Flight or Fight for Injured Firebirds
Matthew Pickut
Thursday June 13, 2002
With over half of the season gone and over 20 players lost to the IR list and even more to come, the Firebirds struggles have allowed back-ups and new players a chance to get playing time. That might be good in the end, but in a game that requires precision teamwork, the Firebirds have looked out of sync (insert boy band joke here).
Surrender With a loss this week the Firebirds could fall to 3-6 for the first time since 1993 when they only won five games. Strangely, individual successes may lead to surrender (at least from the team perspective). Eight Firebirds rank in the top 10 league-wide in at least one category, but only rank in the top third of the league as a team in only six of the 25 recorded team categories. Add to that new players trying to make a name for themselves and veterans trying to regain their form and potentially a dangerous situation arises.
As team goals become more difficult to achieve, personal goals become more important and the possibility that individuals will sacrifice teamwork and team goals becomes greater. When that kind of surrender happens, you might as well just give up any hopes of a successful season. Incidentally, that kind of surrender also hurts player’s personal goals in a game like Arena Football where teamwork and coordination rank among the most necessary skills.
Fight At 4-5 with a win, the Firebirds would remain in the playoff chase. If the Firebirds respond with strength to adversity, they may still challenge come play-off times and overcome what can only be described as a disappointing first half of this season.
With players coming off injuries, the team stands to improve quickly. For example, K Nelson Garner continues to improve and OL/DL Mark Valvo returns this week, and while he does not produce many stats, the team misses his skills as a veteran. This helps not only in game situations but also in practice intensity.
Head coach Mike Dailey and general manager Joe Hennessey pride themselves on bringing in good character guys, guys who won’t disrupt the team for petty reasons. Aside from one well publicized spat that didn’t amount to much between QB Raymond Philyaw and OS Eddie Brown last year the team has showed little signs of finger pointing. As much as talking about “character guys” can be a cliché, when things get difficult, it’s character that can make the biggest difference.
How the Firebirds respond will come down to how much pride and character they possess. Injuries and bad breaks happen to every team, but each team responds to adversity in different ways. OL/DL Kyle Moore-Brown senses that.
“We’ve had some bad breaks and the breaks that we are getting we’re not taking advantage of,” said Moore-Brown. “I don’t want to make mistakes, but we’ve had a lot of injuries this season as well. We’ve got a veteran team with a lot of pride and I fully expect us to get the ship righted and turn this season around.”
This Friday’s game against the Detroit Fury will go a long way toward showing if Moore-Brown is correct, especially since at 1-7, the Fury present the kind of should-win situation that good teams need to take advantage of.
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.
