Force Avoid Disaster; Slip By Gladiators

Matt Eichenblatt
Monday April 16, 2007

Alright Force fans, you can exhale now.

When the Georgia Force took the field Sunday evening at Philips Arena, they (and everyone else in the building) expected to see a game that would end up being one-sided, to say the least. What they got was an impressive effort from the Las Vegas Gladiators, and one heck of a scare that finalized with a 69-68 score that the Force were luckily on the right side of.

Let’s not understate the importance of this game here—if the Force had lost to Las Vegas, it would have been simply devastating.

Please put this into perspective; the Gladiators entered the game with a 1-5 record, a new quarterback under center, a roster of nobodies and about as much motivation as Tim Marcum has to give up screaming. With a team like this, you have to leave no doubt because most of the time they will end up ‘mailing it in.’

Well, the Force let them hang around, and it almost ended sheer disaster.

Now, I’m not one to be completely negative because there were a lot of positives in this game. For one, Chris Greisen continued his assault on the AFL defense as he had his best performance to date, throwing for a team-record 376 yards and 10 touchdowns, 5 of which ended up in the hands of WR Chris Jackson. The offense today was the most efficient it has been all season, and the dynamic trio of Troy Bergeron, Derek Lee and Chris Jackson are still leaving defenses feeling numb. 

But if you look at the end result of this game, the Force still only beat the lowly Las Vegas Gladiators by one, and that alone cannot be considered acceptable. The defense was out of position the whole game, the tackling was poor, and the Force accrued 11 penalties for 83 yards; a simply sickening number. 

The biggest problem of all though was the baffling amount of times the Force defensive line jumped offsides in the game, a problem that has plagued the Force all year. The problem was also very noticeable to Georgia head coach, Doug Plank, who seemed to have the perfect solution to the problem.

“Next week, we are going to give our lineman earplugs,” said Plank. “Along with that, we plan to give them a CD with a cadence to listen to on their drive to practice. They can play it with some other music they have, but they are going to listen to this and hopefully we can deaden their senses to the quarterback’s snap count.”

Earplugs?

I like it. When you have a nose tackle whose face is literally four inches from the ball jumping offsides, a thing like earplugs might just be the only cure. 

Offsides penalties aside, there are other elements that contribute to 69-68 scares against the AFL’s worse team. 

As most of you in the AFL world know, the Georgia Force’s showdown with the currently undefeated Dallas Desperados is now one week away. While that is certainly a big game, it might also be the cause for the near-disaster on Sunday evening; the Force in this game were caught looking ahead to the Desperados Sunday, and boy did it almost burn them. 

When asked about the notion of his team looking ahead, Plank somewhat agreed, “I think it is simply human nature, all of us want to take a look at something that greater than what we are currently facing.”

While I appreciate the honesty of coach Plank, it alarms me that such an intense guy like him can simply let this kind of thing happen. Great teams and championship contenders demolish inferior opponents, and they do not let them hang around in fear that something like today can happen. The Force this year have a killer instinct, but it seems much stronger when they face an opponent more to their level. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the Force will come out prepared the next three weeks against Dallas, New Orleans and Orlando; it’s the games against teams like Los Angeles and Tampa Bay that I am worried about.

Look, there is no need to panic.  The Force are off to their best start in franchise history at 6-1, and they should be commended for that.  But if Doug Plank wants to successfully follow his mantra of ‘getting better every day,’ the team needs to take a serious look in the mirror and commit themselves to preventing penalties and consistent play, no matter the opponent. Those are the things that that rob talent laden teams like this of championship aspirations.

The Force have a big game against the Dallas Desperados next week, and the eyes of AFL fans everywhere will be dead-set on Philips Arena next Saturday night. 

It’s when those eyes aren’t on them that worry me.