Soul Face Biggest Test in Tampa
Craig T. Mackey
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Storm are the defending champions and they wear that bulls-eye on their chest. Teams always bring out that extra to try to knock them off. This week will be no different for the Soul, even if the Storm have struggled to 1-2 record in the young season.
Let us not forget that the Storm came out of the gates with the same 1-2 record last year. It was in week four that they finally woke up and then went on to win eight straight and 11 of their last 13 games.
This year is a little different. In their two losses last year, one was in overtime and the other was by only three points. The two losses this year have not been typical for a defending champion. They gave up 70 points, a franchise record at home, in a loss to the Georgia Force in week two. Their other loss came last week to the expansion Austin Wranglers.
The Storm will still be a good measuring stick for the Soul. They can still throw the ball against anybody and have one of the best pass rushes in the league. The defense has three different players with at least one sack.
On offense, they are led by a couple players with local ties. Quarterback Shane Stafford is a Pennsylvania native and wide receiver Freddie Solomon played four years with the Eagles in the late 90’s.
Solomon leads the Arena Football League with 10 touchdowns and will test the Soul secondary. Last week Columbus tried to attack the secondary often and were only successful once. I am sure that Tampa coach Tim Marcum will try to do the same thing.
Meanwhile, the Soul will need to protect Nick Browder as well as they did against Columbus. With that protection, Browder was able to get comfortable in the pocket and hit six different receivers.
Tyronne Jones and Ricky Ross have been Browder’s favorite targets. Jones had seven touchdowns this season and Ross has five. Chris “Soul Train” Ryan leads the ground attack.
The Soul defense is led by Joseph Todd, who is tied for the league lead with two interceptions. Todd will have his hands full this week trying to slow down Solomon and the rest of the Storm air attack.
It may be just the fourth week, but this is big game for the Soul. They are 1-2 and their schedule does not get any easier in the next couple weeks. Yes, they are an expansion team, but so are the Wranglers (2-1) and the New Orleans VooDoo (3-0). The Wrangler wins were against Tampa Bay and Orlando, two teams that have each made a number of appearances in the ArenaBowl.
A win against the defending champions will also give the team more confidence. They started out slow for the first 7 quarters of the season. The fourth quarter of the Dallas game was the turning point in the young season. Since then, they have showed lots of improvement. They have cut down on the penalties, put more pressure on opposing quarterback and increased protection for Browder.
There are still a few things that they need to work on and the kicking game is the most obvious. After trading Brian Gowins this week, Soul coach Michael Trigg is showing confidence in his struggling kicker Ken Hinsley. Hinsley, in his first season in the league, now knows he is the kicker for this team and this should help his confidence with nobody looking over his shoulders.
Gowins was traded to Las Vegas for wide receiver/linebacker Jeriod Jackson and then Jackson was rerouted to Los Angeles where the Soul ultimately ended up with offensive/defensive lineman La’Zerius White after Mike Ulufale failed his physical.
The Soul were looking forward to adding Ulufale, who is a former All-Arena performer and puts a lot of pressure on the quarterback. The defense that is present will still look to put pressure on Stafford and get the Soul to the .500 mark for first time in franchise history.
Extra Soul
Coach Michael Trigg is 2-7 lifetime against Tampa Bay, with his last win against them coming in 1999 when he was the coach of Grand Rapids… Keita Crespina will return to Tampa for the first since being traded in the off-season… Browder ranks in the top 10 in both passing yards and touchdowns… The game can be seen on NBC-10 at 3:00 p.m. in the Philadelphia area.
Craig T Mackey is a an engineer in Philadelphia. He is a huge philadelphia sports fan. He has worked for NFL Films in the past and is a 1999 graduate of Penn State University with a bachelors degree in journalism.
