Coming off their home opener loss to the Cleveland Gladiators, The Philadelphia Soul look to get back on the winning track against another premier defensive squad, the Georgia Force. Both teams are 2-1 on the season and the game should prove to be another close one for the Soul.
The Georgia Force will pose big problems for the Soul based on their body of work so far. The number one scoring offense in the league (69.7) is facing off with the Force who are the AFL's top scoring defense (43.3) and top rushing defense (4 yards per attempt). The Force also rank in the upper half of the league in numerous other defensive categories.
When this type of match-up occurs, usually both teams don't play up to their averages exactly, but the Soul are facing a huge obstacle this week. WR Donovan Morgan is out with a broken wrist leaving WR Larry Brackins to step up into the 3rd wide receiver slot. Morgan is second on the team in receiving yards (213), and first in receptions (23) and TD's (8). Brackins is used more in the red zone and has only caught 5 catches for 30 yards and 2 TD's.
Don't forget that Morgan is also valuable in the running game with him having 6 rushes for 47 yards. Brackins can still play, but losing Morgan takes away one of the team's best play-makers in a game where they will need all the weapons they can get.
The Georgia Force are only ranked 13th in scoring offense (52.3), but the Gladiators are ranked 14th (52.0) and they were able to put up 68 points against the Soul. At this point fans should just expect the worst and hope for the best when it comes down to how the defense will preform. They give up 63 points a game (3rd worst) and do not create many stops for their offense which likes to turn the ball over quite a bit.
This is where the Soul do not match up favorably with the Force again. The Force have the best turnover ratio at +8 while the Soul have the 4th worst at -3. The Force have forced (pun not intended) 14 turnovers (4 fumble recoveries and 10 INT's) compared to the Soul's 7 (3 fumble recoveries and 4 INT's).
The Soul have turned the ball over 10 times (7 fumbles and 3 INT's) while the Force have had only 6 turnovers (2 fumbles and 4 INT's). The Force have created the most turnovers whereas the Soul give the ball away the third most in the league. For a Soul team looking to solve its turnover woes, going up against the league's best defense at creating turnovers probably isn't the most ideal situation.
Luckily for the Soul however, the Force also don't like to hold onto the football for very long. The Soul rank last in the AFL (25:53) and the Force have the fourth worst time of possession (28:15) so maybe the Soul can get some more scoring opportunities throughout the game. This killed the Soul last game and maybe without one of their play-makers the offense will slow down just a tad. Not saying that losing Morgan is a good thing, but it'll be interesting to see how the offense reacts without him.
One area where the Soul usually have an advantage is with kickoff returns, but the Force actually have the league's rest kick return unit at 23.2 yards per return. Because of their great defense the Force have had only 12 returns on the season thus far. To compare, the Soul have the 4th best unit at 22.5 yards per return on 24 returns. The Soul do however have the most kickoff return TD's (3) which plays into their quick possession problem. The Force with one kickoff return TD have shown the ability to break it loose as well in what will be a very interesting match-up.
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