Firebirds Face Cobras with Neu Coach
Matthew Pickut
Sunday July 29, 2001
Assistant coach Mike Neu now must prepare for his first AFL coaching task with only two days lead-time. Neu is not completely, for the lack of a better word, new to head coaching: he earned Coach of the Year honors with the af2 Augusta Stallions last year. Even great coaches need more than a couple days to get ready for a game.
For the Firebirds the game plan remains the same regardless of the coach: Stop Carolina QB Fred “Yes, he is my brother” McNair and OS Aaron Bailey. “Carolina is an excellent football team,” said head coach Mike Dailey, “They are tough and physical and have a lot of guys who can make big plays.”
Both teams are coming off tough losses, the Cobras to Toronto and the Firebirds to Detroit, but the loss of a head coach this late in the season gives Carolina an even tougher task than just winning on the road. Winning on the road is tough enough and the Indiana does not take the home field advantage lightly. “Honestly, we are glad this one is at home because it’s a do or die situation,” said Dailey, “it will be good to have our crowd behind us. The bottom line is that we have to get it together and play Firebird football.”
In the “Win or go home” atmosphere of the playoffs the team's disappointment that they failed to secure the bye week by defeating the Fury last week is obvious. “It was a very disappointing loss. Under the circumstances, and I don’t usually say this, it was a very bad loss,” said Dailey, “This loss really changed our playoff situation, but it is now in the past. We have to come out fired up and believe that we can win a Championship as the #5 seed.” WR/DB Jay Jones for his part sees the game as a chance to get back on track, “It’s probably a good thing that we do play… Maybe this is what we need. They [the Fury] didn’t beat us. We beat ourselves.”
Firebirds DS Cornelius Coe needs to lead a young defensive backfield into battle. Coe finished the season with a record-breaking 141 tackles but after the release of DS Cedrick Walker, now with the Chicago Rush, Coe needs to find his rhythm with DS Lamar Grant. Last week the defense played well but could not stop Detroit when it counted. This week if the Firebirds are to advance to play Tampa Bay in round two of the playoffs the defense will need to step up and deliver the kind of performance that wins games.
Offensively Indiana must continue to put up the numbers that made them the number three scoring offense in the league. QB Raymond Philyaw’s regular season rating of 131.8, second in the league, means nothing now if he cannot show he can play under the pressure of a playoff game. OS Eddie Brown’s spectacular regular season, 270 points (the league leader), show the potential this team can achieve, but potential is like a vote in Florida, it doesn’t mean much if you can’t make it count.
I think it was Euripides or maybe Janet Jackson who said, “what have you done for me lately?” When it comes to the playoffs regular season accolades and records don’t matter. What does matter is what you do when it counts “Now we have to get back at it. In the regular season, we play every week,” said Dailey, “Now there’s a sense of urgency because it’s playoff time. ” That’s Mr. Dailey if you’re nasty.
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.
