Destroyers Win Preseason Finale
Tom Ando
Friday April 12, 2002
Buffalo, led by Quarterback Fred McNair and Offensive Specialist Lamont Cooper, destroyed the Rampage in the first half by jumping out to a sixteen-point lead. Cooper had two catches for 70 yards and two touchdowns in the fist quarter, as well as a rushing touchdown. It was the type of performance head coach Ray Bentley has been expecting all along.
“Lamont was Lamont Cooper tonight,” said Bentley, who is entering his third year as coach. “That’s what we expected when we brought him in here and the first two times he touched the ball he went to the house, and he’s an exiting player. You don’t win the Don’t Blink Player of the Year award two years running without being able to make plays like that. Fred did a great job of getting him the football and he’s something to watch as well.”
For the two perennial arena league all stars, the connection, which didn’t start off so hot in the first pre season game, is still a work in progress.
“In the beginning it wasn’t (clicking) and now it’s starting to get better and better,” said Cooper. “And it can only get better, you give us a crease, and we’re going to take it.”
McNair came out and gave Buffalo fans a look at the stability that the team is going to have throughout the season by going 10 of 12 for 191 yards with four touchdowns. “We came out and executed the ball like we should have done in the first game,” said McNair. “But we had a good week of practice and we just put it all together. Everybody was intact and everybody executed.”
Execution is exactly what Buffalo had Thursday night, both offensively and defensively. “I think we just came out and executed what we had to do and if we knew if we did that we would come out on top,” said Defensive Specialist Prentice Taylor. “They [Grand Rapids] played a great game, but I think we’re just all on the same cylinder in some areas of the game and we came out and showed them what we’re about.”
The play of the game came in the second quarter when Todd Hammel’s pass deflected off the post of the rebound net back onto the field.
“When I saw it go off the post, I knew I was going to go and get it,” said Corey Johnson who made a fabulous play to go up and get the ball, and an even better play by returning it for thirteen yards. “As I grabbed it I heard people telling me ‘go down, go down,’ but that wasn’t my mentality. I was like ‘take it to the house, take it to the house.”
Although Grand Rapids came back late after Quarterback Clint Dolezel’s three touchdown passes, the game could be a sign of things to come for the 2002 Buffalo Destroyers.
“We came out and made a statement and that’s what we talked about. We’re trying to show everybody that we’re not the old Buffalo Destroyers and we’re trying to turn this thing around,” said Eddie Brown, who was the game’s ironman. “We got some good talent, and hopefully we’re starting to gel, and maybe this is a sign of what we’re trying to do.”
"Touchdown" Tom Ando is a free lance writer from South Buffalo, NY and has been covering the Arena Football League in one capacity or another since the 2000 season, when he was 17 years old. Tom Currently writes for Sports & Leisure Magazine in Buffalo covering the NLL's Buffalo Bandits and NCAA Division I football. In 2001, Tom was the only writer in the country to cover the Houston "Travelin' " Thunderbears, where he befriended his mentor John F. "Hondo" Hahn.
