War on I-4 a Family Affair
Dan Ryan
Sunday February 9, 2003
Was it any wonder that the Peacock folks turned Sunday afternoon’s showing of the Brothers Gruden into an Arena Football version of Family Affair? And not the God-awful version with Tim Curry as Mr. French -- the classic one with Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot instead.
There has to be a good joke involving a Chucky doll dismembering Ms. Beasley, but as our illustrious founder Kevmo pointed out once, this isn’t uselesstvandmovietriviafan.com. And Kauffman was there too, so let him come up with the one liners once in a while. Then again, I’m looking forward to his journalistic opus on what exactly the league’s new version of “down by contact” means.
Family Affair. It felt like one. With Pat O’Hara, Cliff Dell and BJ Cohen now taking orders from Tim Marcum, this renewal of the I-4 War was sorta’ like an intrasquad scrimmage. And the intense rivalry? You know, when a war’s coming up in a couple of weeks and all the other stuff going on, does it make sense to say someone sucks just because they play or root for another team?
Oh yes, the Grudens. You know them. Hell, you couldn’t miss them Sunday.
Jon Gruden had nearly as much airtime as his brother Jay during Sunday’s NBC telecast. Coaching a Super Bowl champion and wearing a killer leather jacket can do that.
In addition to the standing “O”, Jon joined the talent of Tom Hammond and Pat Haden for a few minutes of chat, cameras cut to him twice a quarter, especially when he congratulated Jay on each of his six touchdown passes.
At halftime, Jon praised Jay’s role in the Bucs’ Super Bowl championship and his success as an AFL quarterback.
“Over the last decade, he’s proven he can play professional football,” Jon said of Jay. “As he got more acclimated to our system, he became more and more important as the season went on. He came up with a goal-line pass against Carolina that we ran and went for a touchdown. He was a good set of eyes and ears for me on the sideline.”
Would Jon ever consider auditioning Jay as a back-up quarterback?
“I don’ t think he’d be happy as a third stringer, only as a starter and Brad Johnson’s my guy,” Jon said.
On the field, the AFL’s version of Joe Montana was his usual self. Having Travis McGriff and Cory Fleming as primary targets helps, also.
If the whole game could be summarized in one or two plays, here it is: After John Kaleo brought Tampa within three points with a minute to play, Orlando had a third-and-18.
Gruden hit Thabiti Davis for a 40-yard completion to set up first-and-goal on the Storm one-yard line. Orlando didn`t score, but was able to run out the clock after a pass interference call on third down gave the Predators a new set of downs.
“It’s easy to look good when the offensive line is playing fantastic,’’ Jay Gruden said. “We have three receivers that are tough to defend. Cory has got to be the best receiver in the league.”
Last quote on the family thing: “Obviously, I picked some stuff from Jon,’’ said Jay Gruden. “It’s hard to apply everything you learn in the NFL to Arenaball, but some things I’ve been able to use that worked pretty good.”
Sure did on Sunday.
Dan Ryan has been involved with all forms of arena football since 1988, including writing for ArenaFan when Joe Kauffman and Tim Capper aren’t killing his columns because they don’t get his jokes or perspective. His day job is at Bethune-Cookman University, which has produced both an NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Little) and an Arena Football Hall of Famer (Stevie Thomas) and his hobby is tracking how many f-bombs Adam Markowitz drops in the chat room on game nights.
