Even Without Ownership, Predators Hope To Put Southern Division On Lockdown Against Sharks
Adam Markowitz
Friday May 16, 2014
The Southern Division is historically one of the best divisions in the AFL. This year though, there are all sorts of issues for all four of the teams. The Orlando Predators though, in spite of their ownership issues, can really take a chokehold on the division lead on Saturday night when they face off with the Jacksonville Sharks.
One could argue that the Predators haven't really played all that difficult of a schedule as of yet. They have only played one team with an above-.500 record, and that came in a 70-35 loss to the San Jose SaberCats two weeks ago. They have played three road games against five home games, and the only time they have had to get on a flight of any period of time came in that trip to San Jose.
Now, they have injury problems to deal with as well. Jason Boltus, one of the league's most statistically accomplished passers this year, suffered an injured right knee two weeks ago, and there have been varying reports as to whether he is going to be ready to go in this game. If not though, one has to imagine that it will be the newly activated Bernard Morris who will be under center. Morris, an Orlando native, decided to report to the Preds earlier this week, and the timing for him couldn't be any better if Boltus is indeed out of the lineup.
Morris would be inheriting arguably the league's most intriguing group of receivers. Greg Carr is very likely to end up being the Rookie of the Year this season, as he already has 773 yards and 21 TDs and is on a pace for around 50 scores and 1,700 yards for the campaign.
Interestingly enough though, Morris' return would come against the Sharks, who traded him to Orlando as a part of the first Aaron Garcia trade. Garcia, as coincidence would have it, was traded from Jacksonville to the Los Angeles KISS this week.
That doesn't mean that all is going to be good for Morris and the Preds. Their offensive line had all sorts of problems two weeks ago against San Jose, getting backup quarterback Wilson Masoud sacked six times in just over a half of football. The argument could be made that some of that was on Masoud, not on the offensive line, but timing could become an issue here with Morris as well.
It's certainly not fair to say that the Sharks have had a history of being nasty with quarterbacks, but it's definitely worth noting that the team has been getting after the passer. Last week against the Iowa Barnstormers, the Sharks picked up just one sack, but the unit injured both Carson Coffman and Brian Reader. In continuing the form of how interesting things are for Jacksonville right now, it was those injuries which presented the opportunity to trade for JJ Raterink from LA, who was immediately packaged to the Barnstormers to get back James McClinton, a man who the Sharks are quite excited they can plug into the center of their defensive line.
Two weeks prior, another one of the team's former quarterbacks, Kyle Rowley was injured while playing against the Sharks.
Jacksonville's schedule has more or less been the anti-Orlando schedule. The Sharks have already had to play against the Arizona Rattlers twice as well as the Preds and the Philadelphia Soul on the road. However, whereas Orlando really hasn't lost a game this year which it should have easily won, the Sharks still have that ugly 69-62 loss to the Portland Thunder on their record, one which is certainly worth scratching your head over.
Here's the bottom line, though. The Predators are two games up in the Southern Division right now, and a win would put them three up with nine games to play. More importantly, regardless of what happens the rest of the way, Orlando would hold the tiebreaker with Jacksonville as well. The argument could be made that this is a must-win game for the Sharks if they want to win yet another division title, something which they have done in each year of their existence as a franchise.
That said, the Preds have to be very careful yet. They only have four home games left this season, and not one of them is a given victory by any stretch of the imagination. The road games are much more favorable, but as we know in this league (and as the Preds found out against the New Orleans VooDoo in Week 4), anything can happen when you travel away from home.
The Predators have managed to overcome quite a bit this year, ranging anywhere from a new home to new practice facilities to a completely overhauled roster and now, the prospects of not having legitimate ownership for the moment. If they can clear this hurdle on Saturday night though, they could be on their way to their best season since 2006, the last time this proud franchise played for an ArenaBowl.
