Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Charliy Nash
Sunday February 5, 2006
While the defense has been getting all the attention, the offense has been putting up a lot of points. Quarterback Clint Stoerner threw five touchdown passes to four different receivers. All night long things just seemed to go right for the Kats. WR/LB Jermaine Lewis turned what should have been a short gain into a 24-yard touchdown by keeping his balance despite what looked like a good leg tackle by a Columbus defender, and striding into the endzone. "When it was time for me to score, that was it," Lewis explained.
Darryl Hammond also had a few things go his way. Catch number 794 of his long career was surely one of the strangest. Falling backwards, he stretched a hand out to his side and just got it directly under the football and pulled it toward his body. "That was luck, to be honest with you," Hammond confessed, "That ball just happened to stick to my hand and I just pulled it in, I couldn’t believe it myself." But the 15-year veteran saved his biggest play for the closing minutes of the game, when he intercepted a pass that had been deflected by Khalil Carter and ran it back the length of the field for a touchdown. "I saw that he was throwing a slant, so I went over there because I thought maybe, just in case it got deflected I could be in the passing lane, and sure enough it came right to me."
Even those moments that looked like positives for the Destroyers often turned around and lifted the Kats. A prime example was when it appeared that the Kats had been stopped deep in their own territory. The Destroyers set up for a return, but kicker Tony Dodson hit a 53-yard field goal right down the middle. "Usually on the long ones if you hit it solid you know if it’s going to go straight or not," Dodson explained, "and I knew from about the first ten yards that it was going to go straight through."
After the first game the Kats had the rather ridiculous points against number of 28; after two games the average has been lowered to 27.5 points per game. When Friday night’s game was over the Kats had given up less points this season than the defending champion Colorado Crush – who have only played one game.
Charliy Nash has covered both incarnations of the Nashville Kats, and now has make the 2 hour drive to Huntsville for an Arena Football fix. He also covers the Tennessee Titans as a blogger for nfl.com and still hopes this will eventually lead to a paying gig.
