Jacksonville stakes claim to Southern Division lead with biggest half of football of season
Adam Markowitz
Saturday June 6, 2015
Maybe the Jacksonville Sharks aren't going 18-0. But if they play with the heart and intensity they played the second half with against the Orlando Predators on Saturday night, they still might ultimately be the ArenaBowl champions.
No one can quite put their finger on what has been wrong in Jacksonville this year. Clearly, talent isn't the issue with the approximately 2,673 All-Arena players on the roster (give or take a few). Certainly, Les Moss hasn't forgotten how to coach. You can't blame a lack of a home field advantage either.
It would be easy to just blame timing and cohesion, but every team in the AFL goes through tons of roster changes as the 18-game marathon wears on.
No one in Jacksonville is going to like this take, but I wonder whether the team just wasn't playing that hard in the first half of the season. There are a lot of players out there dressed in red that are used to success. The season is a long one, and the fact of the matter is that this team had to feel as though it could have won the Southern Division with one hand tied behind its back. I've said it all year long to everyone I've spoken to: You've gotta get in, and you've gotta win three games. That's all you have to do.
And in fairness to Jacksonville, the "get in" part should have been a good assumption. The Predators certainly aren't better than they were last year, and the Tampa Bay Storm haven't won a massive game since 2010. The Southern Division title really should be there for the taking.
Except for one problem: You still have to go out there and win games.
Last week against the Los Angeles KISS was a microcosm of Jacksonville's season. The team came out of the blocks on fire, scored the first 21 points of the night and should have ultimately put the game away relatively early. Instead, a bad LA team hung around and hung around and hung around, and the next thing you know, if that last throw of the game is put in a better spot, the KISS would no longer have a bagel in the win column, and we'd be talking about a certified disaster in Jacksonville.
The script from the game in Tinseltown has been written time and time again this year with a different ending for the Sharks. They erased a 21-0 deficit against the New Orleans VooDoo in Week 1. They went from down 28 to losing by just 11 to the Philadelphia Soul in Week 3. They came closer to beating the San Jose SaberCats than anyone in the league, trailing by just three with five minutes left to play in the game. But all those games were lost.
We've also seen this team play dominating ball this year from start to finish when it is challenged to do so. Don't believe me? Just ask Las Vegas and Philadelphia.
The Sharks sleepwalked their way through the first 29 minutes or so against Orlando on Saturday, trailing 23-13 and staring a potential 17-point deficit in the face following Tommy Grady's second pick of the night. They were fortunate to get into the locker room at 23-16, where Les Moss told his team that it had to score on every single drive the rest of the night.
Instead of keeping to the lackluster script, Jacksonville did just as its coach suggested.
First it was a Derrick Ross touchdown. Then it was a Jeron Harvey touchdown. Then the defense made a stop. Then Tiger Jones scored. Then there was another stop. And another score. And another. And another. And another.
In totality, the Sharks put up a 50 burger in the second half against the Predators, their best half of football offensively by a country mile this season.
Grady, who was 10-of-18 in the first half, went 16-of-18 in the second half, throwing for nearly 200 yards and five TDs without throwing a single pick or anything near to it.
This Sharks defense, one which has arguably the best pass rusher in the game in Joe Sykes, the best rookie defender in the game in Greg Reid and one of the truly elite jack linebackers in LaRoche Jackson, finally showed up the way that you just knew they could, forcing two turnovers and a safety.
But here was the bottom line: They won the game. And they had to do so.
A loss on Saturday, and the Sharks would have been two games back in the Southern Division with just one game left against the Predators to try to make that game up (and that game is to be played in Orlando). The reality would have had to set in that the team was going to have to play three road playoff games to win a championship, and that's only if Jacksonville would get into the playoffs, far from a guarantee.
But now, the perception is much different. The Sharks are 6-4, winners of five straight games, and they now have staked a claim to first place in the division. They'll be heavy favorites next week in Tampa, and if they win that game, there's a decent chance that Orlando will lose its next two against Philly and Arizona and all of a sudden be two back in the loss column itself.
Saturday night wasn't a perfect night in Jacksonville, and it has been far from the perfect season. But for once, the Sharks didn't have to be perfect to get the job done. They just had to win the game. No one is going to go back and ask how they got the job done. But all of us who watched that game can see what happens when this team is at its best. Jacksonville is clearly one of the most dangerous teams in the league.