Maynor Drags Jersey Back from Brink
Andrew Mason
Saturday June 16, 2001
It wasn’t just a move made to give Bankhead some experience, but Maynor a breather. Just as the scrambling, Fran Tarkenton-esque veteran keeps plays alive by bounding around and out of the pocket on his own, he’s single-handedly tried to keep the struggling Gladiators in games. Finally, head coach Lary Kuharich said enough, and five days before facing the Bobcats, informed his passers of the change.
“Connell has tried to carry the team, and he’s gotten beat up,” Kuharich said. “I gave him a pretty good week off so he can get himself back.”
Maynor concurred with his coach’s decision.
“[We] decided that if I didn’t play this week, I was off all next week, and then the next week, that’d be three weeks; it’d give me a chance to heal up all my aches and bruises,” Maynor said. “He wanted to get me back to 100 percent, with three weeks off.”
Maynor’s midseason respite ended up lasting just over 27 minutes into the game.
Bankhead hobbled to the locker room with a hyperextended knee, adding injury to the insult of falling behind 14-0 before running an offensive play and 21-0 before completing a pass. He left after eventually throwing two touchdown passes, but with a 38-13 deficit that stared into Maynor’s eyes as he stepped under center for the first time, 42 yards from the end zone.
Ten seconds later, Maynor had his first touchdown pass of the night, a 42-yard, in-stride strike down the right sideline to David Saunders.
Maynor’s madcap scrambles and quick tosses stirred the Gladiators offense, and turned momentum in the home team’s favor, a surge that helped the defense hold the Bobcats to one touchdown – and a fluke one at that on a fumble recovery – over the course of 30-plus minutes.
All the while, Maynor completed nine of his first 10 passes en route to dragging New Jersey back into the game. His time on the field wasn’t without mistakes – an end-zone interception ended one drive and a promising possession that began at the Bobcats’ 20-yard-line ended with a field goal. But as the Gladiators drew closer to the Bobcats, the team took on the character of its scrambling quarterback – battling relentlessly, improvising, hustling even when chances for success appeared dim at best.
No one play better encapsulated Maynor’s abilities than the successful two-point conversion that tied the game at 45 with 6:34 remaining in the final quarter. After faking a handoff and rolling back to the right side, he appeared to have a clear run to the end zone before Bobcats defensive specialist Clarence Lawson stepped in front of him at the one-yard-line.
Maynor tried to deke his way past Lawson, to no avail. He attempted another shake, and Lawson closed in for the tackle, at which point Maynor spotted fullback/linebacker George Del Ricco cutting across the right side of the end zone.
As he absorbed Lawson’s hit, Maynor desperately shot-putted the pass towards Del Ricco. Turning end over end, the ball in flight looked more like a kickoff than a pass. But it found its way into Del Ricco’s lunging hands for the conversion and the ensuing deadlock.
It was clear at that moment who the MVP of the game was. The award went to Florida quarterback Rickey Foggie, and given the season he’s had, perhaps he was the best player on the field. But Maynor, in just over a half of work, proved his value to New Jersey.
That the Gladiators lost thanks to a missed extra point and a Bobcats touchdown with seven seconds remaining was not so relevant; that a team at the cusp of playoff elimination turned a blowout loss into a heartbreaking near-miss was the story, as it gave New Jersey a needed morale boost heading into the season’s final act.
As with any 1-9 team, the Gladiators still have problems. But after Maynor’s unlikely comeback, it seems clear that quarterback isn’t one of them.
Andrew Mason was at the Tampa Bay Storm`s first home game on June 1, 1991 and has followed the game ever since. While in college, he served as content editor and co-founder of The Storm Shelter, a Web site which covered the Tampa Bay Storm on the Internet from 1996-99. He also volunteered with the team`s media relations department in 1998 and currently contributes to ColoradoCrush.com. He's covered the NFL for various on-line outlets since 1999.
