Soul travel West again to take on SaberCats

          

        The Philadelphia Soul will head to the west coast for the second straight week, this time to take on the SaberCats in San Jose on Sunday night. 

           

     The SaberCats opened their season last week playing spoiler in Portland, blowing out the Thunder in the franchises inaugural game by a score of 64-34 at the Moda Center in Portland, Or.

Against Portland, SaberCats quarterback Russ Michna was 12/16 in the game, throwing for 166 yards and five touchdowns. After the SaberCats had a comfortable lead, quarterback Nathan Stanley took Michna’s role behind center, where he was 8 for 14, throwing for 89 yards and three touchdowns.

Wide receiver Rod Harper came up with 105 receiving yards on six receptions, bringing in two touchdowns in the win. Wide receiver Reggie Gray caught four touchdowns in the game, gaining 102 yards on six receptions. Receiver Jason Willis also scored two touchdowns against Portland.

Defensive lineman Jason Stewart had one sack on Thunder quarterback Darron Thomas for eight yards. Defensive back David Hyland intercepted Thomas in the third quarter.

             

   San Jose is coming off a shorter week than the Soul, as the SaberCats played the Thunder on Monday, while Philadelphia battled the Rattlers Saturday night. This gives San Jose two extra days to look over game film of Philadelphia, who battled the Rattlers strong before losing in overtime on an interception from quarterback Dan Raudabaugh.

  

              Raudabaugh and his teammates have had success against the San Jose Sabercats since this team core was assembled two years ago, as the team has grabbed a win against San Jose in each of the last two seasons. The Soul defeated the SaberCats 61-55 on April 15, 2012 at the Wells Fargo Center, when a Soul challenge ruled that Philadelphia recovered a fumble from quarterback Mark Grieb in the final moments of the game to seal the win.

Last season, Philadelphia slammed the door on San Jose, earning a 65-43 win over the favored ’Cats on July 20. Philadelphia jumped out to a 27-0 lead in the game, forcing four turnovers on downs on defense, and never looked back in the contest. Raudabaugh connected on 20 of his 33 pass attempts, putting up 181 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions. Tiger Jones put up three touchdowns in the game.

Michna led San Jose in the defeat going 15 of 37 on attempts with 206 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.

San Jose has since upgraded their roster roster this past season with the acquistions of Reggie Gray, who spent his last three seasons as a receiver for the now folded Chicago Rush. Gray will look to provide the Saber Cats with the spark the team was missing last season, as Gray is coming off a 1,978 yard season, catching 46 touchdowns on 140 receptions. Gray averages 14.1 yards a reception.

Defensive back Clevan Thomas resigned with the SaberCats this past offseason, looking to defend his ‘Defensive back of the year’ award. Last season, Thomas brought in 15 intereceptions and 334 yards.

         Darren Arbert returns to SaberCats as the team's head coach once again, the position he has held since 1999. Arbert was the coach of the SaberCats when Philadelphia defeated San Jose in Arena Bowl XXII in 2008, where Arbert is remembered for his chosen words for the officiating crew late in the fourth quarter of the game.    

       The key for Philadelphia to get a win in San Jose is to get to Michna and limit his availability down field. Rayshaun Kizer did a good job keeping up with the Rattlers receivers for most of last week, but if he gets matched up with Reggie Gray, it could be a very similar matchup to the one Kizer had with Poots last Saturday. Kizer was burned in the end, as Poots brought in a number of touchdowns in the game and turned out being the best player on offense for the Rattlers in their win.

The SaberCats showed the league they are serious contenders on Monday night with their blowout over Portland, but this will be a much tougher task for the San Jose defense going up against Raudabaugh, who will be looking for Jones and Ryan McDaniel all night, all of which have a history of lighting up the San Jose defense. Derrick Ross should be seeing more carries this week than he did in the loss to Arizona, where he only saw 12 touches in the game. Ross can find openings up the middle of the San Jose defense, or spread the field to the outside corners and gape his way away from the SaberCat defenders to march down the field.

If Raudabaugh can keep from turning the ball over, which he did last week until the final play of the game, the Soul will be in great position to win this game. The defense may not face as many opportunities to turn the ball over on downs as they did last year against this team, but the chances should certainly rise throughout the game. It will certainly be a tough task for the Soul to travel to the West coast for the second time in a week and take on one of the top teams in the league, but if the Soul can find a way to leave this weekend with a win, the team can head into the bye week with a load of confience and prepare for another roadtrip to Tampa Bay in two weeks.

Kickoff for the Soul against the Rattlers is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 23 and can be seen on ESPN 3.

Ross continues to earn AFL records, recieves weekly awards

                                              Photo from TheCapitalsReport.com

One of the silver linings coming from Saturday night’s loss is that Derrick Ross is still the boss of indoor football. Ross’ efforts against Arizona earned him the Russell Athletic Offensive Player of the Week for week one of the 2014 Arena Football season.

Ross had 12 touches for 46 yards in the game, but his performance Saturday will be most remembered for tying the AFL record for touchdowns in a single-game at six, with the sixth coming in the final minute of regulation to give the Soul a 55-48 lead over the Rattlers. The record was previously held by Dan Alexander, who set the record as a member of the Nashville Kats on April 21, 2007 against the Kansas City Bridge.

The Soul fullback is coming off a 2013 season where he rushed for 506 yards on 153 attempts, scoring 35 touchdowns in the process. Ross became the all-time AFL rushing leader in 2013, as he passed Bo Kelly’s previous record of 1,571 yards on June 15 against the Pittsburgh Power.

To put things in perspective, Bo Kelly, who has been considered by many to be the greatest fullback in the history of the game, played in the league for 12 seasons with the Arizona Rattlers and the Carolina Cobras, where he put up his 1,571 yards on 541 rushes with 88 touchdowns. Derrick Ross has only been in the league since 2011, with three full seasons under his belt and is one game into his fourth. Ross has put up 1,819 rushing yards and 112 rushing touchdowns on 466 attempts. That means Ross has put up 248 more yards and 24 more touchdowns than Kelly, all in just three seasons and one game, as opposed to Kelly’s 12 seasons.

Ross has become a fan favorite for Soul fans over his first two seasons in Philadelphia, after coming to the Soul for the start of the 2012 season when his previous squad, the Dallas Vigilantes folded in the conclusion of the 2011 season. He has also become an iconic figure for the AFL with his touchdown celebrations, where he starts up an imaginary lawn mower and mows the lawn at mid-field after every touchdown at home or in the Arena Bowl.

If there is any knock of Ross’ game, it’s that he does not receive the ball as much as he could, to no fault of his own. There are many 3^rd or 4^th-and-short situations where fans have wanted to see the ball handed off to the game’s all-time rushing leader but have not, and it has sometimes resulted in a turnover on downs.

That being said, Ross is surrounded by some of the most talented players and coaches in the AFL today. Ross is not always depended on as much as he would be on other teams as he lines up with play-makers such as Dan Raudabaugh, Tiger Jones, Ryan McDaniel, Larry Brackins and many others on the Soul roster who give their all on every play. The arguable greatest fullback of all time is also coached by the arguable greatest quarterback of all time, the brilliant minded Clint Dolezel, who has been a member of Ross’ coaching staff in all four of his AFL seasons, dating back to his time with the Vigilantes.

With Derrick Ross accompanying the talent-stacked Soul roster for a third straight season in 2014, Philadelphia fans can certainly look forward to what looks to be another great season for the Soul crew. Ross has gained many achievements in his short AFL career, but one award Ross is still working towards is his first Arena Bowl championship. If we continue to see number 4 plow his way into the end zone these upcoming months, there is a very good chance we will see the Soul return to the title game for the third straight year on August 23 in the Arena Bowl, where Ross and his team will look to capture the team’s second world championship on ESPN for the whole world to see. 

property of AZcentral.com

Snake bit again, Soul can’t close out the Rattlers

           

        They have to beat them eventually. And Saturday night looked like the night that the Soul would finally beat the Arizona Rattlers for the first time in franchise history. But once again, some magic from Nick Davila and another Dan Raudabaugh interception gave Arizona another down to the wire victory, this time coming in overtime.

The Soul got a great start to the game and season, recovering a Davila fumble just outside of the Rattlers end zone on the first play of the game. Derrick Ross mowed his way to the Soul’s first touchdown of the season the very next play, before kicker Carlos Martinez missed the extra point, as he did numerous times in last year’s Arena Bowl. The team’s exchanged the lead back and forth throughout the first half, and Arizona took a 28-27 lead into the locker room at the half.

          

           Raudabaugh connected with Ryan McDaniel for 29 yard reception late in the third quarter, setting up another Ross touchdown to give the Soul a 41-35 lead heading into the fourth. Arizona would respond with a touchdown of their own off a Davila touchdown, but a missed extra point kick kept the score tied at 41-41.

      

          The Soul were unable to capitalize off the Arizona special teams mistake, going four and out and giving the ball back to Arizona. Just under eight minutes into the fourth, Tysson Poots gave Arizona the lead once again at 48-41 with the team’s second straight touchdown.

Philly continued to feed the ball to Ross, who tied the game up and gave momentum back to Philadelphia. The defense was able to stand tall and force a turnover on downs, giving the Soul offense the ball back in the final minute of the game. Ross would score easily with 23 seconds left, giving the Soul a 55-48 lead. With eight seconds remaining in regulation, Davila found Poots once more to tie the game up at 55 apiece. The Soul received the ball on the kickoff, and elected to have Martinez try a 55 field goal attempt, which bounced off the right cross bar and sent the game into overtime.

Philadelphia won the coin toss in overtime, and elected to kick the ball away to Arizona. Davila took advantage of the opportunity, connecting with Poots for a fourth touchdown, giving the Rattlers the overtime lead.

The Soul received the ball deep in their own endzone off the kickoff, and were hoping to march down the field to either tie the game or go for a two-point conversion to win the game. However, Raudabaugh threw his first interception of the game and the season to Kerry Reed, ending the match and dropping the Soul to 0-6 all-time against the Arizona Rattlers.  

          

         Raudabaugh actually looked pretty sharp in the season opener, connecting on 22 of his 35 passes in the game, good enough for 266 passing yards and two touchdowns. It was the first game against the Rattlers in his Philadelphia career where Raudabaugh hadn’t thrown an interception in regulation.

Ross touched the ball 12 times in the game, rushing for 46 yards and six touchdowns, tying the AFL record for rushing touchdowns in a game.

Tiger Jones gathered in nine receptions for 101 yards, and scored his first touchdown of the season. Ryan McDaniel also had five receptions for 69 yards and also scored a touchdown.

            

         On Arizona’s side, Davila went 25 of 41 on the night in passing, throwing for 338 yards and seven touchdowns in the game. Wide receiver Maurice Purify had 111 yards on 11 receptions and scored one touchdown. Tysson Poots had 10 receptions earning 191 yards and four touchdowns. Poots received the offensive player of the game honors.

  While this game may have been the closest match these two teams have played each other thus far, it’s just as tough a pill to swallow as any of the others. The Soul had the Rattlers where they wanted them a number of times in the end of the game, but were unable to finish them off once and for all.

 Maybe Philadelphia's final offensive play in regulation should have called for Ross to take a knee at the one yard, which would have allowed the team to burn some clock time or an Arizona timeout and get closer to the end of regulation before scoring.

Maybe Kizer should have kept up with Poots in the end zone on the touchdown play that sent the game into overtime.

Maybe the team should have elected to receive in the ball in overtime (though I understand the argument for electing to kick the ball away).

And while it is hard to attack a kicker who nearly nailed a 55-yard field goal to win the game as time expired, maybe Martinez should have converted his first extra-point attempt of the season, which may have forced the Rattlers to go for two on their final touchdown in the fourth. And of course, Raudabaugh should not have thrown the interception to end the game.

The game's loss did not fall on the shoulders of any one individual. There were many players who could have easily inched the Soul closer to victory in the game, but fell short to the snakes from the desert once again.

That being said, the Soul showed us Saturday night that they can compete with the league’s two-time defending world champion and run with the best. Looking around the league, there are not many teams that appear to be playing on the same level as the Soul and the Rattlers, let alone in the American conference. It would have been nice to show the league and themselves that they can beat these guys once and for all, but maybe this loss will make the champagne taste a little better in late August. Ross seems to think the victory is coming.

 For now, as Ross pointed out, the Soul are 0-1 to start the season. They will travel to San Jose on Sunday to play the SaberCats, another tough opponent that is one of the few in the league to be considered an Arena Bowl contender this season. 

Soul hope to tame      Rattlers in 2014 season opener

The back-to-back American Conference champion Philadelphia Soul will kick off their 2014 season at 9 p.m. Saturday, March 15, in a rematch of the past two Arena Bowls against the two-time defending world champion Arizona Rattlers in Phoenix, Ariz.

Philadelphia will look to end the franchises winless drought against the Rattlers, as they have never beaten Arizona in the team’s ten years of existence and sit with a 5-0 record against them. The most notable losses have been the four games the teams have played between each other in the last two seasons, two of were Arena Bowls and two were regular season losses last season.

 Arizona walked into Arena Bowl 25 in 2012 as heavy underdogs in the game, but walked away with the Foster trophy easily in a 72-54 victory over Philadelphia.

The following season, the two teams met up in similar fashion in the season opener, with the Soul hoping to wash the bad taste out of their mouths and defeat the football team they were heavily favored over in the championship game. The Rattlers were able to close out the Soul 66-52, as a Dan Raudabaugh interception in the final moments of the game sealed the win.

Three months later, the teams met in Philadelphia where Philly was hoping to use their home crowd advantage to finally get past the Rattlers. It appeared as if the Soul were going to do just that, as the Soul were capitalizing on turnovers from the reigning Arena Bowl MVP quarterback Nick Davila and had the game in hand, until a late surge from the Rattlers gave them another heartbreaking win over the Soul.

The teams would meet again in an Arena Bowl rematch on August 17, 2013, with the Rattlers a favorite heading into the game. The lead went back and forth throughout the game, and when Arizona looked to ice a victory and go up 13 points in the final minute of the game with a sure-touchdown, Arizona fumbled the ball at the one yard line giving the Soul the ball and the opportunity to steal the championship away from Arizona. The Rattlers proved to be the better defense in the game, and stopped the Soul once again and wear the crown of the world champions of Arena Football.

This match is nothing new to the Arena Football world, and it’s one featuring arguably the two best teams in the entire game. Philadelphia will look to Raudabaugh and see if he can lead the Soul to their first victory against Arizona of all time, while at the same time proving to the league that they can battle with any team in the league.

Raudabaugh is coming off a 2013 season that saw him post 96 touchdowns with 14 interceptions, completing 390 passes on 573 attempts, good enough for a 122.37 quarterback rating. Raudabaugh will be accompanied by the game’s all-time rushing leader, fullback Derrick Ross “The Boss,” who last year ran for 542 yards and scoring 35 touchdowns for the Soul. In the air, Arizona will have to watch out for Soul wide receivers Anthony “Tiger” Jones and Ryan McDaniel, who are returning from last year’s squad. Tiger put up 2,121 yards in 2013, scoring 37 touchdowns, while McDaniel finished with 819 yards and 21 touchdowns, all while missing six games due in the season due to injury.

The Soul have parted ways with receiver Andrae Thurman, who was the second receiver on the team last year putting up 1197 yards and 38 touchdowns. Thurman was traded to the expansion Portland Thunder for future picks.

               

  The Soul will have to try and hold back quarterback Nick Davila, who threw from 4842 yards and 110 touchdowns last season and led his team to the last three Arena Bowls, winning the two most recent. Davila is accompanied by wide receiver Rod Winsor, who leads the Snake’s receiving core coming off a 1,585 yard, 42 touchdown receiving season.

Limiting Davila’s game is the key to shutting down the entire Rattlers mojo. Defensive tackle Bryan Robinson for the Soul will try and get to Davila all night long, as he did in 2013 where he finished fifth in the league with nine sacks on the season. Defensive back Rayshaun Kizer was in the top ten players in 2013 with interceptions as he finished with nine, which were good enough for 96 yards.

Defensive back’s Marquis Floyd and Arkeith Brown have been threats for the Rattlers in their recent championship years, and have been known to tear apart Raudabaugh’s game plan in recent matches. While Arena Football is a game of offense, these two teams have proven that defense still wins championships no matter how great your offense may be.

While the Soul have been getting closer to beating the Rattlers in each match, it will certainly be a tough task defeating the champs in their home snake-pit, where they haven’t been challenged much at home for almost two years. AFL experts such as the respectable folks leading ArenaFan have already begun predicting Arizona will host the Arena Bowl, put up record setting numbers with an MVP quarterback and nearly predicted a third straight title for the Rattlers. A win would propel the Soul as serious contenders if they have not already reached that level in the minds of many. A loss would not end the Philadelphia season, especially with the American conference searching for a team to contend with Philadelphia again this season. It would, however, be huge for the team to finally defeat this roster that has certainly had their number the last few years, instead of hoping that they can somehow pull out a win against them in the sixth meeting in August.  

The 9 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, March 15, 2014 can be seen on ESPN 3.