Previewing Week One: Columbus at Albany
Joe Couch
Friday April 26, 2019
The time is finally here! It was nearly three months ago when we found out that the Columbus Destroyers would be back in the Arena Football League. After all those anticipatory days, football will be back for the Destroyers franchise on Saturday. However, it is not the best welcome back present, as Columbus goes onto the road and faces the Albany Empire, who had the best regular season record last season in the league.
Albany is loaded as a football team, but especially on the offensive side of the football. The Empire have the best quarterback in the league, Tommy Grady, and he is not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon. Grady was the AFL MVP, the AFL Offensive Player of the Year, and was selected as First Team All-Arena last season. Tommy Grady completed 66.9 percentage of his passes last season with Albany, for 2,957 yards, and had 81 touchdown passes, while only throwing 6 interceptions. He is by far one of the greatest to play the quarterback position in league history. It will be very interesting to see what type of defensive sets Columbus will show Grady and this Albany offense.
Not only does Albany have the best quarterback in the league, but they do have a three-headed monster lining up at the wide receiver position. Malachi Jones, Quentin Sims, and Collin Taylor are three of the best receivers this league has to offer. Malachi Jones had a break-out rookie season last year with the Empire. He won AFL Rookie of the Year, AFL Wide Receiver of the Year, and was selected as First Team All-Arena last season. His statistics last season were mind-blowing for a rookie as he had 77 receptions, 1,156 receiving yards, and 29 receiving touchdowns.
Quentin Sims also is part of this loaded offense, as he tries to get back on track and put up big numbers like he did in Cleveland a few years ago. Sims had over 50 touchdowns and over 2,000 receiving yards during the two year span he was with the Cleveland Gladiators in 2016 and 2017. Last season, he played for the Baltimore Brigade, having only 576 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns, which are both low for his standards. This Albany offense will be so loaded that he should get a lot of targets throughout the season. Collin Taylor is also looking to get back on track and put up numbers like he did when he was with the Cleveland Gladiators. He had one of the greatest receiving years in league history in 2015 when he caught 43 touchdown passes. Last season, he played with the Empire and had 512 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns. Both receivers are looking to put up big numbers this season, as they will have many opportunities to with a quarterback like Tommy Grady throwing to them.
The one weak spot on this Albany Empire team is their secondary. If Columbus wants to have a chance of winning this game, they must have a good passing game and connect on some deep passes. The projected starting quarterback for our Destroyers is Grant Russell. Russell is a rookie in the AFL, but not a rookie when it comes to the quarterback position. He played collegiate at Ohio Dominican University, where he was the 2017 G-MAC Player of the Year, a Harlon Hill Trophy Candidate as the best Division II football player in the country, and an Honorable Mention All-American by D2football.com. Grant led Division II in completion percentage and passing efficiency, which ended up being the 7th best passing efficiency in DII history. He had over 8,500 passing yards and 73 touchdowns in college. Grant Russell looks poised and ready to lead this Columbus team into Albany.
Russell will also be helped by a good receiving core that Columbus has signed this season. Donovan Morgan, even thought coming out of retirement, will still be a huge playmaker for this team. He is one of the best to ever play in the league at the receiver position. The rest of the receiving core are new to the AFL, so Morgan has played a huge role in mentoring and teaching them the ways of arena football. They all have big time football experience, so this spotlight in the AFL opener should be no problem for the new receivers.
The defense is going to be the strong suit for this Destroyer team. Having players like Varmah Sonie, KC Obi, Khreem Smith, Derrick Summers, Brandon Stephens, Terrence Taylor, and LaRico Stevenson show that the Destroyers are led by a bunch of veterans on the defensive side of the ball. It will be very interesting to watch their defense go up against the high-power offense that Albany brings to the field. All in all, this game is a very good test for the Columbus Destroyers in week one. A lot of questions will be answered Saturday for the Destroyers. From what I have seen in practice and watching old game clips, I believe that the Columbus Destroyers will be able to go into Albany and get the week one upset. My final score prediction for Saturday is Columbus-56 Albany-49. I hope everyone tunes into Week One of the AFL season, which begins Friday and ends Saturday with the Columbus-Albany game at 7:00 P.M. ET.
