Hey Vegas: Here’s my application
Jason Lucas
Monday August 13, 2007
In 16 complete seasons of watching the league I have studied great coaches such as Tim Marcum, Jay Gruden, Steve Thonn, and many of today’s other coaches.
Every weekend of the season fellow Arenafan writer Adam Markowitz and I get together and breakdown every aspect of every game we get to watch. We are kind of like our own coaching combination without the titles.
Often times we have talked about getting together and coaching an af2 franchise. We know all of the ins and outs of arena football offenses, defenses, and special teams. I have personally found myself many times sitting at Orlando Predators games calling the very same play that Gruden calls. Of course I am always the first to say, “I told you so.”
Over the last four seasons I have been with arenafan.com I have made sure to go out of my way to cover Preds practices. I have always found something fascinating about the coaching profession since I finally accepted that playing is no longer an option.
As for my colleague, Markowitz was never much of a player but he surely knows how to manage games. He and I go back and forth a lot in the final minute of each half that we watch and say what we think should happen. I swear to you 9 times out of 10 he is right because he not only knows what he would do, he also knows what the coach he is watching will do too.
Between the two of us we have more useless AFL information than you could ever imagine. Useless because neither of us get to use the information to help players improve themselves at this point.
At this point of the column, most coaches reading this would be saying that Lucas is just another “second guesser”. After all arenafan is the home of “second guessin”, right coach Marcum?!
Recently the Preds added Alan Gooch as their President to run day to day operations. Gruden said hopefully Alan can help our budget so maybe I can watch some more video to help us prepare for opponents. I wonder why Jay never said anything; he could have come over and watched tape with me.
That’s right guys, I have nothing at all to prepare a team for but I will surely watch film on an upcoming Preds opponent. Hell, Markowitz watches every single AFL game on the AFLnet archives and then reports to me about them in detail.
One thing a Lucas/Markowitz coached team would never be is unprepared. Something Columbus Destroyers coach Doug Kay said his team was guilty of in ArenaBowl XXI.
Back to Las Vegas for a minute here; what kind of coach is it going to take to turn that team around? I really think it will take a coach who is just as young as the players and has a lot of patience. Brian Partlow fits that description, but they probably also want a good time manager too so he would be out of consideration right there.
Right off the bat you know Las Vegas can not afford some of the premiere coaches available for this job. Last season it was made known they benched and traded any player who was close to a bonus.
Adam and I would come cheap, I promise. Just give us some player’s club cards at MGM Grand and some nice hotel rooms to call home. Maybe throw in a free card for the buffet lines on the strip too and I think we could work together. Okay, maybe that last perk would be fit for candidate Skip Foster, but we can eat too.
So c’mon Vegas, what do you say? I bet you we will not do worse than 2-14 and if we do I could assure you we would give our player’s club cards back right away.
Jason Lucas is a part-time freelance writer based in the Orlando, Florida area. A former director of media relations with the Orlando Predators, Jason is making his return to Arenafan.com after a short stint as a public relations assistant with the UFL‘s Florida Tuskers in 2010. Lucas has followed the AFL since 1992 and began covering the Predators for Arenafan during the 2004 season. He held that position until being picked up by the Preds front office after the 2007 season. Jason‘s knowledge of arena football and love of the game is what drives him to continue covering the sport.
