Costly Mistakes Doom Storm in Season Opener
Connor Akeman
Saturday March 28, 2015
For many members of the new look Tampa Bay Storm, a 60-44 beat down at the hands of the Cleveland Gladiators wasn’t exactly the first thing they wanted to check off their respective AFL bucket lists.
Nothing seemed right for the Storm on Friday night. A sparse showing of just 9,727 fans for a season opener, WR Amarri Jackson in an opposing uniform, and a brand new QB in Jason Boltus behind center… everything just seemed off, and nothing seemed to gel.
“When you’re playing a team that went to the ArenaBowl, you have to execute,” Storm head coach Lawrence Samuels said. “I can’t be down on them because the effort was there at times. We had our chances, we just turned the ball over. Turnovers killed us.”
Essentially, the 2015 campaign has begun right where the 2014 one came to a screeching halt for the Storm - with an ugly home loss to the Cleveland Gladiators.
A handful of costly mistakes cost the Storm this time around, however. Tampa Bay managed to fumble the ball five times, giving three of those back to the Gladiators. Meanwhile, Boltus didn’t exactly impress many in his new team debut. Boltus was sacked four times but finished the night 30-of-54 for 383 yards and six touchdowns.
Ex-Storm WR, and Tampa Bay local, Jackson certainly returned as a man on a mission. He caught four passes for 51 yards and two touchdowns for his new team.
While it may have seemed like a major stretch for anyone to predict this Storm team somehow winning this game with a completely new roster and little time to click, perhaps there is hope.
Rookie wide receivers Jarvis Williams and Kendrick Ings were impressive in their debuts. Combined, the rookie duo connected for three touchdowns and 211 yards of the Storm offense. Veteran WR T.T. Toliver led the way though with three touchdowns of his own and 12 total catches for 161 yards.
An interesting storyline of this Storm season will be just that. How will guys like Toliver lead such a young core group of players?
“When you’ve got a young team, you want to stay as close as possible,” Toliver said when asked after the game. “You don’t want the young guys to get down.”
Particularly for writers like... say... me... who predicted this Storm team to win nine games, Friday night’s season-opener was certainly concerning, yet not unexpected. The roster is new, the faces are fresh, and there are still 17 games to straighten out the kinks. Only question is, how many of those 17 will it take?
