Hungry Rattlers Hope To Return To ArenaBowl Against Utah

Adam Markowitz
Saturday August 4, 2012

All season long, Head Coach Kevin Guy has been saying to his Arizona Rattlers, "We're not playing for hats and jerseys this year. We're playing for a championship." Now, the Rattlers have a chance to become the first team since the San Jose SaberCats in 2007 and 2008 to go to back-to-back ArenaBowls if they can beat the Utah Blaze on Saturday night.

Remarkably, this is going to be the fifth straight ArenaBowl in which the Western Division is going to be represented. If the Blaze pull off the upset in the Snake Pit, all four teams in the division will have been to the ArenaBowl in the last five years.

The big concern that both of these teams have to have is over their offenses. Yes, it seems odd to be saying that when in one corner, you have a man in QB Tommy Grady that threw for 142 TDs in the regular season, and in the other corner, you have QB Nick Davila, who led Arizona to the ArenaBowl last year. But alas, it's true. Neither signal caller had a particularly good game in the first round of the playoffs last week, and both have shown some signs of weakness.

Davila averaged 6.85 touchdown passes per game over the course of his first 13 games. Since that point though, he has had accounted for just 30 total touchdown (5.00 per game) against 10 INTs. The former Cincinnati Bearcat also completed 68.1% of his passes over the course of his first 15 games. Since then, that completion percentage has tailed off to just 57.3%.

As we said earlier, Grady threw for 142 TDs this year in the regular season, smashing the record for the most touchdown passes in a single season in professional football history. He also set a league record for the most passing yards in a season with 5,863. These last two weeks though, there definitely is some reason to scratch your head. Grady has thrown for just a total of 10 TDs against three INTs in those two outings, and the team, which scored at will for the mass majority of the season, has just 69 total points to show for those games.

Grady has had a major challenge trying to find the right combination of wide receivers. Aaron LeSue has been the consistent all year long, coming up with 1,810 yards and 56 TDs on 155 receptions. However, no other receiver played in more than 11 games for the team this year. Tysson Poots suited up 11 times for the Blaze in 2012, and he is expected to play after suffering a bad leg injury at the tail end of the win over the San Antonio Talons. Alvance Robinson, Shaun Kauleinamoku, Ernest Pierce, Jeremy Kelley, and Chris Bocage have all spent time at receiver as well on this campaign.

Both defense should be smiling just a bit, though. In spite of the fact that the team finished ranked dead last in the National Conference in points allowed this year with 1,051, the Blaze should be proud of what they accomplished in the second half of this season. Defensive Coordinator Rob Keefe started off the campaign as the Offensive Coordinator of the Orlando Predators, but now that he has made the switch to the Beehive State, matters have most certainly improved. We do have to remember that this has been an easier schedule in the second half of the campaign, but Utah has allowed 47.6 points per game since Keefe has taken over the offense. The squad allowed 64.0 points per game before that.

The Arizona defense has been out of this world over the course of the last two weeks. The Kansas City Command managed just 22 points against the Rats in the regular season finale that ensured that this game would be in the Snake Pit, and that was just a precursor to what proved to be an out-of-this-world game against QB Mark Grieb and the San Jose SaberCats. What you'll see on the box score is 48 points allowed, which doesn't look all that fantastic. What you don't see though, is that San Jose dropped 148 points in two games against the Rattlers in the regular season, and this time around, they came up with nine stops against one of the best offenses in the league.

The history for the Blaze against Arizona is as deep as any rivalry that they have in their history. These two teams have met 13 times, with the Rattlers getting the best of all of the games, including their one and only postseason meeting in 2006. These two teams have also shared a tremendous quarterback (Joe Germaine), an outstanding receiver (Siaha Burley), another great veteran (Orshawnte Bryant), and even a head coach (Danny White). None of those players are going to be involved in this game, but it is just further proof of how deep the ties run between these two squads.

The winner will be going on to NOLA, where the Philadelphia Soul will be awaiting the winner.

BetOnline Sportsbook features the Rattlers at -8, while the total was the higher of the two this weekend at 118.