Los Angeles Avengers (9-7 in 2007, lost in 2nd round to Chicago)
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With his Avengers sitting with just three wins with two games to play in the 2006 season, Head Coach Ed Hodgkiss appeared to be on the fast road to getting fired. His team responded in two essentially meaningless games with two victories, perhaps saving his job and giving his team momentum heading into 2007. LA made a huge jump from that 5-11 season to finish 9-7 last year with several very impressive victories along the way.

 2007 Highlight: LA wasn’t supposed to be a speed bump in the road for the one-loss Georgia Force in their Week 12 encounter. What the Force got was the best game the Avengers played all season. Without star WR Kevin Ingram, QB Sonny Cumbie led LA to four unanswered TD drives in just over 10 minutes to give the underdog Avengers a seemingly insurmountable 57-30 lead. The Force scored three unanswered TDs of their own to close the game, but the Avengers held on to win by a 57-51 final count.

2007 Lowlight: Coming off of the team’s first playoff win in franchise history, the Avengers headed into the Windy City to take on the Chicago Rush on national television for a birth in the American Conference title game. Rush QB Matt D’Orazio was battling a back injury, and many figured that this was LA’s chance to burst onto the scene. Instead, the Avengers offense was putrid, only scoring 20 points, none of which were in the 2nd half against the stout Chicago defense. LA crashed out of the playoffs 52-20.

Key acquisition: WR Timon Marshall (3057 all-purpose yards, 36 TDs for Grand Rapids in 2007). This was one of the biggest hits in free agency this season. Marshall left the Rampage in the middle of the year to join the Chicago Bears. When his NFL opportunity didn’t pan out, the Avengers snatched him off the free agent market to add to an already stacked group of wide outs.

Key loss: K Remy Hamilton (16/30 FGs, 101/114 PAT’s in 2007). Hamilton is widely accepted as one of the best kickers in AFL history. PAT’s aren’t “gimme’s” in this league, and there hasn’t been much better than Hamilton in recent history. Replacing him will be rookie David Davis.

2008 Preview: The Avengers return a solid core of their starters from the 2007 season, which surprised many. With a healthy Kevin Ingram, adding Marshall should vastly improve an Avengers offense that churned out a shade under 53 PPG last season. New defensive coordinator, Michael Church is expected to improve the defense as well.

2008 will be a success if… QB Sonny Cumbie can take another huge step forward in his development as an AFL QB. After throwing 59 TDs in his rookie season, Cumbie threw 83 more in his sophomore season. If he can avoid mental mistakes, Cumbie should approach the 100 TD mark with relative ease this season.

This is one of the more promising teams in the AFL this season. Even though they aren’t quite up to San Jose standards at this point, it wouldn’t be overly surprising to see this team make a deep run into the playoffs competing within the weak American Conference.

Prediction: 12-4, 2nd place Western Division

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