Soul Are Real Predators To Get First Win of Season
Harrison Brown
Friday April 11, 2014
It was a rough first three weeks of the 2014 season for the Philadelphia Soul. After a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Arizona Rattlers, a blowout loss to the San Jose SaberCats, and a loss to the Tampa Bay Storm, people began to get worried about the Soul. There still may be concerns, but the Soul returned to 2013 form with a 69-56 win over the Orlando Predators on Thursday night.
“We came together as a team tonight,” said Soul head coach Clint Dolezel. “I was pleased how we came out and played. There are a few things we still need to clean up, but this is the kind of effort that we are used to seeing on a consistent basis.”
The “X factors” of the game we’re the Philadelphia Soul’s defensive backs James Romain, Rayshaun Kizer, Joe Goosby, and Kyle Whitehurst. Even though Orlando’s quarterback Jason Boltus went 23-of-46 passes for 348 yards and eight touchdowns, Goosby had an interception and Kizer, Romain, and Whitehurst played lockdown defense all night. There were few times you saw a Soul defensive back truly get “burned” throughout the game. Ironically enough, Orlando’s head coach Rob Keefe is a former Philadelphia Soul defensive back.
As slow as last week was for the Soul’s defensive line, Boltus dealt with pressure a lot last night, even once having his helmet ripped off by Bryan Robinson, then throwing a deep bomb for a touchdown. This week we saw much more of Teddy Jennings instead of Morkeith Brown. Jason Holman and TJ Langley both continued to see time at the nose guard position. Personally, I’m a fan of Langley to see more time over Holman. Holman is a good all-around lineman and one of the best coming off the bench for any team. Langley holds a whole lot of potential in this league though and consistently blew up Orlando’s center last night.
Dan Raudabugh seems to have had a 360 turn around since his below mediocre performance against the SaberCats in week two. Raudabugh completed 20-of-22 pass, and he also threw for 254 yards and seven touchdowns. It’s a realistic question to ask if Raudabugh’s past two weeks success was due to playing less talented teams as of late. With all due respect to Tampa and Orlando, two teams playing good football so far this season, they're no Arizona or San Jose. Only time will tell as the Soul take on a good backfield in Jacksonville next week.
