Rattlers Destroy Buffalo Offense
Patrick Daly
Monday May 28, 2001
While the Arizona defense is the real story this week, it certainly didn’t hurt the morale of the team when they saw quarterback Sherdrick Bonner leading the Rattlers’ offense again. Bonner was a little off-target early in the game, but his quick release and ability to get rid of the ball under pressure made the offensive line’s job a little easier.
 Bonner was nervous, but happy to be back under center Image courtesy of Mark Canello |
“I pretty much airmailed a couple of throws,” recounted Bonner. “I told Danny right before the game, while we were stretching, ‘I feel like this is May of 1994 and this is my first start.’ I was nervous and excited. It’s just fun to be playing again.”
Bonner did get things under control as he completed 19 of 31 attempts and threw for 241 yards and six touchdowns. After both teams failed to score in the first quarter, Bonner hit Calvin Schexnayder on a 45-yard touchdown toss. From that point on, Bonner was nearly perfect and the Rattlers never failed to score with Bonner at the helm.
White was visibly pleased with the team’s overall performance on Saturday night, especially against a good team like Buffalo.
“It was all energy up front,” said White. “Everyone was embarrassed last week. I think Buffalo came along at the wrong time. They’re not a bad team.”
However, no matter how much talent a team has, overcoming six turnovers is nearly impossible. The Rattlers grabbed four interceptions and recovered two Buffalo fumbles, which helped Arizona score 29 unanswered points to seal the victory.
“The line makes it all happen,” said White. “You rush the quarterback, he throws the ball a little bit early or a little bit off-target, and it ends up being an interception, but you can look to somebody up front that made it happen.”
In addition to the increased energy, the return of defensive specialist Ricky Parker also seemed to spark the defense. His presence was also crucial when fellow defensive specialist Cecil Doggette went down in the second quarter.
“Ricky adds a lot off aggressiveness,” said White about his defensive starter. “He’s physical. Jerrick [Bledsoe] is a cover guy, so there’s two different styles. We’re hoping to get to a point where we can dress all three of them [Doggette, Parker and Bledsoe]. Of course, we’ll have to see how Cecil is now. But that’s another nice thing to see. We lose the hub of our defense and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Muhammad [Oliver] stepped up, played in the middle. Calvin comes in and plays defense.”
“Coach White challenged us and we’ve got to step up,” added Parker, who grabbed two picks and tipped another pass to Oliver. “We know we can play well. We wanted to put it together this week and it happened.”
“We’re going up to New York to play a good team next week. That will be my speech this week ‘Let’s not let this go to our heads.’ We know what we’re capable of now.”
Now it’s up to the Rattlers to maintain this level of play throughout the remainder of the season, especially after good news came in from San Jose that the SaberCats fell to 5-2 with a 59-35 loss to Orlando.
Patrick Daly has been an Arena Football League enthusiast since he first stumbled across the late-night ESPN broadcasts and has followed the Arizona Rattlers since their inaugural season in 1992. He graduated from Arizona State University with an engineering degree and is currently a member of a web development team for Direct Alliance in Tempe. Patrick currently resides in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Arizona with his beautiful wife, son and a very large football helmet collection.
