Injuries Stymie Firebrids Against Georgia
Matthew Pickut
Tuesday May 6, 2003
At 5-9 it’s been the kind of season that tends to invoke rash comments, most of them unprintable, but the real problem still eludes the team. “Sometimes its hard to see what happened until after the dust settles,” said FB/LB Rich Young.
Even with eight years of experience, OS-turned-WR/LB Eddie Brown can’t figure out what’s happening with his team. “It’s always tough to lose, but I don’t know. I just don’t know what happened. I’m at a loss for words, and I’ve never been that kind of guy,” said Brown.
QB Raymond Philyaw played well but only managed to connect with two receivers for positive yardage before the last play of the game. “I think we came out ready to play,” said Philyaw, “then we had that third down stop and they went up 21-7. We came back and scored again, but missed that field goal and an extra point. It seems like every game it’s something that starts the downside. We came back on the field for the next drive; Jeremy [McDaniel] makes a nice catch to some positive yards but fumbles the ball. We knew what Georgia had, but we made too many mistakes. You can’t beat a good team like that.
After 14 games, however, one thing has become perfectly clear: the problems go deeper than just what a cursory examination would reveal. “Win or lose, you are always looking for answers. For the players, they don’t always understand how the loss of one player can change things,” said Dailey. “It’s not just that he’s out and you need someone to replace him. It’s that now Brian Alford has to play defense, Shaun Foreman has to go from Jack to Corner, Jay Jones has to play a lot more minutes than he would normally. But even if the players don’t understand, the coaches do and that is part of our woes this year. I don’t want it coming across as an excuse, but that’s been a big part of our woes this year.”
Even with the injuries, Dailey would admit that there are other problems with the team’s play. “We’ve just not been playing real good. It seems that when we make a play we have a penalty, we score a touchdown and get called for pushing, we get an interception and we get called for an Illegal rush, so those are the things that make for a tough loss.”
As the game wore on the Firebirds seemed to loss steam, with Georgia putting a strain on the Firebirds’ rotation. “They are certainly a good football team. They have one of the top defenses in the league and they have some good people,” said Dailey. “We were tired at the skill positions because of the rotation. A guy like Evan is playing forever. At the end of the first half he’s dying. And the second half Jay played so many minutes. So we’ll have to go back and look at the films and see if there are things that we did poorly, with execution or with missed assignments. We certainly weren’t very efficient offensively.”
“I don’t remember ever having to use that much [of the roster], and it’s at the skill positions. You never want to see anyone get hurt, but we could sustain some injuries at line or fullback/mack much easier than we could at the skill positions. It’s just one of those things you don’t have control over but it hurts us tremendously.”
Much to their credit nobody on the Firebirds is making excuses for the team’s despairs, but not making excuses if far from what is needed. Excuses defray blame, but nothing can defray reasponsability, and at 5-9, more than one person has to take the reasponsability for making the team better if the team hopes to make the play-offs (still a possibility if the ‘birds can go 2-0 and nether Buffalo or New York do). Each player on the roster and each coach on the staff need to look themselves in the mirror and make sure they are doing their part to fulfill their responsibilities to the team and make themselves and teammates better. That’s the only way, regardless of injuries, that the team will play beyond week 16.
Matthew Pickut is a pastor in northern Indiana and a long time AFL fan. He also writes for his own website: The Brown Paper Blog. He graduated from Taylor University in Upland Indiana (class of `96) with degrees in Biblical Literature and Sociology as well as a healthy respect for the medicinal properties of coffee.
