ArenaBowl XXII

SaberCats Soul 56 59
1 2 3 4 Total SaberCats 14 13 7 22 56 Soul 14 23 9 13 59
Date	July 27, 2008
Arena	New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance	17,244
Winning coach	Bret Munsey
Losing coach	Darren Arbet
TV in the United States
Network	ABC
Announcers	Bob Wischusen, Ray Bentley, Stan Verrett and Marcellus Wiley

ArenaBowl XXII was played on July 27, 2008 at New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana (the host of ArenaBowl XXI). It was the 22nd championship game in the history of the Arena Football League. This was the fourth neutral site ArenaBowl in AFL history and the second ArenaBowl in the state of Louisiana.

Background

The game was played between the American Conference Champions San Jose SaberCats, who were making their fourth, and second consecutive, appearance in the title game (they have won in all of their previous trips), against the National Conference Champions Philadelphia Soul, who were making their first appearance in the franchise's history in the ArenaBowl.

Philadelphia Soul

Week	Date	Opponent	Home/Away	Result
1	March 1	Orlando Predators	Home	W 77-56
2	March 9	Chicago Rush	Away	W 60-49
3	March 16	New York Dragons	Home	W 63-42
4	March 20	Los Angeles Avengers	Away	W 71-34
5	March 29	Tampa Bay Storm	Home	W 59-51
6	April 5	Utah Blaze	Home	W 64-56
7	April 12	San Jose SaberCats	Away	W 58-57
8	April 21	Columbus Destroyers	Away	W 76-55
9	April 28	Dallas Desperados	Home	W 57-28
10	May 2	Cleveland Gladiators	Away	L 55-67
11	May 12	Georgia Force	Away	L 62-63
12	May 17	Columbus Destroyers	Home	W 51-43
13	May 22	Kansas City Brigade	Home	L 47-54
14		Bye	Week
15	June 7	Dallas Desperados	Away	W 71-64
16	June 14	Cleveland Gladiators	Home	W 62-61
17	June 22	New York Dragons	Away	W 59-30

The Soul, along with division rival Dallas, were undefeated at week 9. They preceeded to beat them in that week, however when travelling to Cleveland for the following game, they lost their first game of the season. They continued to sputter, dropping two of their last three, however these ultimately were their only three losses on the season.

Playoffs

One odd fact noted throughout the playoffs was that both lowest seeded teams making the playoffs won in the first round.

In the playoffs, the Soul first beat the sixth-seeded New York Dragons 48-49 in the Divisional round of the tournament after a Wild-Card round bye, along with the Georgia Force. In the Eastern Conference Championship they proceeded to beat the fourth-seeded Cleveland Gladiators by a score of 35-70.

The SaberCats had a similar playoff schedule. They also had a first-round bye but unlike the Soul, failed to gain home field advantage throughout the playoffs. They beat the fifth-seeded Colorado Crush (51-64) in the Divisional round and the sixth-seeded Grand Rapids Rampage (55-81), who previously beat top-seeded Chicago Rush, in the Western Conference Championship.

Game summary

Philadelphia defeated San Jose 59-56, and Soul quarterback Matt D'Orazio was named the Mitsubishi Motors ArenaBowl XXII MVP.