Ill will could boil over into playoffs for Sharks, Soul
Adam Markowitz
Saturday July 18, 2015
JACKSONVILLE -- The Arena Football League playoffs are still a few weeks away, but it certainly felt like it was a playoff game at Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Stadium on Saturday night. The Jacksonville Sharks knocked off the Philadelphia Soul for the second time this season by a 74-67 count. The win probably isn't going to make much of a difference to either of these teams, but the messages which were sent in the closing moments of this game could certainly boil over into the second season.
For my money, the Soul were the better of the two teams for the first 52 minutes of this game, and there really wasn't much of an excuse for losing this game.
It's not that Dan Raudabaugh was really all that bad either. Yes, he threw the two interceptions, and yes, he finished a modest 26-of-40 passing, but the fact of the matter is that it was two superior plays by a phenomenal athlete which changed this game.
Greg Reid had the game of his life, picking off two passes in a row in the fourth quarter to will the Sharks to this win.
The subplot though, came just before the final whistle.
We run a PG-rated website, so I can't mention some of the pleasantries which were exchanged between these two teams after the clock reached 0:00, but let's just say that there are a few people who aren't going to be exchanging Christmas cards with one another this year.
This wasn't a penalty-littered game by normal AFL standards, but the teams were chirping at each other from the get go. Every play was challenged, and there were hard hits on every single play… well, at least the ones that didn't end in touchdowns.
On this night, we saw tremendous skill on the field as well. Tommy Grady started off 9-of-10, yet the Sharks, thanks to a couple fumbles, were chasing the game the entire way.
Dan Raudabaugh, who became the 11th man in AFL history to throw for 500 TDs in his career, was throwing lasers all over the field. His pass to Harvey Binford at the end of the first quarter was one of the best I've ever seen in this game, as he hit the rookie on a rope 30 yards down the middle of the field, leading to a 46-yard score.
Joe Hills extended his consecutive games streak with a touchdown to 49 in the regular season and 50 overall, while Tiger Jones moved into fifth place all-time in AFL history in receiving yards, passing up the great Eddie Brown.
But in the end, it was Reid who stole the show and helped the Sharks win this game.
With apologies to the Orlando Predators, who are probably going to win the Southern Division, the two best teams in the American Conference were on this field on this evening, and it would be surprising to me if this wasn't a preview of the conference championship game.
Both of these teams have shown what they are made of. Philadelphia has consistently been the best team in the American Conference, but the one team it hasn't been able to beat consistently is Jacksonville, which now has two wins over the Soul in 2015.
In a week where the Arena Football League had its share of bad news, this was a game which was badly needed. If the playoffs are this good and there is this much animosity between these sides, we could be in for one hell of a road to the ArenaBowl.
