Streaks continue as Destroyers beat Soul…Again

Rob Hammersmith
Tuesday April 24, 2007

If our actions define who we are, I am now officially crazy. I just spent five days in the hospital, had two different surgeries, one on my heart, and just three days after being released I decided that I just couldn’t miss being in attendance at the Columbus Destroyers (4-3) game Monday night. 

My body was weak and sore, it took me quite a while to walk to my seat, I didn’t stand much, and I didn’t cheer much, but I was there and that’s all that mattered to me. And boy, am I glad I went. 

This game will long be remembered. Not only was Columbus the spotlight for this week’s ESPN Monday Night Football coverage, and not only did the Destroyers make the night even more historical by wearing red jerseys for the first time, but for the second week in a row the Destroyers stomped the opposition as if they weren’t even in the same league with them. 

The Philadelphia Soul (4-3) found the end zone only twice all night. Quarterback Clint Stoerner, making his first start for the Soul replacing the injured Tony Graziani, found Destroyers defensive backs constantly draped all over his wide receivers, and Destroyers defensive linemen draped all over him. 

Stoerner actually did a good job of finding his most open wide receiver on each play, but his best target was only open by very little. Destroyer defensive backs Jerald Brown, Brandon Hefflin, and Rober’ Freeman frequently batted passes away and kept the Soul from getting much of any yards after the catch. 

The defensive back coverage also caused Stoerner to find Destroyers defensive lineman Ken Jones in his face all night. The Soul offensive line had given up one sack all year coming into this game. But Ken Jones and Kelvin Kinney combined for three sacks on the night, not to mention put Stoerner on his back a few times after he threw. 

The overwhelming Destroyers defense held the Soul to only 21 points, nearly matching the 20 points the Destroyers held the Soul to last year, which is a franchise low score for them. 

But all was not perfect for the Destroyers on the night. The Destroyers offense struggled somewhat as well. In fact, in rare occurrences for the Arena Football League, both teams were scoreless at the end of the first quarter, and they combined for only 6 points in the 3rd quarter. 

The Destroyers still seem to struggle in the red zone. And with wide receiver David Saunders being placed on injured reserve during the week, it was apparent early on that the Destroyers were missing their best red zone target. 

Nagy was intercepted in the end zone by Eddie Moten on the Destroyers first possession. And actually the interception was a mistake on Eddie’s part as it was on 4th down and the Soul would have had much better field position had he just batted the pass away. 

Then on the next Destroyers possession, they failed on 4 attempts inside the Soul 5 yard line to get in the end zone, twice trying to run it in. At that point I made a mental note that the Destroyers never seem to be able to run the ball inside the five, yet try it all the time. But by the end of the game the Destroyers successfully ran the ball in for a touchdown from inside the five three different times, so I guess that point is moot. 

But the slow offensive start is still proof that the offense does have some work to do. The offense allowed the final score (44-21) to be closer than it should have been. But thankfully the defense seems to be firing on all cylinders. The defense seemed to be missing completely in the first 3 game of the season, but in the last 4 games it appears to be even more dominating than last year’s squad. Lets hope that continues. 

Quite a few streaks continue as a result of this game. The Soul has lost three games in a row, all on ESPN Monday Night Football. The Soul has lost their last four games against the Destroyers. And the Destroyers have won their last three home games, which is the first time the team has done that since arriving in Columbus, and the first time the franchise has done that since winning four home games in a row in 2002 while in Buffalo. 

The Destroyers have also won their last two games, and their next three opponents have a combined record of 4 wins and 17 losses (Tampa Bay 1-6, New York 1-6, and Grand Rapids 2-5). Dare I say that another streak could continue…. say a winning streak?