The 9-3 Berlin Rebels head to Hamburg to take on the winless Hamburg Huskies (0-12) in the second last game of the German Football League regular season Saturday, September 1.
The Rebels blanked Hamburg 24-0 in the opening game of the season.
Berlin is in the hunt for top spot as he battle for playoff positioning in the GFL North comes down to a couple of games. In fact, Berlin could finish first, second or third in the division.
Should both Dresden and Braunschweig both win their games this weekend and then the Monarchs defeat the Lions in the final game, while Berlin wins both of their games, the Rebels will finish first, Dresden second and the New Yorker Lions third. If the Lions win their last two games and finish 14-2, they would capture first, Berlin would come second and Dresden third.
Berlin is flying high after handing the Braunschweig New Yorker Lions their second defeat last week, beating them 23-14. Quarterback Terrell Robinson rushed for 168 yards, confounding the powerful Lions defense time and again.
Hamburg is much different team than earlier in the season. In the 24-0 Berlin win over the Huskies earlier in the season, Hamburg had Quentin Williams at quarterback but Moritz Maack has taken over as the starter and at times performed well. However, with the offense struggling to find any consistency, Hamburg has relied on running back Colby Goodwyn who is the second leading rusher in the German Football League with 1,012 yards. As offensive coordinator, Kirk Heidelberg works to fix the quarterbacking dilemma, Goodwyn has been carrying a heavy load.
The Rebels are one of the top defensive teams in the German Football League, sitting fourth giving up 17 points and 305.5 yards a game.
Holland’s Sean Richard leads the Rebels in rushing and he is fifth in the league with 744 yards and 10 touchdowns. He has struggled in the last four games though gaining a total of just 100 yards. Fellow Dutchman, Chris Smith also in the backfield has 394 yards in eight games while quarterback Terrell Robinson has 621 yards rushing. Robinson has thrown for 2,088 yards so far. Richard is also the leading receiver for Berlin with 559 yards receiving.
Although, the outcome of this game may seem to be a foregone conclusion, Hamburg is playing at home and in the last six games the offense has improved by 10 points a game over the first six games of the season.