IRL vs. AFL
Matthew Pickut
Friday May 25, 2001
Firebirds game – Members of the Fabulous Flames throwing free stuff into the crowd.
Indy 500 – Overweight guys on top of RV’s grilling polish sausage and drinking beer in the infield.
Indy 500 – Left turns
Firebirds game – Left turns, right turns, turns off the net, any kind of turn you’d want.
Firebirds game – Lots of fans chanting “Eddie, Eddie.”
Indy 500 – Lots of fans saying “what, huh, can’t hear you over the engines!”
Indy 500 – Jim “Gomer Pile” Neighbors singing “Back Home Again in Indiana”
Firebirds game – Van Halen’s “Right Now” and all the fireworks a body can stand.
Firebirds game – ads on the dasher boards
Indy 500 – ads on the stands, cars, drivers, pit crews, and anything else that will sit still long
enough to slap a logo on it.
I can’t tell you what’s good for you, i.e. shake your thang’, do what you want to do. You make the call, but if you miss the Firebirds’ game at least you’ve been warned.
This Friday at 7:00, the Firebirds (4-2) take on the expansion Detroit Fury (2-3) at the Conseco Fieldhouse. Don’t let the expansion tag fool you; in the AFL, expansion teams don’t face the same kind of uphill battle as expansion teams in other sports. You can make a team quickly through good recruiting, “There is a lot of parity around the league this year,” says Firebirds Head Coach Mike Dailey”. Any team can win on any given night. We’ll have to play our best football if we expect to win.”
The Detroit Fury features the league’s top defense, allowing only 215 yards a game. There defense gets even more stingy against the pass, giving up only 202 yards a contest. Holding the Fury back is the fact that they also rank 16th (out of 19) in total scoring offense. “They’ve [the Fury] got a real good defense,” remarked Dailey “that creates a lot of turnovers through pressuring the quarterback. We have to protect the ball and play smart.”
The game should hinge on whether Firebirds’ QB Raymond Philyaw can use all his resources to solve the Detroit defense. One resource that Indiana should be able to exploit this week is the running game. The ‘birds rank 1st in the league in overall rushing, thanks to FB/LB Leroy Thomson’s and Philyaw’s rushing prowess, averaging almost 34 yards a game. Detroit ranks bottom half of all AFL teams in rushing defense.
OS Eddie “Touchdown” Brown’s two scores last week vaulted him back into the league scoring lead, but he will have to be at his best against the Fury. This week he and Indiana WRs Jay Jones, Greg Hopkins, Carl Sacco face Fury DSs Antoine Worthman, Kevin Scott and DB Ty Grovesteen. The trio of Worthman, Scot and Grovesteen has combined for six interceptions and four forced fumbles so far this year.
It’s all up to you, pony up big money to watch guys turn left, or enjoy the classic match up of a great offense against a tough defense.
I gotta go, IRL founder Tony George is here, maybe he can explain why “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” only has about half the greatest drivers in racing.
Matthew Pickut is a pastor in northern Indiana and a long time AFL fan. He also writes for his own website: The Brown Paper Blog. He graduated from Taylor University in Upland Indiana (class of `96) with degrees in Biblical Literature and Sociology as well as a healthy respect for the medicinal properties of coffee.
