VooDoo Win Tough Return to the Graveyard
Jack Bedell
Tuesday February 15, 2005
After waiting two decades for the New Orleans Saints to field anything close to a winner, New Orleans football fans were quickly spoiled by the division championship constructed by Owner Tom Benson, Coach Mike Neu, and the entire VooDoo organization last season. So while fans at last year’s home opener were just happy to be part of the spectacle, the bar was set much higher in 2005, especially with the additions of All-Arena talents like Andy Kelly, Thabiti Davis, and the return of defensive stud Monty Montgomery.
It didn’t take long for the VooDoo’s new blood to go to work. On the first drive of the game, Kelly executed the offense with poise and proficiency. Kelly, who was named the Offensive Player of the Game, looked much more comfortable under center than last year’s quarterback John Fitzgerald ever did, going 33-47 for 340 yards and a club record eight touchdowns. Where Fitzgerald often squandered touchdown opportunities by panicking if his first reads were unavailable, Kelly moved through his progressions calmly and efficiently. Whenever former Detroit Fury teammate Thabiti Davis was blanketed, Kelly delivered the ball to offensive specialist Aaron Bailey with great touch.
Kelly’s calmness gave the entire VooDoo squad the confidence it needed to stand toe-to-toe with the defending champs. As coach Neu put it, "At the end of the game, everybody’s excited and everybody’s nervous, but there is no situation when [Kelly] is going to feel too much pressure. The guy’s been in situations like this. He’s been to two ArenaBowls. He did a heck of a job today leading our football team. It all came from the quarterback."
With Kelly pulling the trigger, Davis and Bailey both had impressive outings running through a SaberCats secondary that featured multiple ArenaBowl ring bearers Omarr Smith, Barry Wagner, and James Roe. While Davis caught 10 balls for 86 yards with two touchdowns and was named Ironman of the game, it was Bailey who stole the show. He snagged 12 balls for 166 yards and four touchdowns, including the game-winner, a one-handed stab over Clevan Thomas with 26 seconds left on the clock.
Excitement and efficiency aside, however, the game was no picnic in the Graveyard. With Monty Montgomery inactive again, the VooDoo had no answer for Roe, who led all receivers with 13 catches for 168 yards and a mind-boggling five touchdowns. It often felt like a bad rerun of "Groundhog’s Day" watching Roe catch pass after pass on slow developing drag routes across the front of the VooDoo defense.
The defense also failed to mount any consistent pressure on SaberCats quarterback Mark Grieb, who completed 30 of 39 passes for 353 yards and seven touchdowns. Grieb operated in ample space all afternoon, and as Coach Neu said after the game, "Grieb’s one of the best in the business. He’s tough to frustrate if you can’t put pressure in his face." Lineman B.J. Cohen got the one sack of the day, collapsing the pocket and buckling Grieb’s legs on the Sabercats 1-yard line, causing the only true defensive stop of the game for the VooDoo. "That was big," Neu said, "to get a stop against San Jose. We knew we had our work cut out for us stopping that football team, and [Cohen’s sack] was a big stop for us."
On the offensive side of the ball, the only obvious shortcoming was the lack of a rushing attack. On an 11-minute drive to open the second half, Kelly used the three-step passing game in lieu of the run, but inside the red zone, the VooDoo really missed last year’s leading rusher, Dan Curran, who’s on his way to NFL-Europe this summer. As Bailey struggled on third and fourth effort to lunge into the end zone for the touchdown to cap the drive, you could almost hear "Man, I wish we had Curran" echoing throughout the arena. Coach Neu admitted as much in his post-game review: "We’re a work-in-progress, and really our three-step game has taken over for our run game. We frustrate the pass rush with the three-step game when they can’t get home, but we are going to need to run the ball, and we haven’t given up on that yet."
By the time SaberCats kicker Dan Frantz’s last-second 32-yard field goal attempt sailed right at the buzzer, however, the Graveyard’s expectations of excellence had been met and exceeded. The VooDoo have definitely taken on the poise and confidence of their veteran quarterback and if Sunday’s home-opening 62-61 victory against the defending champs is any indication, the team has the talent and coaching to compete with the best the league has to offer. They’ll need that and more with the likes of Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, and Orlando coming into the Graveyard in the next month and a half.
Jack Bedell was an inaugural season ticket holder for the af2's Lafayette Roughnecks and the AFL's New Orleans VooDoo. He's been a fan of the league since he first saw Browning Nagle heaving touchdowns for the Buffalo Destroyers. Jack's married to a lovely wife, Beth, and has two sons, Jack and Samuel Eli. He works as an associate professor of creative writing at Southeastern Louisiana University.
