The Dresden Monarchs and Braunschweig New Yorker Lions return to action Saturday, July 8 at Heinz-Steyer-Stadion in Dresden after a two week hiatus in the German Football League.
The 5-2 Monarchs are coming off a convincing win over the Berlin Rebels which moved them back up into third place in the German North standings. New Yorker enter the game undefeated at the top of the German North with a 6-0 record.
The Lions won the first game between the two teams this year handily at home, beating Dresden 47-7 after taking a 20-0 first quarter lead. In that game, Braunschweig rolled up 506 yards of offense while the Monarchs could not get untracked and were held to 120 yards passing and only 74 yards rushing.
Lions RB David McCants has scored 100 career TDs with the Lions Photo: Fabian Uebe
Statistically, the Lions have the top offense in Germany averaging 46.2 points a game but Dresden is right behind in second scoring at a 45.1 per game pace. However, the Braunschweig defense gives up a mere 9.8 points a game, second best in the GFL. Dresden’s defense has been allowing 25.3
The two quarterbacks, Garrett Safron of the Monarchs and New Yorker’s Casey Therriault, are neck and neck in passing yardage averaging 282 and 282.5 yards respectively per game. Lions receiver Nik Romer leads the league with 727 receiving yards while Dresden’s Sebastian Sagne is fourth with 649. Romer has 10 touchdown receptions while Sagne has 11.
Lions running back David McCants is back in familiar territory, near the top of the league rushing stats averaging 99.2 yards a game. (He scored his 100th touchdown in Lions uniform against the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes two weeks ago) However, Safron has gained 379 yards in six games and Dresden running back Joseph Bergeron has 317.
Dresden RB Joseph Bergeron
Dresden middle linebacker Marc Millan has recorded 47 overall tackles so far in 2016 while Lions linebacker Roni Salonen is averaging 6.5 tackles a game. New Yorker linebacker Jakob Schridde has 14 tackles for loss while Monarchs linebacker Alan Steinohrt has 12.
On paper, not much separates these two teams.
The two head coaches, Troy Tomlin of the Lions and Dresden’s John Leijten know each other well. Expect a noisy home crowd in Dresden for what promises to be the game of the week in Germany.
