Sharks go for blood in Philadelphia against hated Soul
Adam Markowitz
Wednesday August 19, 2015
Baby, now we got bad blood.
That may as well be the motto for the Jacksonville Sharks here in the 2015 AFL playoffs. If they are going to reach the ArenaBowl this season, they are going to have to overcome two of their biggest nemeses. First up was a date with the Orlando Predators, a team which had beaten them in five of their last six meetings prior to last weekend's 55-33 romp at the Amway Center. Up next is the Philadelphia Soul, who not only played three fierce games with the Sharks this year, but also beat them twice in this very same American Conference Championship Game in 2012 and 2013.
And oh yes, there are a few personal problems here as well.
Beating Orlando was sweet for the fans who traveled the two and a half hours down I-95 and I-4 from Jacksonville. Beating Philadelphia though, is a lot more personal to the players on the field.
We're only a few weeks removed from a pretty big war of words between some of the Soul players and coaches and Derrick Ross, who of course, played in Philadelphia until he was traded in the offseason to LA.
Ross found his way to Jacksonville by never reporting to Los Angeles (or Las Vegas once he was dealt to the Outlaws), and there, he was joined by another former All-Arena player from Philadelphia, Tiger Jones.
Les Moss won't be saying that this Philadelphia team has a bunch of nobodies on it as he stated before playing the Predators. Dan Raudabaugh is certain to be named the first-team All-Arena quarterback on Wednesday, and he's surely going to be named at least one of, if not both of the Offensive Player of the Year and/or the MVP. Marco Thomas is likely a first-team All-Arena guy as well.
Bryan Robinson, Teddy Jennings, LaRico Stevenson, James Romain, Joe Goosby, Kent Richardson… these guys aren't slackers by any stretch of the imagination, and it isn't an accident that the Soul went 15-3.
However, if the Sharks can just avoid beating themselves as they have all season long, they have already proven that they are good enough to beat this Philadelphia side.
Jacksonville has an offense which can score 70 points on anyone, especially if it plays the way it did last week against the Predators. Tommy Grady connected on his first 13 passes, and he put together one of the most efficient games of his career by taking what the Orlando secondary gave him instead of trying to force the football into tight areas. The team only got itself into three fourth down situations the entire game, one of which came after the game was long decided, and it only faced four meaningful third downs.
When you have such red zone weapons as Ross and Joe Hills, you can afford to dink and dunk your way down the field to get into the best position to score instead of taking shots.
Jacksonville went +18 in the turnover department in the regular season and +3 against Orlando last week. Through six games this year, the Sharks' turnover margin was exactly 0, so the club is now +21 in its last 13 games overall, better than any other team in the league in that stretch.
There's no doubt that Jacksonville can be really good. Jacksonville though, can be really bad, too.
This is a team which often feels like it loses focus. It had six games in the regular season in which it allowed teams to go on runs of at least 20 consecutive points against it. Inopportune penalties always seemed to get the best of this side when the going got tough, too.
This is a team which gave up more red zone touchdowns than anyone else in the AFL this season, and it is a team which allowed clubs to convert on 58 percent of their fourth down attempts against it, also worst in the league. Stats like those usually don't belong to teams which need to take just one more step to reach the ArenaBowl.
It's truly a testament to what could have been for Jacksonville. If the Sharks were even average this year on fourth downs, they would have recorded five more stops this season, which roughly translates to another two points per game. For a team which lost two games this season by a single point, that could have easily been the difference between 10-8 and 12-6.
None of that matters now though, nor does it matter that Jacksonville won two of the three games played between these two in the regular season. It doesn't even matter that the two times these teams have met in the playoffs, the Soul have romped to 89-34 and 75-59 victories.
What matters now for Jacksonville is just not beating itself. If the Sharks play a smart game and don't get caught up in all of other stuff that takes away from the fact that this is a really good football team, they'll have a legit chance to exorcize the demons of the past and get a little bit of personal vengeance as well.
One thing is for sure, though. There's going to be a lot of bad blood in this game at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sharks just hope they're the ones taking the bite out of the City of Brotherly Love instead of being the ones left to lick their wounds.