Well, we did it! The Soul clinched a playoff spot during the final week of the season.  The good news:  a 5-13 team made the playoffs out West (4 of the 6 western teams make the playoffs as well), so the Soul are officially not the worst team in the playoffs! The bad news: the Soul are facing off August 2nd at 7pm against the best team in the league, the 17-1 Cleveland Gladiators. 

Welcome back to the Broad Street Beat's Arena Football Coverage, where we Soul-ly rely on our witty puns to exist and thrive. Please don't go, I promise the puns will stop.  Soul-ly football talk from here on out. 

(Yeah, I know I've beaten the Soul Searching pun into the ground.  What do you want me to do, think of a new pun? No way Jose, that's way too much work for a Tuesday night).  


Amongst all of the Eagles draft chatter over the last month or so, the Soul have quietly gone about their season.  After a rough 0-3 start to the season at the hands of the Rattlers, the Sabercats, and the Storm, the Soul have turned things around and are sitting at a respectable 4-4. 

This season isn't starting off quite how coach Clint Dolezel and the rest of the Philadelphia Soul had planned. The team is now 0-3 after a 63-49 loss to the Tampa Bay Storm (3-1) last night. The Soul gave up 2 touchdowns early and fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter, a deficit they would not manage to recover from.

Trying to move on from their close loss to Arizona last week, the Soul traveled to San Jose to take on the SaberCats.  However, after a decent first half, Philadelphia struggled to get anything going in the second half, as they went on to lose 70-33.  Quarterback Dan Raudabaugh fnished with three touchdown passes on the day, but all came in the first half.  He went 11-27 for 131 yards and a pick that was returned for a touchdown.  Bryan Randall subbed in later in the game and went 6-11 for 73 yards and a touchdown pass.

Led by the outstanding rushing performance of FB Derrick Ross, who finished with a team-record 6 touchdowns on 12 carries, the Soul were able to take the defending Arena Bowl champs to overtime in Arizona in their season opener. It wasn't quite enough though, as Arizona outplayed Philadelphia in overtime and sealed the deal with an interception on the Soul's first drive. The final score was 62-55 Rattlers.

Did you see that title? How good am I with puns? I have no idea how, but I've got to have some kind of superior talent to pull off a pun like that.  Anyway, before my ego gets any bigger, I feel like we are overdue for a Philadelphia Soul article.  The season kicks off next Saturday at 9, in a 2013 Arena Bowl rematch against the defending champion Arizona Rattlers.  After defeating us in the last two Arena Bowls, it will be a must win for the Soul, in terms of mental conditioning and in terms of revenge. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back with another exciting offseason report for one of your Top 10 favorite Philadelphia professional football teams, the Philadelphia Soul.  In the last report, we covered it all; puns, stats, rosters, general knowledge, you name it.  But then one of my readers (I know, I'm pretty surprised that people have been reading this too) asked me why Dan Raudabaugh was listed as suspended this season.  I thought it was a great question to help not only deepen my understanding of the Arena Football League, but to also help make this column a lot more thought provoking down the road.

You see what I did in the title? Pretty clever eh? Still two months until the season starts and I'm already in midseason form with the puns.  Anyway, after finally getting some research done and actually learning something about Arena Football, I am ready to be your Arena Football consigliere for the 2014 season.  First thing I learned, turns out Bon Jovi doesn't own the team anymore.  But seriously though, I learned a lot more than just the ownership.  I'll break this column down into three sections: 2013 stats, Arena Football general knowledge, and finally some of the key members on the Soul's roster.

It was a tough loss for the Eagles and their fans this past weekend.  After religiously following Chip Kelly and the Chipettes for four months, we now have to wait until September to get our Philadelphia football fix.  Or do we.....?