Turnovers and Special Teams End Storm Streak
Dan Ryan
Monday June 11, 2001
Yeah, it`s a cliché and one of the oldest, and Storm vs. Predators isn`t the best place to resort to using one, but hey, they work in a pinch and I wanna get home to catch the second half of Game 3.
Anyhow, the lead cliché does hit home to describe how Orlando knocked Tampa Bay from the ranks of the unbeaten/slighltly overrated with a 57-45 decision Sunday.
Special teams play? Tampa Bay goes up 30-27. Kickoff goes to Siaha Burley -- can we give this kid the Rookie of the Year award now and get it over with? -- Burley, who notices the slightest of breakdowns in the coverage and scoots 57 yards for the six. Orlando never trails again.
And why did they never trail again? Hopefully, my segues works better than my clichés.
John Kaleo entered the game with only three picks in seven games. Fourteen minutes later, the interception counts doubled, thanks to Cliff Dell, Damon Mason, and Kenny McEntyre, whose version of the Lambeau Leap is way more impressive than anything coming out of Green Bay. [The Glove actually wound up in the front row, but that`s fodder for another column]
In the second period, Orlando committed a pair of fumbles that killed scoring drives, but the Predator defense limited the Storm (7-1) to three Mike Black field goals as Orlando still won the quarter 17-9.
"We had to eliminate our mistakes,`` said Orlando coach Jay Gruden. "I knew Tampa was tired after losing a couple of their lineman... so we had to use that to our advantage. If we could get to their quarterback and get him to make bad throws, then we had a chance.``
Tampa stalwarts Pig Goff and Andre Bowden were sidelined late in the first half, which kinda explained the "things are about to head south any minute now" look the Vince Lombardi of arena football [Tim Marcum] had throughout the final 30 minutes.
Still, Tampa had its chances.
Orlando was leading 41-30 and looking to pull away for good after Mason`s snag when Predator center A.J. Blum got tossed for literally trying to kick some butt.
Gruden had to burn a time out to give Jonathan McCall a few practice snaps for his first-ever performance in that position . The momentum was killed. David Cool put one into the upper bowl, but it was wide.
Tampa could have cut it to three, but McEntyre delivered. Five plays later, Craig Whelihan put a pass to Burley, who had one step on his defender. Might as well been a mile. 48-30.
It got down to six, but the Storm went 0-2 on onside kicks (special teams, remember?) Burley scored TD #4 with 35 seconds left.
Orlando`s now won five in a row. Do you get this feeling we`ll be at the Ice Palace in August watching these teams again?
"We want to keep it rolling,`` said Whelihan, who finished with 268 yards and 5 TDs in his third consecutive game without a pick. We want to feed off our success and take it one game at a time, how`s that for a cliché?``
Better than mine, Craig, better than mine…
Dan Ryan has been involved with all forms of arena football since 1988, including writing for ArenaFan when Joe Kauffman and Tim Capper aren’t killing his columns because they don’t get his jokes or perspective. His day job is at Bethune-Cookman University, which has produced both an NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Little) and an Arena Football Hall of Famer (Stevie Thomas) and his hobby is tracking how many f-bombs Adam Markowitz drops in the chat room on game nights.
