O-Line Key To Success of the Soul

Adam Markowitz
Friday August 16, 2013

The great Casey Stengel used to say that "You have to have a catcher, or you'll have all passed balls." Here in the Arena Football League, you have to have a center, or you'll have all delay of game penalties. You'd better have three great offensive linemen and a great fullback too, or you'll have a lot of quarterbacks on IR by the end of the season.

The Philadelphia Soul have had the best offensive line in the league bar none over the course of the last two seasons, and if they are going to win ArenaBowl XXVI on Saturday afternoon, this unit is going to have to play at its best.

Playing along the offensive line is a thankless job in any form of football. The men who put their bodies on the line in the trenches catch all sorts of grief when they get nailed for a holding penalty or flinch before the snap. Yet when the offense scores 70 points in a game, it's Dan Raudabaugh, Tiger Jones, and the likes who get all of the credit.

Raudabaugh though, knows that his three hogs, Brennen Carvalho, Christian Johnson and Jason Jones are three of the most important men on the field.

"Makes my job easy. They play their butts off," said Raudabaugh during Media Day. "Big shout out to Phil Bogle, our O-Line coach. He's one of the greatest I think to ever play the arena football game at the O-Line position, and you can definitely see how his coaching style and his emotion reflects on our guys and their ability to play on Saturdays."

Carvalho, Johnson, and Jones each had fantastic seasons, as the Soul allowed just seven sacks all year long.

Carvalho and Johnson both made First-Team All-Arena this year a season after all of the members of the Philly offensive line were inexplicably left out of the league honor in 2012.

Derrick Ross gets a lot of credit for what he does as a rusher, but he isn't getting anywhere without his blockers. Ross rushed for 506 yards and 35 TDs on the season, and he now has posted the three best rushing seasons that a man has ever had in the AFL. He's the only man to have three seasons of 30+ touchdowns on the ground, and he is the only fullback to rush for more than 100 touchdowns in a career. If you ever watch Ross run, the one thing that you know is when he has a full head of steam, one man alone isn't taking him down.

However, what Ross doesn't get credit for is his blocking ability. Often times, Ross is forced to take on a hard-rushing Mack linebacker, and not surprisingly, just as he runs the ball with power and force the likes of which the AFL has never seen, he blocks with the exact same mindset. Last week following a blown assignment by one of the offensive linemen that saw Aaron Robbins get a clean run at Raudabaugh, I said to myself out loud, "It's not every day you see someone get a clean shot on him."

The one common thread about these offensive linemen for the Soul is that they don't care about stats, and they don't care about fame and glory. They're all incredibly humble and just want to go out and do their jobs, and they are quick to send praise to others on the team and the coaching staff. (Carvalho did though, smile at me just a bit when I told him we were going to have a featured piece on the Philly offensive line on ArenaFan!)

"I've had some real good coaches," said Carvalho. "Coach Kani [Kauahi] and Coach [Phil] Bogle are the two best coaches I've had in a long time. Coach Kani is probably the best in the whole league. Bogle is a young one and the best I've seen."

Even the normally loud and boisterous Ross took a much more subdued stance when talking about his blocking duties and the job of Philly's front four. "I have the opportunity to block with Brennen Carvalho, Christian Johnson, and this year Jason Jones. With us together and me just stepping in there and putting my head in there, it's pretty much easy."

Continuity is also an important theme here. When Robbie Powell and Rob McMackin weren't cutting it at the center position, the team went out and signed Carvalho, one of the best friends of Nick Davila, from none other than these Arizona Rattlers. It was one of the rare cases when Head Coach Kevin Guy and the Rattlers lost a tremendous player via free agency, and it was clear that Arizona's loss was Philadelphia's gain.

When Clint Dolezel lost his job as the head coach of the folded Dallas Vigilantes, he came to the City of Brotherly Love and brought Ross and Johnson (among others) with him. Adding Carvalho to that core gave the team a blocking unit that could not be penetrated. For as good as Philly was this season, the offensive line from last year gave up just a total of five sacks.

Last season in the ArenaBowl against Arizona, the offensive line probably didn't have all that great of a day. The whole offense was just a bit out of sync, and once the wide receivers really couldn't bust through the press coverage of the big, physical Rattlers DBs, the offensive line was tested to hold the fort for longer than usual. There weren't any sacks allowed, but if you saw Raudabaugh after the game, you could tell that he had taken a beating.

In spite of the fact that Arizona only mustered a modest 19 sacks all season long, good for just 12th in the league, Carvalho knows just how good this front four for the Rattlers really is.

"Stats don't really matter. The Rattlers never really had stats when I was there, but they had the best pass rush in the league by far, and guys don't even talk about it… It's going to be a battle across the board.

At Media Day, Raudabaugh was beaming with confidence about his team's chances in the ArenaBowl. And why shouldn't he be smiling? He's got the best offensive line in the league in front of him. Unlike the men who are doing the job who want no part of the spotlight though, Raudabaugh will be the first to shout at the top of a mountain just how great these big boys are.

"We'll take our guys up against anybody," proudly proclaimed Raudabaugh. "Without those guys, we're not where we are right now."