Good, No Longer Elite
Matt Eichenblatt
Tuesday March 4, 2008
With the game going back and forth for the entire first half, it had seemed as if Georgia knew nothing of the departure of their former receiving standouts, Chris Jackson and Derek Lee. Troy Bergeron was having a standard game-breaking day, and new starter Brett Holmes filled in nicely, finishing with three touchdowns on the day.
But still, something was not quite right.
It seems as if the team knows that they are good, but not ready to compete with the league giant as of yet. While the offense was great at times, the cohesion of last year’s unit is not yet there and may never be. The typical mantra of saying ‘never live in the past’ may be easy to speak, but not necessarily easy to live. The receiving trio of Bergeron, Lee and Jackson caught a record amount of balls last year—a dominance that won’t be seen in the AFL anytime soon.
Saturday marked the first time the Force have lost a season opener under head coach Doug Plank, something that did not escape his mind very easily.
“I place a lot of value on the first game of the season,” remarked Plank.
“It’s a known statistical fact in the Arena Football League, that teams that have won in week one have twice as likely a chance of going into the playoffs. So, I’m not going to try to diminish this, and it’s one I’m not going to take very likely.”
Although losing in week one is something that is very new to this Force football team, there were a few things on Saturday that were not new unfortunately, namely penalties. Defensive End Jermaine Smith continued his overzealous run to the quarterback, accounting for numerous offsides penalties, and the defensive backs continued their rash of untimely downfield penalties when it mattered most, especially on a late fourth quarter drive where penalties accounted for all but seven of Dallas’ eight play scoring drive.
Because the Force don’t have the overpowering offense of a year ago, it is imperative the team learns to play more disciplined football. The Georgia Force are still a good football team and will compete for a second consecutive Southern Division championship because they still have a lot of the talent to do so. But the mental errors that plagued the Force in the National Conference Game last year, reared its ugly head again in 2008.
Interceptions. Penalties. Turnovers. All are characteristics of the Georgia Force, none of an Arena Bowl contender.
The Georgia Force spent all of this past off-season, just seething at the thought of letting a 14-2 regular season and home field advantage in the game before the Arena Bowl go to waste. What they seemed to do apparently was seethe over the loss to the Columbus Destroyers, rather than go back and watch tape of what actually went wrong. The mirror image between that game and what resulted Saturday afternoon on national television is impeccable. The Force offense became too streaky, and left long drives unfinished. The defense would get into many third and fourth down situations, but couldn’t finish the drill. It’s not a lack of talent, but a lack of discipline.
With Dallas out of the way, things don’t get any easier for this Georgia team as they head out to St. Pete Times Forum to take on a very strong and youthful Tampa Bay Storm team, who after an abysmal start to the 2007 season, rallied to make the playoffs at the end of the year.
If the Force come out with the same effort against Dallas, they have a chance to win. But in reality, effort is not the problem—disciplined play is. Chris Greisen has got to make smarter throws and the offense as a whole needs to get over the fact that they lost their offensive coordinator and two superstar free agents, because they still have a great bunch of players on that side of the ball. On defense, the energy is outstanding but the amount of critical mistakes makes me wonder if these guys really understand the concept of what a yellow flag hitting the ground means.
Until the Force figure out that it takes being a smart football team to be a championship football team, the only time they will see New Orleans is when they play the Voodoo late in May.
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.
