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AFL's Inside the Numbers: Week 8

May 19, 2016 - Arena Football League (AFL) News Release


LAS VEGAS - There's no disputing who the greatest rushing fullback is in the history of the Arena Football League. Jacksonville Sharks' Derrick Ross has nearly twice as many rushing yards and rushing touchdowns as anyone else in the history of the League. He's got a massive milestone which is sure to be reached in Week 8, one of the many players and teams chasing records this week across the AFL.

Ross Bosses His Way to 3K

Derrick Ross enters Week 8 with 2,984 rushing yards for his AFL career, leaving him just 16 shy of the coveted mark of 3,000. Considering the fact that no other man has really come all that close to 2,000 rushing yards for a career in a league where rushing attempts are held to a minimum, this truly is a remarkable accomplish which shows what an outlier Ross is.

Arizona's Mykel Benson is second amongst active players in career rushing yards, but if you combined his career mark with the rushing totals for the next four highest rushers amongst active players (all of which happen to be quarterbacks), you still don't have 3,000 yards.

With 185 rushing touchdowns to show for his six-year career, we could be talking about Ross crossing the 200-touchdown mark at some point later this season.

Week 8 Milestone Watch

Ross isn't the only Shark hoping to reach career milestones this week. Tiger Jones needs nine receptions to pass the great Barry Wagner for fifth place all-time in receptions in League history. Jones is 17 receptions shy of 1,000 for his career.

Jones' running mate in the Jacksonville receiving corps, Joe Hills needs just four receptions this week against Portland to get to 500 for his career. He would be just the seventh active player to log 500+ catches. Hills has caught a touchdown in an AFL-leading 58 straight regular-season games. He's still well short of Damian Harrell's record of 78 games in a row, but the streak lives on and is no less impressive.

T.T. Toliver made some AFL history last week, and he can make more of it in Week 8 if he posts four touchdown receptions. That would give him 100 for his Storm career and make him one of two players in AFL history to have 100 receiving scores for two different teams. Chris Jackson pulled off the duo with the Los Angeles Avengers and the Georgia Force in the 2000s.

Los Angeles' Nathan Stanley is three touchdown passes short of 100 for his career.

Only seven men had scored a touchdown in each of their teams' games this season coming into Week 7. Collin Taylor, Brandon Thompkins, Rod Windsor and Shaun Kauleinamoku kept their streaks alive last week. Donovan Morgan, Derrick Ross and Joe Hills will look to continue their streaks in Week 8.

Shaun Kauleinamoku is seven receptions shy of 400 in his career. Only 11 active receivers have hit that milestone in their careers. SK is also in sight of 5,000 receiving yards for his career. He needs 112 against Orlando's vaunted secondary to crack the 5,000 mark. Four touchdowns would also put Kauleinamoku in the 100 receiving touchdown club for his career.

If the Gladiators win this Monday in Tampa, it will be the 86th career head coaching win for Steve Thonn, a mark that would tie him with Hall of Famer Perry Moss for eighth most in League history.

The Predators visit Philadelphia this week in search of their eighth win in a row to start the season. The Preds haven't won eight games in a row in the same regular season since opening up the 1994 season at 11-0. The last time Orlando went on a seven-game winning streak was in 2000, and it went on to win the ArenaBowl that season.

Week 7 Quick Hitters

Nick Davila might not have led the Rattlers past Philadelphia this week, but he did become the youngest quarterback in AFL history to throw for 30,000 yards and 700 touchdowns.

Davila's top receiver, Rod Windsor also reached a career milestone in Week 7, as he exceeded the 10,000-yard mark in his 88th AFL game. That ties the mark of Tiger Jones, who broke the League record in 2014 for the fewest amount of games to reach 10,000 receiving yards.

T.T. Toliver became the first man in AFL history to log 5,000 receiving yards and 400 receptions with two different teams. Toliver had 604 receptions for 7,734 as a member of the Predators, and he now has 401 catches for 5,022 yards and counting as a member of the Storm.

Maurice Purify scored four touchdowns for the Rattlers on Saturday in the City of Brotherly Love giving him 152 receiving touchdowns for his career. He joins a list including T.T Toliver, Tiger Jones, Donovan Morgan, Rod Windsor, Larry Brackins and Joe Hills as the only active players with at least 150 receiving touchdowns.

The 60th edition of the "War on I-4" was won by Orlando, its fifth straight win in this series. The games haven't all been easy, though. Seven of the last nine in this rivalry have been determined by a single score, and three of the last six have been even closer with a winning margin of two points or fewer.

Philadelphia's Sean Daniels scored his first career touchdown in his first career AFL game for the Soul when he recovered an onside kick and returned it for a score.

Portland's Tom Gilson and Tyrone Goard had themselves a night in Cleveland for the Steel. They combined for 30 receptions, 296 yards and five touchdowns. Gilson set a Portland franchise record for receptions in a game with 16, breaking the previous record of 15 set by Jamar Howard last season. Sixteen is also tied for the most receptions by a player in an AFL game since Dominick Goodman had 18 in a game in 2013.

The overtime game to wrap up the week at the Q was the 102nd in AFL history. The home team is 56-54-2 in said games. The Gladiators are now 5-1 all-time in overtime, but none of their previous four wins had come at the Q.

By Adam Markowitz

Special to arenafootball.com

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