Force Offense Comes Alive; Beats Tampa 61-51
Matt Eichenblatt
Monday March 27, 2006
With the win, the Force climbed to within one game back of the Austin Wranglers for first place in the Southern division. The story of the night was the dominant performance of OS Chris Jackson, who amassed an impressive 124 yards receiving yards with 6 TD receptions, as well as returning a kick 55 yards for another score. Georgia Force head coach Doug Plank was definitely impressed by Chris’ play and spoke his praises after the game.
"Chris Jackson is a difference maker, he makes us a different football team," Plank mentioned. "We were fortunate to have him for the second half of the season last year. Not to take away from the efforts that Derek Lee had and Jamin Elliot had, but Chris Jackson clearly puts this team in a different category as far as a receiving core."
Overshadowed by his counterpart Jackson, was the man throwing the ball to him, Matt Nagy. With his 237 yard, 8 TD performance, Nagy, in only one and a half seasons, became the Georgia Force’s all-time leader in total passing yards. Nagy threw no interceptions in Sunday’s contest and was extremely efficient as he completed 85 percent of his passes.
Although the Offense stole the headlines this week, the Force defense did their part today, creating 2 crucial turnovers. The first turnover was a 19 yard interception by Willie Gary in the first quarter, setting the Force offense up with great field position inside the 15-yard line. The other was a recovered fumble by FB/LB Kevin Aldridge, which also led to another Georgia score.
The biggest defensive play of the game would come late in the first half when 2005 All-Arena Selection, OL/DL Jermaine Smith busted through the line and sacked Storm QB Shane Stafford for a Safety, a play Coach Plank called, "the turning point."
"Jermaine Smith changed the momentum of this football game with his sack at the end of the first half," stated Coach Plank. "That play gave us a tremendous amount of momentum going into the second half. It was all about individual effort and it was the play we needed."
For the 3rd time this season, the Force did not commit any turnovers, an important stat considering the Force are 3-0 in games in which none are committed.
Notables
One of the main areas of concern today was the horrid performance of the Field Goal unit. There were two botched snaps by OL/DL Adam Metts, accompanied by two misses by K Nelson Garner. A reason for the poor showing though was offered by Coach Plank who explained that the usual long-snapper, OL/DL Bruce McClure, was out with torn ligaments in his hand. Metts, who had never deep snapped before, will get extra work this coming week in practice and will remain at the position until the return of McClure in a few weeks.
Next Week
This coming week, the Force will travel to Kansas City to take on the 1-8 Brigade. The last time these two teams met, the Force throttled the expansion Brigade 51-19, allowing only 3 points in the second half. To win, the Force must put Kansas City in a hole early, and get pressure on the quarterback, something they did very well at in their previous meeting.
Starting at quarterback for Kansas City next Saturday will be 2 year veteran, Chris Sanders. Former starter Andy Kelly was benched in favor of Sanders, mainly as an act of preservation. This year, Kelly has had to throw behind a leaky offensive-line, and has been thrown to the turf way to many times this season. It is unrealistic to think Kelly will return to the starting lineup this season as long as this AF2 caliber line is still there. If the Force are to once again manhandle Kansas City, they must put pressure on the quarterback and create turnovers.
Pre-game Magic
In his post-game press conference, Coach Plank started out by thanking the media for the inspiration to his pre-game speech he gave to the team, saying that they were the inspiration to this week’s rant. The title of his speech was titled "contender or pretender," ironically the title of my last article following the Columbus game. The speech he said, "woke everybody up." Good.
Plank said what I and the rest of the fans wanted to hear. The beginning of the season was a big disappointment, that there were too many mental errors, and that there was a renewed commitment to win the last eight games of the season. And you know what? They played that way on Sunday afternoon. Aside from the extra-point unit, the Force played a complete game of football, dominating on both sides of the ball and played tough the entire game.
The biggest statement the Force made was midway through the first quarter when they stood their ground on a 7 play, goal-line stand. Though the Storm eventually scored due to several penalties, the Force showed that they were no longer going to accept getting pushed around, and that this game was going to be theirs.
The Road Trip
For the Force, the road does not get easier. Starting with Kansas City, the Force will then travel to Austin and to Orlando to wrap-up divisional play for the regular season. Besides winning, Coach Plank made sure to include other goals for the next three weeks.
"We’re still not where this team needs to be," Plank stated. "We need to get better if we are going to compete with the remaining teams on our schedule, especially on the road where we don’t have fans and we need to be our own cheerleaders. We need more consistency, less penalties, and less mental errors. We need to start running the football better, and improve our red zone defense."
The Force are going into an important stretch of games where they must win at least 2 of 3 to not only stay alive in the division race, but the playoff race as well. With eight out of the nine teams in the National Conference boasting a 5-4 record or better, there is no room for error on the road to defending their Conference Championship. Though they played better on Sunday, the Force must continue to show an unmatched effort and fire in order to make the playoffs.
Sunday was a great display of what the Force can do when they are motivated. But will they be as fired up against a league bottom feeder? Will they be able to put a team away in the fourth quarter when they have the lead? All of these questions need to be a resounding yes if the Force are going to return to Vegas this year.
In the AFL, anything is possible- but it isn’t done without a tremendous amount of heart, and a minimal amount of mental errors. If the Force play with the amount of fire and energy I know they are capable of, as well as continue to minimize the mental errors, a return to Sin City is still in the cards.
Matt Eichenblatt is a free-lance writer from the Atlanta area. He has followed Arena Football since 1999 and has been attending Georgia Force games since they moved from Nashville five years ago. As well as being a football enthusiast, he is also looking forward to graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in Finance and Communications.
