Our offense left off right where it started last week, red hot. We came out blazin in the 1st quarter, when I hooked up with Rob Mager three times to put us up 21-6 at the start of the second. We played awesome in the first quarter.
That is when we hit a little bump in the ground. On our first possession of the second quarter was murked with penalties and we were forced in a third and long situation. I tried to throw a deep corner but had to step up because of pressure, which threw the timing off. I should have thrown it away but I took a chance and got picked off. In our second and last possession of the first half we ran two screens and three runs before kicking a FG. I didn't really have a chance to throw a TD there.
We re-energized at halftime and I thought we were going to come out ready to play. The defense forced a FG which is considered a defensive stop in Arena. Then we fizzled on offense getting down to the goal line and some busted runs and a dropped pass, finalized by a bad FG snap forcing a block kick.
I really wasn't down after that drive cause I knew we had 2 bad mistakes on that drive that we weren't going to have happen again. Plus I was throwing the ball right where I needed to be.
On our next drive we were all ready to go. I ended up throwing a TD to Mager from 13 yards out, but I can't remember that play right now, so I can't tell you about it. That put us up 31-19 at the end of the third quarter.
They scored on a long run and then we responded with another TD by Mager, but only after we converted a key 4-6 play that was huge for our team especially at that stage in the game. It was a great catch by Lance Taylor who was eager to play this game cause he played for the Blizzard last year.
Then they scored and we scored on a Dennis Fryzel TD catch, bringing the score to 45-33 with 17 seconds left. Game over right???? Wrong... the game is never over in Arena football till there are 0 seconds left on the clock, trust me.
We kicked off and they scored in 2 plays in 11 seconds to cut our lead to 45-39 with 6 seconds left. But we got the onside kick so that game was over but we should have won by more than just 6 points.
Well it looks like we are turning things around now from our dismal 0-2 start. Though we didn't look as well in this game as we did in the last, I think we are making progress every week.
I think we were tired in the 2nd half of this game and I know our coach noticed it. Trust me he will change that this week and get us conditioning again. Well we conditioned this week but not as much as the previous weeks.
This week is going to be another big test for our team. We play Birmingham again, this time at their place. We've played three straight home games so we have to get used to going back on the road again. Really any road game in the Arena league is a tough win, because you have to deal with the other team's fans and the long bus ride. Plus, the officials normally ease the calls toward the home team's side.
The Fire won like 3 straight road games last year in the playoffs to make it to the championship and the Marshals, we won 2 straight playoff games on the road to get to the AFC championship. So it can be done and playoff teams need to be able to win on the road.
Plus I'm anxious to see if our offense is clicking the way it did last week.
They played South Georgia this week and Birmingham Steeldogs won by a few points on the road, but South Georgia is 0-4. There was a huge fight in that game in the fourth quarter that got caught on the game film. There were a lot of punches thrown, but I didn't see anyone get hurt which is good. A ton of players got ejected from the game. I'm not sure if that fight will have an effect on our game as far as their players being suspended or not.
Well we play on Friday night and will be traveling on Saturday so we'll probably miss the whole Derby thing this weekend down here. There are supposed to be some cool events this week with the derby that might be fun to go to. I'll try to keep you posted.