By Ray Bentley -- The Central Division takes center stage in the Divisional Round of the playoffs as the Grand Rapids Rampage visit the Chicago Rush on Russell Athletic ESPN Arena Football Sunday.  The game kicks off at 3 p.m. EST from All State Arena in Rosemont, IL.  The game will also be shown in HD.

This will be the third meeting of the year in the “Amtrak Classic” between these two rivals as Chicago took the first two.  The Rush hammered the Rampage in Grand Rapids in Week 3, 64-35.  The Rampage nearly knocked off the Rush in Chicago in Week 8, but lost by three, 55-52.  Chicago has won six straight games against the Rampage.

The Stakes

The winner of this game will move on to the American Conference Championship game.  If Chicago wins they will host the game as they are the number one seed.  If Grand Rapids wins they will go on the road to face San Jose.

The Players

The Rush should be pretty healthy and well rested after the bye week.  They struggled a bit toward the end of the season losing three of four before a strong performance in the season finale where they knocked off Dallas.  Grand Rapids is as hot as any team in the league having won four in a row.  They lost receiver Chris Johnson to injury in the final regular season game but are otherwise pretty healthy as well.

The Chicago offense is led by first year starting QB Russ Michna who took over for an injured Sherdrick Bonner in Week 6.  Michna has been outstanding with an 8-3 record as the starter and a 122.9 QB rating.  He is extremely accurate hitting on 68.5% of his passes.  Michna also led all AFL QBs with 14 rushing TDs.  He protects the ball extremely well as he only threw seven picks all season.

Grand Rapids has a pretty good signal caller themselves in first year starter James MacPherson.  MacPherson took over as the starter in Week 4 and threw a franchise record 10 TD passes in his debut.  He was a little inconsistent during the course of the year but has played his best football down the stretch leading GR into the playoffs.  In fact, Grand Rapids has scored on 22 consecutive possessions. 

MacPherson was exceptional in the playoff win over Arizona last week.  He has one of the quickest releases in the game and is also very accurate.  He can tuck it away and run it very effectively when he has to.

Chicago has an outstanding group of receivers featuring the AFL’s all-time TD reception leader, Damian Harrell (94-1165-25 TDs) with 320 TD grabs.  Harrell is still a big-time deep threat capable of making circus catches at any time.  He is flanked by the AFL’s Rookie of the Year, Donovan Morgan (113-1300-24 TDs) and Travis LaTendresse (91-1105-20 TDs).  Teams have schemed to take Harrell away and Morgan and LaTendresse have made them pay for it.

Grand Rapids also has an exceptional group of receivers including the exciting Kenny Higgins (112-1552-34 TDs).  Higgins was lights out in the win over Arizona, grabbing a team playoff record in receptions and yardage.  He carded 12 catches for 177 yards and three TDs.  Cole Magner (69-739-12 TDs) is as reliable as receivers get with tremendous hands and a knack for getting open.  Jermaine Lewis (40-422-9 TDs) and Jason Shelley (11-91- 2 TDs) alternate filling the void left by the injury to Chris Johnson.

The Chicago defense finished as the top defense in the league allowing only 47.8 points per game.  Dennison Robinson snared a league record tying 13 interceptions.  Jeremy Unertl plays the middle and he and Robinson work together as well as any DB tandem in the league.  Jonathan Ordway plays the backside and his speed enables him to make plays.  The Rush DB coach, Brian Schwartz does a great job putting his guys in position to make plays.

But the key to any secondary’s success is a fierce pass rush.  That is exactly what Chicago has with James Baron, Khreem Smith and John Moyer.  Baron still has a disruptively quick get-off and Smith and Moyer can really bring it off the edge.   Dan Alexander and Liam Ezekiel are very athletic at the linebacker spots.  The Rush will miss All-Arena Jack linebacker DeJuan Alfonzo but they still have plenty of playmakers on defense.

The Grand Rapids defense came up huge against Arizona last week.  They forced a turnover, held the Rattlers to 41 points and finished with a game-winning goal line stand.  Ahmad Hawkins plays the middle and is the QB and playmaker on defense.  Roc Haith plays the field corner and Chris Martin mans the backside.  Both are solid tacklers and play hard regardless of the situation.

The pass rush for the Rampage has been on the rise.  Donovan Arp is playing like a savvy veteran at the nose.   Michael McFadden switches between DE and Mack linebacker and is a quick, active player.  Tom Johnson and George Gause are also playing well up front.  Zack Ville is a plugger rushing from the Mack spot and Jack linebacker Jermaine Lewis, at 6’ 4” is tough to throw over.  He had a one handed interception early in the game last week.

The Rampage has one of the hottest kickers in the AFL in Brian Gowins.  He was perfect last week and only missed one kick in the month of June, an extra point.  They also have Chris Martin returning kicks and he led the AFL with six TD returns this year.  Chicago has brought Todd France in to kick and he missed a pair of extra points in his only appearance against Dallas in the regular season finale.  Every point counts in the playoffs.

The Game

Don’t expect Chicago to be rusty coming off of a bye week.  Coach Mike Hohensee has a knack for utilizing the off week.  His Rush are 6-1 after a bye overall under Coach Ho and 2-0 after a bye in the playoffs.  Chicago should be ready to give it their best shot.  Grand Rapids is on a roll having won four games in a row, the last three of which came on the road.  The Rampage played last Monday so they have had a full week of rest and preparation.  They too will be ready to go.

A great match-up in this one will be Harrell running routes on Hawkins. These guys were former teammates in Colorado and close friends but all that goes out the window for 60 minutes on Sunday.  There will be some critical downs where Hawkins will have to cover Harrell with no help.  Whoever wins this battle will likely be on the winning team.

Grand Rapids has had trouble with fumbled and bobbled snaps throughout the season.  In fact, MacPherson dropped one and bobbled another just last week.  Chicago will put a lot of pressure on GR center Nick Steitz with the cat-quick James Baron.  Grand Rapids can ill afford to lose a possession because of a bad exchange.

Chicago has one of the best home-field advantages in all of Arena Football.  The crowd at All State Arena will be frothing at the prospects of a big Rush victory.  The best thing the Rampage could hope for is a fast start to quiet things down a bit.  They must also withstand any potential feeding frenzy.  Chicago has a habit of forcing turnovers and making big scoring runs.  The crowd feeds off of their defense and when they start rocking things can get out of hand in a hurry.

Even though Chicago has beaten Grand Rapids twice, this is a different Rampage team.  They are playing very well and with a ton of confidence right now.  If they can protect MacPherson and keep the offense going it could come down to the last possession.