as well. San Antonio does not run it as consistently or efficiently as Birmingham, and the Stallions are right on the Brahmas’ heels with 25 sacks for their defense.
Dormady is going to struggle more this week than he did against Arlington’s below-average defense a week ago.
The Pick
You might have some concern that Birmingham is falling into the trap the D.C. Defenders did in the 2023 XFL season where they kept winning high-scoring games before they were eventually upset in the championship game.
The Stallions have pulled out 30-26 and 35-28 wins in the last 2 weeks, which isn’t the kind of action you want to be involved with as the playoffs near. But in a matchup of the top 2 defenses, we think the defense does win out this week and this one could end with a more reasonable 24-17 score than what we’ve been seeing lately from the Stallions.
That’s still good enough for the under for your UFL picks in Week 9.
UFL Pick: Under 44 (-110) at Bet365
*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
