New Preds' Leaders Have Fans Thinking of Past Success
Adam Markowitz
Saturday March 22, 2014
Jason Boltus and Greg Carr and Arness Ikner and Khalil Paden don't really have the name recognition of typical Orlando Predators players. CFE Arena doesn't look anything like the Jungle which the Orlando Predators used to play in. Average crowds of around 5,000 fans are nothing like the 15,000+ old school Orlando Predators crowds. Rob Keefe doesn't look anything like an Orlando Predators coach. But dammit, even this skeptic has to admit that Friday night's 69-63 win over the Los Angeles KISS felt a whole hell of a lot like an old school Orlando Predators game.
I've been pretty outspoken this year about the roster which the Preds have assembled, and I would dare anyone to challenge me on that fact. Even after watching this team play two games this season, you still will never be able to convince me that Boltus is better than Aaron Garcia, that Greg Carr is better than Prechae Rodriguez, that Ikner is better than Dominic Jones, and that Paden is better than TT Toliver. You'll never be able to sway me on my thoughts that, of the 14 trades which the Preds made in the offseason, that even one of them made them a more talented roster. I knew this team would have heart; just look at Keefe's track record of how his team played with the Spokane Shock or how the defense played fired up for the Utah Blaze the last season and a half. I just didn't know whether there was any talent there.
It isn't often that I'm left relatively speechless when I'm talking about the AFL, and it's not often you're going to throw a factoid at me that I'm going to be wowed by. However, Keefe gave me the best answer to the world when I asked him how in the hell he managed to cut and paste this team together.
"You have to put yourself around winners," said Keefe. "With the players, I want winners, and I wanted leaders, and I wanted confident people."
"How do you find that?" Keefe mused. "We looked in their backgrounds with their background checks. Every single person on our team at one point was a captain of their college team. And it's a little known fact about what we have going on. These guys understand how to be good leaders and good followers."
If you take out the very top echelon of players in the AFL, there isn't a tremendous difference in the talent level from say, the 50th best player in the AFL to the guys who just barely made their rosters at the start of the season. That's not a slight either. There are plenty of tremendously talented guys out there who aren't playing in the AFL right now who probably could step right in and play this game. The guys who make it in this league and make a difference on teams are the ones who work the hardest, the ones who study and comprehend the games the most, and the ones who play with the most heart.
Apparently, the teams that win are the ones with the best leaders on them, too. And apparently, leadership is what was really lacking on the Predators of the past.
Save for having Aaron Garcia for two-thirds of a season last year, the Preds haven't had all that in the way of cohesiveness or leadership in spite of the fact that they have had plenty of talent around them. Not all of that is their fault. The start of the 2012 season was just a total disaster thanks to the firing of all of the players in the first game of the year between the Preds and the Pittsburgh Power. Regardless, Orlando retooled with a bunch of good looking players who have great stats and gaudy AFL histories, but anyone watching this team over the course of the last few years knows just how unusually out of sync the Predators looked for most of last season.
"I think 11-26 over the last two years is extremely unacceptable," Keefe stated.
Last season's Preds, especially the pre-Garcia Preds, would have never fought back from down 21-0 to come back and beat the KISS. They never would have figured out how to overcome the loss of Mark Lewis to an injury before the game. These Preds did, and they did it with leadership.
"Have faith in the man next to you. Have faith in the plays that are being called… There's not a moment in my mind that I didn't think we weren't going to win this football game," said Keefe.
Doug Plank would have said that same thing. So too would have Brett Munsey. And so would have Pat O'Hara. But would it actually have translated the same way that it did for Keefe on Friday? That's certainly a question worth pondering.
But then again, it's also worth pondering whether new ownership under the direction of David Pearsall in Orlando has made the ultimate difference. There's a tad bit of irony in the fact that arguably the best night the Predators have had in a game since 2011 came against the KISS, owned and managed by Brett Bouchy, the man that was the leader of the Preds prior to his departure towards the end of last season. There might be something to be said about having the right leaders at the very top, beyond the head coach, to help bring things together.
Will the Predators ultimately go on to win the ArenaBowl this season? Probably not. You can still tab me as a "hater," as Keefe would say, who thinks this team is going to finish under .500. But one thing is for sure. These Predators, if only for one night, gave us all a glimpse into what this franchise used to be like.
They might not look like the Predators. They might not play in a building like the Predators. They might not draw crowds like the old Predators. And they might not be coached like the Predators. But these men on the field in black and red are finding a way to win again like the Predators.