They were wrong.

 

After the 77-49 beating that Arizona put on Utah, there's a lot of reasons to believe that this team is not even close to what they seemed. Tommy Grady threw 5 interceptions, the offensive line seemed overpowered at times, the defense fell apart and allowed 77 points, Tysson Poots ran circles around his former team and Virgil Gray made the Utah wide receivers look like IFL players. Mike Alston got so frustrated that he threw a punch and got ejected. They were beaten and embarrassed; they looked like one of the worst teams in the AFL.

 

And that's probably wrong too.

 

So where is the truth? Probably somewhere in the middle. The Blaze still have a very talented group of receivers, although they are still mostly new at the AFL game. Tommy Grady is still the reigning MVP, although he looks somewhat injured and off rhythm. The Blaze are still better then at least 2/3 of the league, probably more. That being said, the scoreboard can't be ignored. Utah was embarrassed by Arizona. So how did this happen?

 

“A lot of this stuff was just crazy plays,” said Offensive Coordinator Matthew Sauk. “Look at the first play, guy tips it, bats it around 55 times and makes a miraculous catch. It just seems like that. When we play Arizona at home weird things happen. We battled back and then the third quarter happened.”

 

The tipped interception by Tommy Grady on the first offensive play for the Blaze was the first of five interceptions thrown by Grady. Grady’s performance looked nothing like the type that fans got used to from the MVP quarterback of 2012. Part of that was weird plays (another one of the interceptions came from a ball that bounced off the referee’s face), part of that was the amazing defense thrown at him by Arizona, and part of that also might be an injury of Grady's throwing hand that's been lingering since before training camp.

 

“With the finger problem, it is what it is,” said Coach Sauk. “I basically have a quarterback who missed camp and we're basically in the second week of camp with him. He's just a little out of rhythm. We're out of sync right now. I know that will change. I guarantee it. We have the offensive line to win a championship. I honestly believe that.”

 

“Our timing was off,” said Head Coach Ron James. “I thought our pass protection was good, but the timing of our routes, the timing of our throws, our offense just was not in sync. We were not running at a high tempo, and producing any rhythm on the offensive side.”

 

Yet even without a good rhythm, the Blaze were still able to fight back and stay in the game, and even take the lead for a while just before the end of the first half. At halftime, the Blaze went to the locker room down by 5 and were getting the ball first in the second half. At that point, the Blaze were in a good spot in spite of a slow start and had shown a good amount of heart and skill to stay competitive with the Rattlers, but as soon as the Blaze came back onto the field things for the second half, everything started falling apart.

 

“That was one of the worst third quarters of football I've seen in a long time,” said Defensive Coordinator Rob Keefe “We just played one half of football. We need a stronger mentality and a stronger will to win football games against Arizona, unfortunately we only showed up for 30 minutes instead of 60.”

 

The third quarter included 3 interceptions by Grady, one turnover on downs and no defensive stops. The Rattlers gained a 20-0 advantage that was impossible for the Blaze to overcome.

 

“You can't play a third quarter the way we played the third quarter,” said Head Coach Ron James. “You have to come out and score. When you get stopped and then you turn the ball over three times in a row... that's not the way we're custom to playing.”

 

The Blaze were hoping to make a statement and win a crucial division game against Arizona, but in the end Arizona was the team making the statement that they are the cream of the crop of the AFL. The Blaze will have to regroup quickly or will find themselves far behind Arizona, the San Jose Sabercats and a surprising great Spokane Shock team that look to take all the playoff spots in the National Conference.

 

“We wanted to see what kind of team we have,” said Coach Keefe. “Pittsburgh, with all due respect for them, is not Arizona. We know what kind of division we're in. Turning the ball over on offense is unacceptable. Allowing them to score quickly on defense is unacceptable. (The players have) got to know what kind of league they're in, they got to know what division their in. This is a good division. This is a division that will rarely lose outside of conference. If you want to be a champion you got to go through Arizona, you got to get through San Jose. It took this kind of score to wake these guys up. Everybody needs a wake up call.”

 

The hope for fans is that this game was a wake-up call for the players and that the cracks the showed during the second half of this game can be patched together quickly. This young season still holds many challenges and opportunities for the Blaze to overcome this embarrassment and achieve the goals that they have for themselves. 

 

“We're not winning a championship in week two. It's about building up and getting to that chance to have it at the end,” said Coach Sauk. “I know that eventually we'll get there. I have no doubt about it. We just have to start building it. You can look at this score, people can look at this score, but I know in my heart that we have the players and athletes to do it. Without a doubt we are better then we were last year.”

 

“We built this team for a playoff run,” said Coach James. “With that in mind, you have to progress week after week. You can't come out and play the type of game we did against Arizona. This was a step backwards and now we have to regroup and get ourselves ready to go next week.”

Don Eisenbarth has been following the Utah Blaze since 2006, but this is his first year covering for ArenaFan. Born in Provo to a family of BYU fans and having graduated from the University of Utah, Don has enjoyed all sides of the Utah college football landscape for decades and is excited for the return of professional football to the Beehive State. You can follow him on twitter at http://twitter.com/bigdondoo