Stacked SaberCats, Rattlers Ready To Rumble
Adam Markowitz
Friday August 2, 2013
Forty times, the San Jose SaberCats and the Arizona Rattlers have met in their illustrious histories. Six times they have met in the playoffs. There are 12 ArenaBowl appearances and seven championships between the clubs, and there were 28 wins between the two this year. On Sunday, one will advance to the National Conference Finals to take on the Spokane Shock.
The arms race has been on all season long between the Rattlers and the SaberCats.
Arizona features a roster with a slew of All-Arena type of players. The leader of the bunch is QB Nick Davila, who is on pace to set all sorts of records. Our Andy Lopusnak even referred to Davila as one of the best eight quarterbacks in the history of the game.
Statistically speaking, this was the worst year in Davila's four-year career. He set career lows in completed passes (353), passing yards (4,842), and completion percentage (65.1%), but there is obviously no shame in any of those numbers. Davila became the first quarterback in AFL history to throw for at least 4,000 yards in each of his first four seasons in the AFL, and the first to throw for at least 100 touchdowns in each of his first four seasons in the league as well. Last week, Davila surpassed the 20,000-passing yard mark for his career as well.
It helps dramatically that the Rattlers have the last four AFL Rookies of the Year at the wide receiver position. WRs Rod Windsor, Kerry Reed, Maurice Purfiy, and Tysson Poots all had solid years for Arizona, and Jared Perry was a viable pass-catching option as well. FB Odie Armstrong is known as one of the best fullbacks in the league, and the offensive line tied for the third best in the league with just 16 sacks allowed all season long.
On the other side of the ball, there are ball hawks all over the place. DB Virgil Gray tied for the league lead in interceptions with 15, while DB Marquis Floyd and DB Arkeith Brown had 17 picks between them. Arizona returned nine interceptions for touchdowns this year, and the team scored 15 non-offensive touchdowns in 18 games this season.
San Jose was not to be outdone. The argument could be made that since QB Aaron Garcia was sent to Orlando and QB Russ Michna took over the team that the SaberCats have been the best in the AFL. Head Coach Darren Arbet and company averaged 59.1 points per game since Michna took over under center.
The SaberCats ranked second in the league in total defense this year at 255.5 yards per game allowed. The Rattlers only averaged allowing 247.0 yards per game when they took on San Jose.
The SaberCats had a problem this year beating some of the best teams in the league. They were beaten by Spokane twice, and they were toppled by the #2 seed in the American Conference, the Philadelphia Soul by 22 points just two weeks ago. However, the biggest win of the season came on June 22nd against these Rattlers. In that game, Arizona gave up 51 points in a span of just under 20 minutes of game time, easily the worst stretch this season that the team has ever had.
Over the course of the last several weeks, San Jose has signed a number of players who were excellent players in the AFL pre-2010. DL Duke Pettijohn is expected to be make his San Jose debut on Sunday (though he was placed on the refused to report list on Friday), while WR James Roe will be playing in his third game with the team. WR/DB Rashied Davis was signed two weeks ago as well, but he was injured in his first game back in San Jose.
Should San Jose win this game, it will be traveling to Spokane to take on the Shock next week. An Arizona victory sets up a duel between the Rattlers and the Shock in the Snake Pit with a spot in ArenaBowl XXVI on the line.
