VooDoo Vets Step It Up
Jack Bedell
Wednesday April 20, 2005
Coming out of their bye week as losers of three out of their last four games, the New Orleans VooDoo entered the Graveyard Saturday night haunted by issues of team unity and a lack of focus. They left after a 64-28 demolition of the Columbus Destroyers with a grip on the fourth and final playoff spot in the National Conference, well within striking distance of the Georgia Force and the Orlando Predators in the Southern Division.
The victory was a testament to the effort and dedication of the team’s veteran leaders. If you had made a list before the game of the players who needed to show up in order for the VooDoo to get back on track—QB Andy Kelly, OS Aaron Bailey, OL/DL B. J. Cohen, WR/LB Carl Bond—you would’ve been holding a list of Saturday night’s top performers.
In three quarters of work, Andy Kelly passed for 229 yards and 6 touchdowns on his way to being named Offensive Player of the Game. B. J. Cohen collected a team record three sacks, one of them for a safety on the Destroyers’ first possession that set the tone for the night, and was named Defensive Player of the Game. Bond and Bailey each hauled in three touchdowns, with Bond being named Ironman of the Game. Then there were players like FB/LB Leroy Thompson laying crushing blocks and mounting defensive pressure all night, WR/LB Calvin Spears turning routing screen passes into long scores, and WR/LB Tremaine Neal blocking like a maniac away from the ball and defending passes like a defensive specialist. From top to bottom, the VooDoo roster showed up.
LIFE WITHOUT MONTY
After a heartbreaking loss to the Austin Wranglers, Coach Neu gave his players the bye week to rededicate themselves to the season and to each other. At the first team meeting following the break, he turned the responsibility for pulling the team out of its funk over to his veteran players, "In that meeting Sunday night, I asked the B.J. Cohens and the Leroy Thompsons and the Andy Kellys to step up. Those guys have all been to ArenaBowls. They know what it takes, not only on the football field, but they know what it takes in the locker room. They know that we need to root out the small problems and come a little bit closer together."
Part of that "rooting out" involved the release of defensive stud Monty Montgomery earlier in the week. And while local media and many fans feared a collapse in the VooDoo secondary, defensive specialists Chris Pointer, Alvin Porter, and Denario Smalls (who gave up his front tooth on a hard tackle) responded with the team’s best performance of the year, limiting Destroyers quarterbacks Matt D’Orazio and Scott McMullen to fewer than 200 yards and two touchdowns.
Pointer and Porter may lack Montgomery’s physicality, but they make up for it with tighter coverage and better ball skills. Pointer and Porter slapped balls away all night, and managed to stay away from referees and penalty flags while doing so. The fact of the matter is Montgomery had more penalties than passes defended and more ejections than interceptions. The VooDoo just don’t have that kind of margin of error down the stretch, and judging by the performance of the defense Saturday night, they’re back in form.
A WIN’S A WIN, BUT. . .
I hate to kick a team when it’s down, but the Destroyers are horrible. Their soft zone and loose man coverages made it look like skeleton drills for Andy Kelly most of the night. The team failed to mount any offensive attack, constantly killing itself with a litany of procedure, formation, and motion fouls. They were even forced to take a second-half time out at one point because the offensive line was having a leisurely discussion of how to line up.
While some of the Destroyers’ offensive woes were caused by B. J. Cohen’s relentless rush and the tight coverage of Pointer and Porter, most of the problem came from poor pivot play (as our friends from the North like to say). Neither Matt D’Orazio nor Scott McMullen appear to have the accuracy it takes to fit balls into this league’s tight windows.
All that said, the Destroyers had the misfortune of running into a New Orleans VooDoo squad that was surly and ready to make somebody pay for it. As Coach Neu put it, "It wouldn’t have mattered who we lined up against. We had two weeks to fester over some differences. You know, we’d lost three of the last four. We just couldn’t wait to get back out on the field."
PLAYOFFS? PLAYOFFS?
Holding the head to head advantage over the Tampa Bay Storm, the VooDoo enter the last five weeks of the season at 7-4, and in control of the fourth and final playoff spot in the conference. With divisional opponents Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Austin still on the schedule along with Grand Rapids and Colorado, the VooDoo have some work cut out for them. Luckily, the teams in the proverbial "win, and we’re in" situation. And they know it. As Coach Neu explained, "Our guys know it’s there for the taking, for someone to reach out and grab it. The playoffs seem to change completely every week, with teams going from first to fourth. We’ve just got to keep pace in this division, because it’s the toughest in the league."
UP NEXT
This Saturday night the VooDoo visit the Grand Rapids Rampage, another single-win club. While Coach Neu insists the team won’t do anything different on defense to contain Rampage QB Michael Bishop, his rushing ability and strong arm present an unusual set of challenges for the VooDoo’s new line up in the secondary. Hopefully, the linebackers and coverage guys will be more than up for the task. My guess is the VooDoo will need to take three of the last five games to hold their playoff spot. Grand Rapids looks like a great place to start the run.
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.
