Cobras Still Snake Bitten by Rattlers
Chuck DiLullo
Wednesday February 25, 2004
“They went to their short game and ball control game and managed to accumulate some first downs, and that helped to sharpen his (Bonner’s) performance and increase his confidence,” said head coach Eddie Khayat.
“I have never seen Danny White this conservative,” added defensive coordinator Ron Selesky. “They had to give it their all to beat us by seven points.”
The announced crowd of 9,217 included two staunch Rattler fans, Steven and Brian Gomez, who made the trip from Tempe. Brian, in fact, plans on attending all 16 Rattler games this season. It was the largest home crowd ever at the Coliseum and they were primed to see quarterback Matt Nagy and the Cobras offense continue their impressive performance, but left disappointed as Nagy threw three interceptions at critical points in the game, including two in the final three possessions. The Rattlers defense held the Cobras off the board in the fourth quarter and sealed the game with defensive specialist Hamin Milligan’s first career interception after the Rattlers turned the ball over on an errant toss play with 43 seconds remaining in regulation. Nagy was able to engineer a come-from-behind victory on the final drive against the Columbus Destroyers the week before, but he was unable to pull off the same magic versus the Rattlers.
“The last pick was a bad pass,” said Nagy. “I had a terrible, terrible game. I’m not happy with my game at all. That was by no means a good game and I take full responsibility for it. I played terrible and I’ll leave it at that.”
“That is a very fine ball club that beat us tonight and we told our players all week that this was a team that was accustomed to winning and going to the playoffs every year,” said Khayat. “We played hard and came up with some good plays, but just not enough of them.”
The Cobras look to rebound against the winless Orlando Predators on Saturday, February 28th and hope to secure their first home victory in front of the Charlotte fans. For the second week in a row, the Cobras will be facing a desperate and winless perennial power in the Arena Football League as Jay Gruden looks for the right mix of players that can enable the Predators to capture their first victory of the year.
Chuck DiLullo works for a manufacturer of process control instrumentation as a sales engineer. He has been a fan of professional, college and high school football since he could walk. Chuck is originally from Philadelphia and he became a huge Arena Football League fan while living in Buffalo. Chuck has lived in Charlotte since 2000 with his wife & three children.
