No VooDoo in the Jungle
Jason Lucas
Monday April 12, 2004
The long awaited return of Joe Hamilton finally happened for the Preds, and on a night when Hamilton’s former counterpart Daunte Culpepper was in the house to flip the opening coin toss, Hamilton shined with one of his better performances of the season. Before the game, with an atmosphere that was made electric by the 13,203 patrons in the jungle, it was almost like a playoff atmosphere.
The noise of the jungle proved to be too much for the VooDoo offense as they spent timeouts when the noisy crowd, as well as the play of the Predator defense, seemingly rattled quarterback John Fitzgerald. Orlando dominated the line of scrimmage all night long on defense as they had Fitzgerald running for his life on many occasions. Orlando only had one E.J. Burt sack on the night, but had plenty of pressure on Fitzgerald, forcing him to throw the football before he wanted to.
The Predators defense played so well inside the red zone on this night that at one point New Orleans went from first and goal on the Orlando eight to third and goal on the their own 17-yard line after Fitzgerald was sacked for a big loss and and then a holding penalty sent the VooDoo the wrong direction. There are so many ways I can express how much Orlando defensively dominated this game. For example, late in the first half, the VooDoo finally got a receiver to catch a ball in the end zone. The only problem was that Aaron Bailey caught the ball out of bounds as the first half buzzer sounded and the Preds held a 27-3 lead.
Although defense was the story of the night for Orlando, the offense played very well, too. Hamilton struck early with a five-yard toss to Bret Cooper, giving the Preds a 7-3 lead in the first quarter. Hamilton tossed two more touchdown passes and also ran in a 15-yard touchdown to help build Orlando’s 27-3 lead at the half.
The second half brought more of the same for the Predators; New Orleans did not throw a touchdown pass until there was 8:45 left in the fourth quarter when Fitzgerald hit Aaron Bailey on a 34-yard strike, making the score 44-17 in Orlando’s favor.
With under a minute to go, Orlando added insult to injury as Bailey fielded Jay Taylor’s kickoff in the end zone. Bailey dropped the ball on the ground and a mad scramble for the ball ensued. Coming out of the pile with the ball was newly signed Predator Greg Krause, who did his best “Three Amigos” dance to celebrate his touchdown and Orlando’s imminent victory.
With the victory, the Predators improved to 4-5 on the season, continuing their on again, off again trend this season. It remains a mystery to me how they can play so bad one week against a lowly opponent and then come back and play up to potential the next week against an opponent clearly superior to the team they played the week before. Apparently, I am not the only one surprised by this trend as Preds head coach Jay Gruden expressed the same sentiment.
“I’m getting gray hair because I don’t know which team is showing up anymore,” Gruden said. “You know, we got a great team. We came out and played with intensity and we played smart football. We showed them tonight; this is a very good football team we beat.”
Every step you take…
On another note, as if there was not enough controversy around the Predators this week, there was an official from the league office sent to monitor the Preds crowd behavior and make a report. After an incident with a “Tommy Lee” inflatable flying around the stands, the Predators were fined $10,000 by the league. This is without a doubt the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard; having someone from the league in the crowd waiting to levy a fine on the team because of fan behavior.
The team has absolutely nothing to do with what goes on in the stands, as it says on the back of any ticket you purchase. You are responsible for your own actions, and if you do something you are not supposed to be doing, you will be ejected from the arena. My message would be to eject the person that started the disturbance, but do not fine the team because they have zero control of what goes on in the stands. Blow up dolls have been flying around the stands of the jungle since 1992, when I first started going to Preds games. If you have let the fans do this for 14 seasons, why would you stop them now? I digress… back to business.
On the road again
The Predators travel to Georgia next week in a rematch with playoff implications. Orlando is in yet another must-win situation, and if they carry over the intensity from this week to next week, and throughout the rest of the season, they should stand a good chance to make the Arena Football League playoffs in June. Game time is set for 3:00 p.m. this Sunday afternoon in Duluth, GA.
Jason Lucas is a part-time freelance writer based in the Orlando, Florida area. A former director of media relations with the Orlando Predators, Jason is making his return to Arenafan.com after a short stint as a public relations assistant with the UFL‘s Florida Tuskers in 2010. Lucas has followed the AFL since 1992 and began covering the Predators for Arenafan during the 2004 season. He held that position until being picked up by the Preds front office after the 2007 season. Jason‘s knowledge of arena football and love of the game is what drives him to continue covering the sport.
