Playoffs Start Sunday for Fury
Neal Ruhl
Friday April 23, 2004
Essentially, the playoffs start Sunday for the Fury. Detroit sits a full three games behind the division leading Chicago Rush, and for all intents and purposes, two and a half games behind Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. Austin and Los Angeles own the tiebreaker advantage due to their victories in head to head matchups earlier this season.
“They (the playoffs) do start for us Sunday,” said Fury OL/DL Curtis Eason. “We gotta go out and beat them.”
The must win mentality is something that Fury coach Tom Luginbill has tried to install all week in the minds of his squad.
“At no point this year did I tell our team that this game is a must win,” said Luginbill. “I didn’t do it before the Chicago game. I didn’t even do it last week against Los Angeles, but this week I did tell the guys that. We have to have this football game. This is a must win. We’ve got six weeks left. If we want a seventh, we have to get this one.”
At 3-7, the Gladiators have been one of the league’s bigger disappointments. The team that was supposed to contend for the ArenaBowl title has turned the ball over 20 times, tied for second most in the league with the Fury.
“That Las Vegas team is kind of a mirror image of us,” said Luginbill. “They have a ton of talent, but they have turned it over way too many times to win in this game.”
The way I see it, 9-7 will get into the playoffs. The Fury have to get the run started this week to have any hopes of getting in. One thing in Detroit’s favor is that the schedule sees the Fury play teams that they have already beaten in the next three weeks after the Las Vegas game. The Fury should come into those games with some confidence in the fact that they have had success against those teams. With the veteran leadership on this team, look for the Fury to step up when the chips are down. PREDICTION: Detroit 72, Las Vegas 69.
Unleash the Fury
The hope was that OS Junior Lord would be ready for this week’s game, but he is not. Carl Bond will get the call this week… Fury DS Ron Carpenter went to college at Miami (Ohio), the same school as soon to be early first round draft pick QB Ben Roethlisberger. Carp thinks that he would have success against him however. “I would pick him off at least once,” said Carpenter… NBC pulled the Gladiators/Fury game off of the Sunday television schedule.
On the air
Catch ArenaFan’s own Neal Ruhl on the Detroit Fury pregame show on WDFN AM 1130 on Sunday.
Neal Ruhl lives in the Metro Detroit Area where he has covered the Detroit Lions as well as the Motor City Bowl.
