The Philadelphia Soul improved their record to 6-0 as they beat the visiting Utah Blaze 64-56 at the Wachovia Spectrum last night. This was a sloppy performance by the league's best offense and defense as they were flagged with a myriad of penalties. What is a "2nd neutral zone infraction" anyway? For the first time, since we have signed Graziani, the team seemed to weather the storm while Tony was sidelined with an injury. He is expected to be back for the San Jose game this week.

As for the Blaze, all I can say is that this team seems to be snake bitten. They have the worst luck in the league and it doesn't seem to help that veteran players like Dwayne Missouri are constantly taking stupid penalties for late hits. You have got to be better than that if you want to win in this league.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the San Jose game, this Saturday at 10:00 PM Est. I have no idea if this game is being televised or not. I will let you know when I give you a preview of the game.

Later all


P.S. Dallas won again too, so they are now 6-0 as well.

        

 The winless Utah Blaze (0-5) head to Philadelphia to take on the undefeated Philadelphia Soul (5-0) at the Wachovia Spectrum this Saturday evening at 7:00 PM. That's right sports fans I said Spectrum. The Sixers will be at the Center at that time so the Soul get moved to the Spectrum. In my opinion, this is better than having to move the game to a different time or date all together.

The Blaze will be bringing with them 5 former Soul players;

WR Aaron Boone
DL EJ Burt
DB Reggie Doster
WR JJ McKelvey
DL Dwayne Missouri

I am sure you remember most, if not all of these names. Personally, I can not wait for Doster to take the field. It will not matter who he covers, they will be open for six. However, it will be awfully wierd to see D-Mo in another team's colors.

Go Soul!!!!!

        

The Soul stay perfect at 5-0 as they beat the Tampa Bay Storm 59-51 at the Wachovia Center last Saturday afternoon. The record is a franchise best and QB Matt D'Orazio won Player of the Week Honors as he completed  25 of 35 passes for 296 yards and seven touchdowns. WRs Chris Jackson and Larry Brackins both caught 3 of those TDs each.

The highlight of the game came from the second to the last play of the game when a nun (her name escapes my memory right now, although Sister Delores comes to mind) caught a pass from Storm QB Brett Dietz. The fans at the Wachovia Center gave her a standing ovation.

        

The 2-1 Tampa Bay Storm will travel to 4-0 Philadelphia Soul this Saturday afternoon 2 PM at the Wachovia Center. Unfortunately, yours truly will not be in attendence and will have to TiVo the game as I promised Mom I would take her to the Phillies exhibition game against Toronto. At least I will get to boo Scott Rolen, no wait, he's on the DL already...big shock there.

Anyway, the Soul, while having an unbelievable offense is quietly having a stand out defensive year. Consider this, they have the league leader in sacks, Gabe Nyenhuis with 5, Mike Brown is third best in interceptions with 3, and Brian Mance is 4th best in the league with 29.5 tackles with 28 of them being solo. The Soul's team defense, as a whole, are doing very well.

Tampa Bay will be without star WR Terrill Shaw, who was placed on IR on 3/17. They still have Lawerence Samuels and Brett Dietz is an up and coming QB for the Storm.

This game is not as easy as it would seem. This team will always be dangerous as long as Tim Marcum continues to coach them. With that said, I have to continue taking the Soul as I do believe that they will go 19-0.

Go Soul!!!!!!!

Oh this game will be nationally broadcasted on ESPN2 and ESPN2HD.

        

Yes, that is correct. That have won twice. I apologize for not posting after the Dragons game. I was having issues with YouTube. Turns out, my files were too big. It is fixed now and the video highlights are not posted.

The Dragons game.

    The big news coming out of the New York Dragons game was that Tony Graziani was hurt and is out 3-4 weeks. The injury occurred after John Nix, a defensive lineman for the Dragons, decided that he was going to dive into Tony's knee. This injury could have been a career ender had Tony not been wearing a knee brace. Nix's behavior after the hit was somehow far more reprehensible then him taking aim at Graziani. After he hits Tony, he spit on OL Justin Cleveland, who then went after Nix. The Dragon coaches then removed Nix from the game only to put him back in after a couple of series. Nix was  also overheard saying to his teammates, while on the bench, "I don't care. That's not my team."  Upon returning to the game, Nix then spit on QB Matt D'orazio and was finally ejected from the game. As he was being escorted to the locker room, he flashed a gang symbol and cursed out the fans. The league's reaction to this... a 1 game suspension and a $1,000 fine.

 The two things that this league prides itself on, players safety and fan friendliness, John Nix chose to wipe his ass on. To which, I decided to express my frustration and emailed Jerry Trice of the league's front office. Normally, I would not post private communication between myself and someone from the league but his response was so ambivalent to what I had said that I need to show you this...

Mr. Trice,

      I just read that John Nix was suspended for one game and received a $1,000 fine. I have to ask, is this joke? Before you answer, let’s review what happened that day. First Nix propels himself into an opposing player’s knee (a franchise QB, mind you) and causes an injury where the player is out for 3-4 weeks. Keep in mind that this was well after the ball was thrown and there was no turnover, so there was no reason to hit the QB. Then after the play was over, he hits another opposing player and spits on him. The situation becomes so heated that his own coaches felt the need to remove him from the game. After a little while, when things seemed to have calmed down, the New York coaches allowed him back in (if you wanted to suspend them for one game for this, I would be fine with that), he proceeds to act in pretty much the same manner. Hitting players after the whistle and spitting on them. At this point, the referees throw him out. On his way out of the game, he is flashing gang symbols (make no mistake. That was a gang symbol he was flashing), that and cursing and spitting on fans (I do believe your league’s Fan’s Bill of Rights do not allow such behavior but I maybe wrong on that).

      After the game is over things start to leak out that this is not the first time the Soul has had these issues with Nix. If you are not aware please watch this http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3300241 . It’s ESPN’s Last Man Standing. Several Soul players and coaches point out that he has acted like this before in the scrimmages. But I am sure this was uncovered in the league’s investigation into Nix’s behavior. Why else did it take so long to come up with a punishment?

      The main thing that attracted me, and many others, to this league is the fact that you seem to get it, that the fans and player’s safety are 1 and 1a on the league’s priority list. Now after I have explained the situation, does a 1 game suspension seem fair to you? I hope it does not because if something more is not done, I may not re-new my season tickets next year.

His response....

Sorry you are dissapointed
Thank you for your opinion
Jerry Trice

With a league dying for attention, for him to be ambivalent about my not renewing my season tickets is just plain wrong. How about explaining to me that the fine and suspension that Nix received is the highest that the league can impose based on the collective bargain agreement? Is that too much to ask? Even the NFL, where there are fans lining up to get season tickets to their games, is not that arrogant to blow me off like that.

And how can the league allow this man to have email when he has no idea how spell check works?

This is all I am going to post about this incident because it's over and done with. I am moving on now.

The Avengers Game

With Matt D'Orazio leading the charge, the Philadelpia Soul flew out west to play the LA Avengers for a Thursday night game. I don't know how, because I did not think the Soul looked particularly crisp under D'Orazio, but somehow they won 71-34. WR Chris Jackson had 6 touchdowns in his homecoming and caught his 900th pass in his AFL career, so congratulations to Chris. This game was the wierdest game I ever saw. Through the first 2 and a half quarters there were no defensive stops. The two teams exchanged touchdowns for 37 minutes. Then all of a sudden the Soul's defensive line took over scoring 30 unanswered points, en route to the blow out. It was amazing.

Download | Duration: 00:02:24

        

The Philadelphia Soul (2-0) will host the New York Dragons (1-1) at the Wachovia Center tomorrow afternoon. This will not be a total home field advantage as Joe Krausey posted on the Soul message boards that anywhere from 500-1000 New York Dragon fans will be coming down to root for their team. The reason for this is that there is some sort of bet between the 2 franchises. I like this mentality. It helps promote the league. And it could be worse, it could be Dallas fans.

Now about the game. I fully admit, I have not seen any Dragons games other the when they came here last year in about 2 years. As you might have guessed, being that this is phillysoulfan.com, that I am a huge Soul fan. I also predicted before the season started that the Soul will go 19-0. With all that said, I don't see how the Dragons will have any chance at beating the Soul. Who is going to cover Jackson? Who is going to cover Brackins? Who is going to step up and hit Graziani? I can't honestly tell you. Normally, I would say that this is going to be a blow out and come the fourth quarter we will be wondering if we will break the Soul record in points scored in a game (78 I think is the new record). But this is a division rivalry. The Soul and Dragons have a lot of bad blood between them. I think this is going to be a very physical game but in the end the Soul will prevail.

        

The Philadelphia are 2-0 now after going to Chicago and beating the Chicago Rush 60-42. Player of the Game honors goes to Soul DB Mike Brown who had 2 interceptions and returned a kickoff for a touchdown. This game was a real nail-biter all the way until the final 16 seconds when Connor Hughes redeemed his 3 PAT misses by kicking the nail-in-the-coffin Field Goal making it a 3 possession game.

        

The 1-0 Philadelphia Soul head to the climate controlled tundra of Allstate Arena in Chicago to take on the similar 1-0 new look Chicago Rush. Gone are QB Matt D'Orazio (FA to the Soul) and WR Bobby Sippio (to the NFL) and in are QB Seddrick Bonner (FA - Arizona) and WR Damian Harrell (FA - Colorado). The Rush man handled their week 1 opponent and defending Arena Bowl champions San Jose Sabercats, with the team's defense holding them to just 47 points. Meanwhile, their offense put up an equally impressive 70 point against the defending champs.

The Philadelphia Soul put on an offensive show last week against the Predators. The Soul would have scored a touchdown every time they had the ball, had they not been trying to kill the clock on their last drive. The Soul's defense is nothing to laugh at either. Their pass rush is fierce as they hurried Stafford in to countless bad throws last week, while putting him into the ground just about every time he dropped back to pass.

The Soul have played the Chicago Rush every year in their young existence. They have played them twice in Philly and twice in Chicago. The home team has won every time. The Soul have also beaten them each of the last two seasons. Both teams are also owned by former NFL icons, Ron Jaworski in Philadelphia and Mike Ditka in Chicago.

This is going to be a tough game to predict, as both teams are so evenly matched (They both have left handed QBs, for crying out loud). I am going to predict that the Soul will win (I have to, I said they are going 19-0) and I also think that this will be a preview of the Arena Bowl.

Here's a link to the official AFL preview.

        

If this week's game is a sign of things to come, all I have to say is "Oh my God". Graziani 9 touchdown passes, Jackson 4 touchdown receptions, and Mike Brown returned a kickoff for a TD and almost broke loose on two other occasions. Needless to say the Soul routed the Predators 77-56. Orlando only stopped the Soul one time, the last drive of the game as time expired. Let's hope they keep up the intensity next week on the road.

Download | Duration: 00:12:33

        

It's the dawn of a new Soul season. Everything is looking bright and glorious. Tonight your Philadelphia Soul are hosting the much hated Orlando Predators led by Head Coach Jay Gruden. I'd tell you all the roster moves the Soul made as to why I think we will win, but it will give me, and you, a headache. The Soul have beaten the Predators the last two times we have played them including a first round win over them in the playoffs last season. The Predators are always dangerous because of the experience of Jay Gruden. They are a fordable foe.

For more information on tonight's game click here.