Sharks win the war in Orlando, embarrassing Preds on home field

Adam Markowitz
Saturday August 15, 2015

ORLANDO -- The Orlando Predators won the battle in the regular season, but the Jacksonville Sharks have definitively won the war.

After two weeks of flaunting, "We Own the South," it isn't the Predators, but the Sharks who will be representing the Southern Division in the American Conference Championship Game in Philadelphia next week following a 55-33 victory for the visitors in the quarterfinals of the AFL playoffs.

The hero on this night was Tommy Grady, who went 29-of-37 for 291 yards and five TDs in what might've been the best game of his entire career. The much-maligned signal caller had only won one playoff game in his career in spite of his gaudy statistics, but on Saturday night, he put up a huge game on the road in one of the most hostile environments in the AFL.

It was a night when the stars truly came to play for the Sharks. All of the big names – the ones who supposedly hadn't come together as a team yet leading into the second season – had nights to remember.

Grady, picked up from Pittsburgh, had the night of his life.

Derrick Ross, added from Philadelphia by way of Los Angeles, rumbled for two touchdowns.

Joe Hills, a Tampa Bay castaway, had 10 catches for 88 yards and four touchdowns.

Tiger Jones, another former Soul player, had six receptions, 68 yards and a trip to the end zone.

Alvin Ray Jackson, an AFL mercenary at this point in his career, had a huge interception to turn the tide in the second quarter.

And that's why the Sharks are headed to the American Conference Championship Game.

All the credit in the world goes out to Les Moss and the Jacksonville coaching staff for making this a simple game for Grady and the offense. No, it wasn't the gaudiest game of the signal callers' career, but it was an effective one. Of his seven incomplete passes, three were intentionally thrown away instead of put into bad spots which could have been intercepted. For much of the game, he was on a pace to challenge the record for the highest completion percentage in a playoff game in league history. He finished at 78.4 percent.

What's more notable for Jacksonville is that it didn't give up when the going got tough as it has in so many other instances this season. After taking a 35-14 lead into the locker room, the Predators scored out of the gates in the second half and got a stop on the ensuing drive before scoring again to make it 35-27.

That's where the wheels could've fallen off and historically would have both for Grady and for the Sharks.

Instead, Grady methodically worked the ball down the field and hit Joe Hills on a fade pass – a route which Hills dominated the undersized Orlando cornerbacks all night long – to go back up 42-27.

A stroke of luck helped the Sharks out on a deep pass by Randy Hippeard which was picked off by Greg Reid after hitting the top of the dasher board. From there, Jacksonville turned on the jets and killed off this game.

Orlando ran up against a buzz saw in this game, but it didn't do itself any favors either.

The Predators were just never on their game offensively. Hippeard went just 25-of-46 for 287 yards with five TDs and two INTs, some stats of which were accumulated in garbage time. Receivers never really looked to get any separation from the excellent Jacksonville defensive backs, and when there was separation, Hippeard was often well off on his deep throws.

Defensively, there was just no resistance whatsoever. Right from the opening drive of the game, Grady was allowed to do pretty much whatever he wanted underneath. Orlando wasn't going to get burned, and it stuck in its two-deep coverage for much of the game.

However, the flaw in that thought is that the Sharks have two of the best red-zone threats in the AFL in Hills and Ross. Both were impactful for sure. Ross scored on two relatively short touchdowns. Hills scored four times from inside the 10.

For Orlando, its season comes to a close in disappointing fashion. The 22-point margin of defeat was the biggest of any of the playoff games in the first round of the playoffs, and it was the team's worst loss to end a season in its history.

Jacksonville will advance to next week's game against the Philadelphia Soul, the third time these two teams have met in the American Conference Championship Game in the last four seasons.

The Sharks did win two of the three games again Philadelphia this year, but their one trip to the City of Brotherly Love early in the season ended in a 63-52 loss in a game which wasn't nearly as close as the final score indicated.

"Our only goal is to win the ArenaBowl," said Jacksonville's owner, Jeff Bouchy after the victory. "Tonight, we played like th team we all think we can be. Step 1 is done. Onto Step 2."

Step 2 for the Sharks will take place next Sunday afternoon at 5:00 in Philadelphia in a game which will be seen live on the CBS Sports Network.