(June 18, 2007)
It took 10 weeks to get to the point
where a lot of us had predicted it would: Frankfurt playing in the World
Bowl in its own stadium against Hamburg. The Galaxy had been my preseason
pick to run away with the title, but it had to get there the hard way,
throwing away a tiebreaker in the loss to Hamburg in Week 9, where DeCori
Birmingham's desperation pass out of the end zone on a kickoff return gave
the Sea Devils two crucial points extra. Suddenly a front-running team that
started off 3-0 and stayed in at least a first-place tie all season long,
faced a must-win winner-take-all showdown with Cologne. In front of more
than 35,000 fans at the Commerzbank Arena, the Galaxy did it, by a 31-14
margin.
Although Frankfurt quarterback J.T.
O'Sullivan cemented his MVP status in the last weeks of the season, when the
Galaxy switched from its run-first offense to a more wide-open game plan, it
was backup Kevin Eakin who broke the Cologne game open in the second
quarter, throwing touchdown passes to Aaron Hosack and James Petrowski to
give Frankfurt a 17-0 halftime lead. O'Sullivan returned to hit Hosack with
another score on the opening drive of the second half, making it 24-0, and
the Galaxy cruised the rest of the way. With Cologne losing A.J. Harris in
the first quarter, Derek Ross sewed up the league's rushing title with a 19
carry, 109-yard performance. But although Erik Meyer completed 25 of 33
passes for 220 yards, eight of them to Burl Toler, the Galaxy took away
anything deep, leading to an evening of frustration for the Centurions.
Casey Bramlet will lead the Sea Devils
in their first appearance in the World Bowl. Meanwhile, in Dusseldorf,
Hamburg got to the final the right way, beating Rhein 17-13 in a game it
could have lost and still got to the World Bowl. As it is, rookie head coach
Vince Martino's team are the regular-season champions, but it will face an
uphill task facing Frankfurt in what amounts to a home game for the Galaxy.
Without Quentin Griffin, who is nursing
an ankle injury that the team hopes will be healed by Saturday's big game,
Tony Hollings picked up the slack, carrying 21 times for 109 yards. But it
was Jermaine Allen's 2-yard TD run in the third quarter that provided
Hamburg's winning margin, a lead that stood up late in the fourth quarter
after Barry
Robertson's tackle of tight end Sean Mulcahy forced a
fumble that safety Shawn Meyer recovered.
Casey Bramlet completed 18 of 34 passes
for 209 yards and a touchdown, and while Marcus Maxwell again led the team
in catches, he was kept tightly under wraps, which forced Bramlet to spread
the ball around, particularly to tight ends Teyo Johnson and Mike Pinkard.
The win had to come as a disappointment
for Rhein's fans, 22,908 of whom showed up to root their team on, even
though they were out of the running. That, as much as anything, testifies to
the strength of football in Dusseldorf.
In Amsterdam Friday night, the
consolation game showed exactly why Berlin wound up in the cellar. The
Thunder, who lost all five of its home games, was unable to finish games all
season, and that proved to be the case against the Admirals. Berlin took a
20-7 lead into the fourth quarter, built on the running of Calvin Murray,
Chris Barclay, and quarterback Bruce Eugene, who combined for 226 yards on
the ground. But the Admirals got two fourth-quarter TD passes from Drew
Olson, one to Skyler Fulton, his second of the game, and the other to Justin
McCullum with just over two minutes left that gave them a 21-20 win.
But the showcase of the NFL Europa
season will take place next Saturday, and with the Galaxy playing in
Frankfurt, a huge and partisan crowd can be expected. Besides the crowd,
Frankfurt hold a couple of key advantages over Hamburg: O'Sullivan's
mobility helps negate the Sea Devils' pass rush, and injuries have left
Hamburg depleted in the secondary and at linebacker, which puts the pressure
on when Frankfurt goes slot with four wideouts. But if Griffin is back
healthy, it's Hamburg who has the potential to establish a run game, where
Frankfurt has struggled in the past few weeks. It should be a fascinating
matchup, and we'll be reporting on it all week right here at Europass.
