No problem is ever solved.
At least that's the way Philadelphia Soul head coach Clint Dolezel sees it when it comes to his team's recent mishaps.
Those fourth-quarter struggles seem to have been fixed -- for now.
They've learned to beat the teams they have to beat, as the Soul are 5-2 this season against opponents with a below .500 record. And they've finally captured their first division win.
But still, Dolezel, though happy with the Soul's two-game winning streak, won't pretend that every problem has been solved.
"We're close but we're not there yet," he said. "I still think we can play like we did against Arizona every week and be steady about that."
Aside from that loss to Arizona, the Soul have gotten it done when they needed to recently.
The Soul went into Pittsburgh last week and not only dominated the Power to get division win No. 1, but also improved their record to 4-1 in the last five games. Pittsburgh was outplayed from start to finish, as the Soul hopped out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter, and went on to outscore the Power, 38-21, for the remaining three quarters en route to a 59-21 win.
Soul quarterback Dan Raudabaugh threw for 211 yards and seven touchdowns in the win over Pittsburgh, and was even afforded the fourth quarter off when Dolezel replaced him with Dustin Almond. Raudabaugh has a quarterback rating of 133.8 in the last five games, throwing 30 touchdowns and just two interceptions. He took the blame for the early struggles, mentioning his inaccuracy, the interceptions and not putting the Soul "in the right situation all the time." Putting it all on his shoulder may be one reason why he's played at such a high level lately.
"This is when you want to start catching a little stride before the games that really start to count," Raudabaugh said. "We still want to lock up the division; we got a nice lead in the division right now, but ... I mean it's coming together.
"We were making some mistakes that were uncharacteristic of us earlier in the season. We started getting back to the basics and just getting good at the things we need to be good at ... the little mistakes -- we started to turn them around."
Executing on the field is always a good thing, but Dolezel didn't pinpoint that as the reason behind the Soul's two-game wining streak. He pointed to team unity as the big factor -- players taking full advantage of not just playing on a team, but being a part of a team, on and off the field.
"My championship teams that I played on, we were just like that -- we all got along," Dolezel said. "We did things together, we had fun. I think that's more important than overall talent. I think we're getting to that cohesiveness that we need."
The coach is looking at things from the sideline, but Raudabaugh notices the camaraderie between the lines. He sees it in the way the Soul have played recently -- not just individual play, but as a unit. As a team.
Take the win over New Orleans as an example. Just when it appeared the VooDoo would be yet another team to steal a game on the Soul's home turf at the Wells Fargo Center, the offensive unit overcame an eight-point deficit to start the fourth quarter, while the defense forced a key turnover and held New Orleans to seven points.
It's that kind of team play that the Soul didn't have early on, but seem to have now.
"When defense is getting stops, we're (offensive unit) getting scores," Raudabaugh said, "then if we stumbled, defense picked us up and got a couple of stops on their own. [We're] just trying to take it one day at a time."
Up next is a rematch with the 6-7 Iowa Barnstormers, who the Soul defeated, 54-43, in Week 4. Ex-Soul head coach Mike Hohensee's team is also on a two-game winning streak.
With their two games against the AFL's best team in the rear-view mirror, the Soul will not have to play any true dominant opponent in their remaining games, as four of their last six opponents have a record at or below .500.
But Dolezel won't allow the Soul to begin thinking everything is fine. The Soul have to continue correcting the errors that have plagued them on various occasions this season, resulting in five losses.
The Soul will now look at the rest of the season from an awareness standpoint. They're now aware of those past errors; hence, if they arise again, the Soul are aware what it will take to correct those errors.
"Those things happen," Dolezel said. "You just got to be able to overcome them. We're a good enough team that when we did make those mistakes, [we were] still be in the ballgame. Nobody has just come in and whipped us."
In the middle of his sentence, Dolezel paused for a moment and knocked on his wooden desk. Better to be safe than sorry.
He continued: "I can say the same thing every week. We have to take care of the ball and get turnovers. If we do that, we're going to be in every ballgame with a chance to really [dominate] games like last week."