Rattlers Need Total Effort to Reach Ultimate Goal
Patrick Daly
Saturday June 7, 2003
In a recent article posted on the AFL website, Cooper said his awards have come through the success of his team. Although, while he’ll take the individual awards, he would give them all up for more championships.
 The Rattlers must Pressure Mark Grieb Image courtesy of Ken LaRue |
“All that work in the offseason paid off,” said Gatewood. “Coming into the year, I knew I could get better and play better than I have the last two years. That was my goal this year: to play consistent offensively and get better on defense. This year I was put in positions to make a lot of plays on both sides of the ball. The great thing about it was I was rewarded with this award in the end.
“It feels great to be back in the semifinals and to have this award, but ultimately this award will be a better fit for me if did win a championship also, and I sincerely believe that. Ultimately, I’m chasing that ring. That’s my ultimate goal. This award feels great, but I’d really like to get that ring to go with it and make it a lot sweeter.”
Rattlers head coach Danny White felt Gatewood deserved the honors, but also said individual awards don’t always reflect the player’s contribution to the team.
“My feelings about postseason awards are that they’re really secondary in importance to what they’ve contributed to the team. In Randy’s case, I think the right guy got the award. That doesn’t always happen. But Randy prepared himself to have a great year, and when he got the opportunities he took advantage of them. I think that’s what it takes for a guy to have a great year; it’s a combination of preparation and opportunity. He got both and he stayed healthy.
“We’ve always known that Randy had great talent and great abilities—one of the best players in our league. This year he put it all together.”
So, what will this team have to do to beat the San Jose SaberCats and make their fourth ArenaBowl appearance?
As has always been the case, the Rattlers have to pressure San Jose QB Mark Grieb. If Grieb has any time at all Arizona’s secondary will be in for a long day. However, if the Rattlers get pressure and force mistakes and turnovers like they did against Los Angeles last week, reaching ArenaBowl XVII becomes a more realistic task.
“He’s not unlike any other quarterback,” said White about Grieb. “If he can stand back there for five seconds, he’s going to find somebody open and somebody’s going to get open. That will be the key; putting pressure on him and making him make decisions before he’s ready to make them and maybe make a mistake or two.”
The Rattlers will still be without Sebastian Barrie and likely will miss Bryan Henderson for another week, which makes the line’s task a little tougher without two of the team’s strongest pass rushers. OL/DL Tim Croff stepped up last week and recorded a sack and forced fumble that eventually helped put Arizona in the driver’s seat. Croff will need to repeat that performance and get help from Nikia Adderson, Wendall Gaines, Mike Lawson, Charlie Morris and Pete Tramontanas, as well as the rush linebackers, Bo Kelly, John Peaua and Frank Trentadue.
On offense, those same guys need to keep San Jose’s strong rush away from QB Sherdrick Bonner. While San Jose’s Clevan Thomas earned Defensive Player of the Year honors for the second year, he can’t cover all three receivers. Additionally, as good as the other defensive backs may be, no one can cover a receiver for extended periods of time when the offensive line provides good protection.
“We’ve got very talented receivers and [Thomas] can’t cover three guys,” said White. “Somebody is going to be open. Offensively, our goal this week is to give Sherdrick enough time to find the open guy and get the ball to him.”
After all, when you get down to it, football really is a simple game and it generally comes down to execution. In last season’s ArenaBowl, the Rattlers were thrashed by San Jose not because they had a bad game plan, but because they didn’t execute early on in the game before it got out of hand.
“I don’t think there was anything wrong with our plan last year, we just didn’t execute it,” said White.
A big part of that execution includes taking care of the football, especially when Arizona and San Jose are such familiar foes.
“We know pretty much what they’re going to do,” said Gatewood. “They know what we’re going to do. This is a team I’ve played twice a year since I’ve been in this league. We’re very familiar with each other and we’ve played a lot of close games, except for the ArenaBowl last year. We know what we have to do. We’ve got to go in and play great. We’ve got to take care of ourselves and not turn the ball over. We’ve got to play a perfect football game and I think we’re capable of doing that this week.”
If you follow trends the Rattlers are certainly going the right direction.
“Defensively, we have to continue on the same kind of pattern that we’ve been on the last three weeks, which is to put pressure on the quarterback,” said White. “We’ve gotten better each week. Overall, I like where we’re at. I like the trend. I like the fact that we’re getting better defensively in the playoffs. There aren’t very many championship teams that didn’t play great defense in any league. That’s especially true in our league the way things have evolved.”
Now it’s up to this Rattlers team to execute. The reward: a shot to win their third title in ArenaBowl XVII.
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.
