Gladiators Unable to Hang onto Victory... Or the Ball
Patrick Daly
Tuesday February 11, 2003
Unfortunately, the turnover troubles overshadowed the strong performance of the Las Vegas defense. The Gladiators kept the Rattlers offense out of sync for most of the day and helped Las Vegas build a 28-23 lead at halftime despite three first-half interceptions.
“We were terrible,” Gladiators head coach Frank Haege said. “We gave it to them -- five total if you count the one at the end. We’re not going to win many games doing that.”
“Our defense stepped up and they did the job,” McDonagh said. “Our offense had five turnovers and with five turnovers you’re never going to win any games. If we take care of the ball, the bottom line is we win. I thought we definitely played well enough on defense to win and the offense didn’t do the job.”
Despite the turnover troubles, the defense kept the team in the game, and allowed the Gladiators a shot to win the game on the final drive. However, confusion about clock management in the final seconds proved costly as the Gladiators failed to use a timeout until four seconds remained.
“I totally screwed up at the end of the game,” Haege said. “We wanted to call a timeout with 10 seconds left so we could run two plays. I saw their coach calling for a timeout, and the clock never stopped.
“No one play ever made a game, but that was definitely a big one.”
Even with only one play, Las Vegas did have a chance to score the game-winning touchdown, but the result was McDonagh’s fourth interception of the day. With OS Mike Horacek not an option, McDonagh tried to hit WR/DB George Williams, but the pass was tipped away into the waiting hands of Rattlers DS Mark Ricks.
“I just tried to get open on the outside on that play,” Williams said. “Jay put it in the right spot and they played pretty good defense on it.”
After the turnover troubles against Los Angeles last week, this was another disappointing loss, especially with the opportunities Las Vegas did have throughout the game.
“Any loss is disappointing,” Williams said. “We had a lot of opportunities to win it tonight. We’ve got to execute and take care of the ball. We’re a good team. We’ve just got to execute and do what we do.”
Despite a strong Rattler pass rush, the Gladiators were able to find ways to give McDonagh some time. However, in the second half, Las Vegas lost some of their early momentum and managed only 14 points, due in part to poor ball movement on first downs.
“The protection was definitely shaky at times,” Haege said. “They’ve got some good pass rushers, and we expected that. We tried some screens to slow them down early, and I think that definitely helped. In the second half, it seemed we were in second-and-long and third-and-long too much to use the screen game to slow them down since the first downs weren’t very productive.
“I thought we had some good momentum going, but then at the end of the half they scored and we didn’t. That’s a big killer in this league. You always want to be the team that scores last, whether it’s the first half in the second half.”
At 0-2, the Gladiators have begun to dig a hole that will tough to climb out of over the next few weeks. They will open their home schedule against the Tampa Bay Storm (1-1), a team that comes off of a disappointing 54-51 loss to Orlando.
“Our schedule is just a beast,” Haege said. “We’ve got Chicago and San Jose not too far away, and we go to New York, which is very exciting. The first half of our schedule is difficult, period. You’ve just got to take it a game at a time. We’re at home, where hopefully we can make a stand and get something done at the end of the game.”
For a team that called New Jersey home last season, the Gladiators will play their first game in front of the home crowd at the Thomas and Mack Center.
“It’ll be good for us to open up at home,” Williams. “We’ll have a lot of stuff riding on that game and we want to win; start a good year off in Vegas. We’ll be looking forward to winning next week.”
Despite the loss, the Gladiators are not much different than the team that finished 9-5 last season and earned the fourth-seed in the playoffs.
“I think, physically, we came out like we needed to come out; with an attitude,” Horacek said. “Offensively, we got to give Jay some more time back there and, as receivers, we’ve got to get open. I don’t think we’re too far away from where we want to be.”
In the end, turnovers cost Las Vegas a chance to even up their record at 1-1.
“We played well today, but we just can’t turn the ball over like that,” Horacek said. “You take those turnovers away, we run away with it.”
Patrick Daly has been an Arena Football League enthusiast since he first stumbled across the late-night ESPN broadcasts and has followed the Arizona Rattlers since their inaugural season in 1992. He graduated from Arizona State University with an engineering degree and is currently a member of a web development team for Direct Alliance in Tempe. Patrick currently resides in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Arizona with his beautiful wife, son and a very large football helmet collection.
