Fury Respond to Challenge, Net Luginbill’s First AFL Win
Patrick Daly
Tuesday February 17, 2004
After last week’s 58-43 loss to the San Jose SaberCats, Luginbill challenged his team to not give the game away, particularly in terms of avoiding turnovers.
“I challenged them because I think our players understood our game against San Jose wasn’t a talent problem; it wasn’t us going out there and getting our tails kicked,” said Luginbill. “It was two good teams going out there, and really us putting ourselves at a disadvantage with turnovers and not being in a position to even compete. That’s the thing. If you just put yourself in a position to compete in the last minute of the fourth quarter, and then we’ll see what happens. If we lose the game in the last second because they have the ball last, I can live with that. Don’t hand an opponent the game. Don’t give them opportunities that they haven’t earned. That’s where I really challenged our guys.”
Challenging a player can often be a risky proposition. There’s plenty of psychology involved, especially because each person will respond differently. In this case, the risk was definitely worth the reward.
“This is about as big a team win as you can get, because we challenged each and every one of the guys on our football team,” said Luginbill. “I brought into my office just about every big money guy that we have on this team and I challenged them. I said, ‘if you don’t start producing, we’re going to make changes.’ It’s very simply put. I didn’t think our execution matched our talent level last week [against San Jose]. This week, it certainly did, and I think it showed.”
One of the specific players Luginbill challenged was quarterback Andy Kelly. Last week, a key mistake by Kelly late in the first half resulted in an interception that San Jose returned for a touchdown. The resulting 14-point swing proved a major blow to Detroit’s hopes to win the opener.
“I’ve been around Andy for two and half years,” said Luginbill. “We’ve got a great relationship, but I didn’t necessarily know how he was going to respond because I spoke to him in a way this week that he and I had never spoken to each other before. I can’t enough about how he responded; he responded the way a professional does.”
Part of that response came on the opening drive. Detroit only managed a field goal, but they held the ball for eight minutes through two consecutive possessions—the Fury recovered their own missed field goal attempt on the first drive. The biggest key of the drive was that Kelly appeared to gain confidence by hitting short passes that drove the Fury down the field.
“What I really wanted to do was give him plays that would get him completions,” said Luginbill. “And I told him, ‘stand in there and deliver it. If you can’t make the throw, put it in the seventh row and we’ll play the next down. You don’t have to force anything and you don’t have to be a hero. Just manage the game.’ When he got through that first series, I thought he started feeling comfortable. Then, what I thought really helped, is he saw how we were playing on defense.”
When you look back at this game, you’ll find one of the better defensive efforts for any team. You’ll also find an offense that was able to feed off of the defensive success.
“I can’t say enough about our defensive effort tonight,” said Luginbill. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a defense play that way ever, and I’ve been in the league since ’96. That was one of the most phenomenal defensive efforts I’ve ever seen.
“On the flip side of that, when we got the ball back, Andy just managed the game. He didn’t to play everyone else’s position. He didn’t try to win it for us. He just managed each and every down in each and every series, and never put us at a disadvantage.”
Defensively, two drives provide an example of the importance of defense in an offensively dominated league. In the first case, Arizona had managed to build one of the most desired advantages in terms of possession, when they scored at the end of the first half knowing that they would have the ball to open the second half. However, Detroit took that advantage away by forcing a long missed field goal attempt on Arizona’s opening drive in the third quarter.
The second example came late in the fourth quarter when Arizona ran eight plays, including two field goal attempts, within ten yards of paydirt, but failed to post any points. In the end, Detroit stopped three runs, three passes and forced the two missed field goal tries.
“That might have been the turning point in the game, because, if we don’t stop them there, they go up by 11 points,” said Luginbill of the stop at the beginning of the third quarter. “How big was that? Huge. Our defense did that time after time tonight. The goal line stands there in the fourth quarter—I just don’t even know what to say about it. I don’t know if that’s something we could ever duplicate. Maybe I’ll go back to the tape and it won’t be as fantastic as I thought it was while I was seeing it, but it was pretty special.”
The win is also special because it marks Luginbill’s first win as an AFL head coach. Add to that the fact that it came on the road in Arizona, against one of the league’s most prolific head coaches in Danny White, and you’ll be hard pressed to come up with a better set of circumstances.
“For me, to get my first win here as the head coach of this team, against a team like this—a team that’s got a head coach that’s second all-time in wins in the history of the league—to get it on the road, it couldn’t be more special,” said Luginbill. “I’m so proud of our guys. Especially to hear my guys in the locker room telling me that it’s my first win and receiving congratulations—they didn’t need to say that, but that was special.”
This is Luginbill’s second head coaching position, with the first coming in the af2 with the Tennessee Valley Vipers. Luginbill credits that experience as a job that prepared him for where he is now.
“This is my second go around as a head coach,” said Luginbill. “The first time it was at the af2 level. That job might have prepared me for more things than any other head coaching job could, because, at the af2 level as a head coach, you’ve got to do everything. You don’t have any assistants, you don’t have a video guy, and you don’t have an equipment guy. So that experience prepared me for just about anything in this league.”
The Fury return home to face the 0-2 Indiana Firebirds after earning a split with two of the league’s more storied franchises. Although you’d rather start 2-0, the 1-1 split is a good place to start.
“To open up the season like we’ve had to, against San Jose and Arizona, maybe two of the best in the league year in and year out, not everybody has had to do that,” said Luginbill. “And then to get one of those two, particularly one on the road, that’s huge.”
Now it’s time to go home and do it again.
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.
