Where the Soul stand after the bye week: A look around the American Conference

             

                                                     

       After three weeks into the football season, the Philadelphia Soul have played two games and have yet to record their first one in the win column.

          

      The Soul have spent the last week on their bye week, after getting handled by the San Jose SaberCats 70-33 on Sunday, March 23 in what was the worst loss for the franchise since this core group of players joined the team. Derrick Ross suffered an injury in the game that kept him on the bench for a good portion of the second half, and his status moving forward has not been announced.

Rookie quarterback Nathan Stanley threw for 249 yards, completing 18 of 28 passes and throwing for six touchdowns for the ’Cats. Dan Raudabaugh only threw for three touchdowns in the game with one interception, completing 11 of 27 passes and throwing for 131 yards before being pulled midway through the fourth quarter. The Soul were outscored 35-6 in the second half.

    

            The good news for Soul fans is the hardest part of the schedule is over. When the schedule was released, it was speculated that it would be hard for the Soul to start the season off heading out West back to back weeks to play two of the better teams in the league in their arena. The road trip is not over for the Soul, as they still play on the road the next two weeks in Tampa Bay and Orlando before the home opener against Jacksonville on April 19, but the upcoming opponents are presumably easier opponents than the first two the Soul lost to in March.

      

          Looking around the league, it appears that Philadelphia will have more of a challenge to get to the Arena Bowl than they have had the last two years. Although it is still early into the 20-week regular season, there are many teams improving that will have their own bid at trying to win the American Conference over the Soul and steal the crown from the back to back American Conference Champions.

          

      The Orlando Predators were a team that was not highly regarded on most people’s radar heading into the season. The Predators traded away key players on both sides of the ball, including future hall of fame quarterback Aaron Garcia in a bizarre trade to the Jacksonville for quarterback Bernard Morris, and neither quarterbacks have suited up for their new ball clubs for various reasons.    Yet, the Predators have found a way to start the season 2-0, with down-to-the-wire wins against their state rivals Jacksonville Sharks and Tampa Bay Storm, and the LA Kiss. The Predators most recent win in Tampa Bay came as Orlando scored two touchdowns in the final minute of play, erasing a 10 point defecate and stealing a 56-42 win.

Quarterback Jason Boltus has a 102.5 quarterback rating through his first three games in the Preds uniform, completing 61 of his 107 attempted passes, throwing for 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. Kendal Thompkins has been Boltus’ leading scoring receiver, who’s brought in six touchdowns and 215 yards. Receiver Khalil Paden has brought in 316 yards with four touchdowns for Orlando.  Former Soul defensive back Tanner Varner has two interceptions with one touchdown for the Predators on the defensive side of the ball. While the quality of opponents has been in question for the Predators through the first three weeks of the season, there’s no question that Orlando has gotten the job done against the opponents they’ve faced. Despite this, I can’t say I’m fully sold on Orlando yet, but they are definitely not a team to be taken lightly, and they appear to be a better club than most gave them credit for heading into week one. They face another team that doesn’t seem to be of much challenge in the New Orleans Voodoo, who have started their season 0-2 and don’t seem to be of much threat to the Florida teams in the South Division.

           

     In the East Division, the Cleveland Gladiators have also found a way to remain unbeaten through their first two games, with wins over the Pittsburgh Power and the New Orleans Voodoo. On Saturday, March 29 the Gladiators left New Orleans with a win in a low scoring 37-26 victory. Quarterback Chris Dieker is in his second season with Cleveland, and is posting a 77.68 quarterback rating as he’s completed 34 of his 56 pass attempts, throwing for five touchdowns with three interceptions. Thyron Lewis is leading receivers on the team with 235 yards and three touchdowns. The best player on the Gladiators this season has probably been defensive back Marrio Norman, who has recorded five interceptions for 96 yards in the first two games this season.

  The Gladiators offense has not been the most impressive to start the season, and only scoring 37 points against a below par New Orleans defense can attest to that. However, the Gladiators did have an impressive comeback against Pittsburgh in week one, rallying from a 17-point defecate to defeat the Power 63-53. The Gladiators have a lot of questions on offense moving forward in the season, but as for now they can enjoy a one game lead over the Pittsburgh Power and two games on the Soul for first place in the division.

    

            The team in the conference that everyone has been talking about since the beginning of the offseason is the Pittsburgh Power. The Power made some big splashes in free agency this past offseason, landing wide receiver Prechae Rodriguez, defensive back Virgil Gray and former league MVP quarterback Tommy Grady.

  Grady was highly regarded around the league in his 2012 campaign, but had a follow up season in 2013 that he would like to forget, where he threw 28 interceptions, nearing a league record, all while getting benched early in the season to avoid setting history in all the wrong ways. The Power still put a lot of stock into Grady for the 2014 season, and hasn’t been all that bad in the first two games throwing for 417 yards, 10 touchdowns and only two touchdowns. Prechae and Virgil Gray are also showing great contribution to their team’s success, as they always do, but yet the Power are still at 1-1 to start off the season and might have more questions surrounding their team than anyone else in the league. Pittsburgh also made headlines in week two of the season, their bye week, when they fired head coach Derek Stingley just one game into the season and hired Ron James, Grady’s former coach in Utah, as Stingley’s replacement.

   

             The Power have shown signs of brilliance in their two games at home, enjoying comfortable leads over Cleveland and San Jose (the team that owned the Soul two weeks ago). The biggest flaw of Pittsburgh has been their inability to stay consistent for an entire ballgame. The Power blew a 17 point lead over a less talented Gladiators team in the season opener, which ended up costing them the win as they were dealt the 63-53 loss. Last week, the Power capitalized on a horrible start to the game for the San Jose SaberCats, who turned the ball over on their first three possessions and let the Power walk all over them, taking a 35-7 lead in the game. Similar to week one, however, the SaberCats battled back all throughout the fourth quarterback and ended up scoring a touchdown in the final seconds of the game, giving them  the chance to tie the game with the extra point or go for a two point conversion to win the game. San Jose coach Darren Arbet decided to go for the win with a two point conversion attempt, which was dropped in the back off the end zone by San Jose receiver Jason Willis and the Power escaped another collapse.

          

      It’s tough to say what Pittsburgh really has in their team right now and how much of their success can be attributed to themselves. One can argue that if San Jose would have played the same style of ball against Pittsburgh as they did against Philadelphia, the SaberCats would have blown out the Console Energy Center and earned a valuable win. Instead, the SaberCats gave the Power almost every opportunity they possibly could have in the first half, and Pittsburgh capitalized on almost every one of them and still almost lost. San Jose’s rookie quarterback Nathan Stanley lit up the Soul defense in week two, but Pittsburgh was able to embarrass him early on in week three and keep him quiet. Maybe Pittsburgh had more film of Stanley to study than Philadelphia did the week before, along with the fact that San Jose was on the road against Pittsburgh while Philadelphia was on their second trip out West in as many weeks when they lost to San Jose.

For Pittsburgh, their blown leads are heavy concerns for their team in my eyes, and they’re not going to have a 28 point cushion to fall back on against every team. They are definitely not the Power teams we have seen the past three years, but I think coach Stingley still has a lot of work to do with his team with finding consistency in their play and executing their offense more smoothly.

   But when it’s all pushed aside, you are still what your record is. Pittsburgh is 1-1, and Philadelphia is still searching for their first win. When it’s all said and done, I believe the Soul will be right back at the top of the conference as they have been the last two seasons, standing atop their division and ready to take on whatever team challenges them in the American Conference Championship. As of now, Cleveland and Orlando still have a lot to prove if they're going to compete in this confernece, despite their undefeated record. Pittsburgh appears to have the best chance at challenging the Soul in this conference, but they are losing to themselves in their own games. It hasn't been bright for the Soul so far this season either, but this roster of players has the experience of playing through tough stretches and reaching the Arena Bowl in years past, and there's no reason to think they can't do it again this year. 

There’s still a lot of football left in the season and anything can happen, and the Soul will have to get and stay healthy if they are going to compete. Conference play should serve Philadelphia well as they begin to try and put some momentum together to carry on through the season.