Soul wants to lock up chances at home

THE ARENA Football League's decision to take its championship away from a neutral site was economically fueled. If neutral sites helped the bottom line, they'd still be in play.

So after two seasons, the league has gone back to awarding the championship game to the conference champion with the better record. The league is still populated by franchises that have and franchises that have not. The Soul is a franchise that has.

So when Philadelphia visits Arizona, another successful franchise but from the opposite conference, it not only will be looking to avenge consecutive championship-game losses, the Soul also will be trying to get a leg up on hosting the 2014 championship game.

"We want to play the Arena-Bowl at home," Soul owner Ron Jaworski said. "This puts more importance on every game of the season."

The Soul returns most of the nucleus that has delivered consecutive conference championships. Jaworski, who knows a good (and bad) quarterback when he sees it, says Dan Raudabaugh is as good as there is in the AFL.

The last two championship game losses to Arizona came on neutral fields. In 2012, it was in New Orleans, which Jaworski criticized very sharply as a host city. Last summer, the game was in Orlando, which produced more fan support, but still not nearly enough to fill the Amway Center.

So, on Aug. 23, 2014, the better team standing gets to host the championship - with a bye week following the conference championship to allow for logistics and for ESPN, back as a partner this year, to get its act together.

The beginning of the march to the title game is a difficult one for the Soul. After Arizona, they play at San Jose on March 23 before a bye in Week 3. San Jose figures to be right there with Arizona in the National Conference. The Soul generally opens up on the road due to the uncertain availability of the Wells Fargo Center because of NHL and NBA playoffs. Well, NHL at least.

Fans and team executives can look at the opener against Arizona with August in mind. For the Soul players, though, it's more about ending a miserable four-game losing streak to the Rattlers. The most recent coming in last year's title game when the Soul had the ball with less than a minute to go, but turned it over on downs.

"You never forget losses like that," star wide receiver Tiger Jones said. "It's going to be 20 years from now and we'll still be talking about not winning the championship game in 2013. Regardless of whether we won or lost, we still would have come into this season with the same goals: to win the division, conference and ArenaBowl. That's our focus."

The biggest change will be along the offensive line, one of the Soul's strongest positions the last few years. Center Brennen Carvalho is back, but Jason Jones and Christian Johnson are not. Wayne Tribue (Temple) and Adam Smith are the replacements . . . Saturday's opener at Arizona is one of six games being produced by Lou Tilley's entertainment company and appearing on The Comcast Network . . . The home opener is Saturday, April 19 against Jacksonville, which has lost the last two conference title games to Philadelphia.

Soul (0-0) at Arizona (0-0)

Saturday, 9 p.m.

Where: U.S. Airways Center, Phoenix

TV: The Comcast Network

Notable: Arizona has beaten the Soul in the last two season openers AND the last two championship games.