Raw deal or not, Samuels should have no excuses for another Storm loss

Adam Markowitz
Saturday July 11, 2015

"I thought we got a raw deal at the end." – Tampa Bay Storm head coach Lawrence Samuels

Famous last words.

Everyone thinks that they got screwed by the officials on a game in, game out basis. And it's true, the Tampa Bay Storm probably should have had one more play to run in the 57th edition of the War on I-4. But there's nothing to say that, even with one more play, that Tampa Bay would have beaten the Orlando Predators. And one second and one yard isn't why the hosts still find themselves on the wrong side of the playoff picture with four games left to play.

For those of you who didn't see the last play of this excellent game on Saturday night, the Storm had the ball on the Orlando 10-yard line with 0:06 left in the fourth quarter in a 69-62 game. A touchdown would have made the score 69-68, presumably with a two-point conversion to go for the win pending.

Julius Gregory – notably a rookie – ran a nine-yard route instead of a 10-yard route. He caught the ball in the middle of the field and was tackled by Rod Issac (yes, for those of you keeping score at home, that's THAT Rod Issac who played for the Storm for the last two seasons) just short of the goal line. It was a solid play by Issac and a terrible route by Gregory, who has to be coached that that route must get into the end zone in that situation.

It's pretty clear that Samuels tried calling a timeout with around a second or two left, but there were eight guys in Storm jerseys on that field who weren't motioning whatsoever for a stoppage. Carelessly, the clock ran out, and so too went any of Tampa Bay's dreams of winning the Southern Division in all likelihood.

"I really feel like we got the raw deal on that," said Samuels. "We're at the one inch line, and I'm pretty sure we'd get in next time."

Oh really? You mean the same one-yard line that you didn't score from in the first half with no time left on the clock, Law Dawg?

Look, I loved me some Lawrence Samuels back in the day. He's inarguably one of the best five Ironmen to ever play in the Arena Football League, and for a franchise which has countless numbers of Hall of Famers, he is certainly one of the two greatest players to ever strap on the blue and gold.

But this whole game management thing he clearly never learned from the late Tim Marcum.

There were just so many times in this game when the Storm had a great opportunity to put Orlando down, and they just refused to do it, almost like when these two played in Orlando earlier this year and Tampa Bay blew a 55-34 fourth quarter lead.

With just over two minutes left in the first half and just two timeouts left, Samuels elected to kick the ball deep following a touchdown instead of going onside. This is a practice which Samuels has used all season long. He just doesn't have the concept of onside kicking towards the end of the first half to try to make sure he and the Storm get the final possession of the half. It's as if it just doesn't matter to him.

It hasn't hurt the Storm a ton, and there are even times when luck has bounced his way and they have benefited from the decision. But clearly, the best coaches know when they should and should not onside kick at the end of the first half and the ends of games.

The Predators scored with 0:48 left in the half to make the score 40-34, and they were getting the ball first in the second half.

Tampa Bay got fortunate, got the ball back and scored to make it 40-40, and it even got so lucky as to recover a Randy Hippeard fumble on the very next drive.

All of a sudden, a game which could have been 40-34 at halftime turned into a situation where it could have been 47-40 the other direction instead.

But the Storm choked. They had the ball at the Orlando 2-yard line following that fumble when Luke Collis, who is never on the field for anything aside from extra points, got called for a personal foul to back the ball up to the 12. Tampa Bay got back down to the 2 again and had 13 seconds to punch the ball in.

One wide receiver handoff to Emery Sammons failed. One fade pass to the end zone failed. One wide receiver handoff to Sammons again failed. You'd think that maybe a fullback dive would be a decent play call, but the Storm haven't had a legitimate fullback in the backfield all year long, electing to use a de facto extra offensive lineman instead.

And with that, the chance was gone to take the lead into the break.

But don't worry, Samuels was pretty sure that his team was going to score from the 1-yard line with 0:01 left in the game, even though his team failed with 0:01 left in the first half in the exact same situation.

It should have never come down to that situation in the fourth either.

The Storm should have won or lost this game two drives prior to that.

The hosts had the ball on the Orlando 1-yard line with 0:53 left facing first and goal. They were behind 61-56 at the time. Literally, all that Samuels had to do was take three knees from the 1 (since it's legal to not get positive yards when you're losing in the game), run Orlando out of timeouts and take a shot at the end zone, win or lose with virtually no time left. After all, you're pretty sure you would have gotten in at the end of the game from the 1, right? This should have been a no-brainer using that logic.

Instead, on 3rd and goal, Jason Boltus pushed forward into the end zone to put the Storm up 62-61. The game could have come down to one play had Boltus not scored. Instead, there were still 0:42 on the clock, an eternity in this league, and Tampa Bay was nursing a slender one-point lead.

Following a failed two-point conversion attempt, the opportunity was still there to extend the game. You're up one point. You have three timeouts left. Your opponent can't stop the clock. You onside kick 100 times out of 100 in this spot. You can burn all three of your timeouts, keep 25 seconds or so on the clock, then force Orlando to try to score a touchdown or kick a field goal to take the lead, leaving your offense plenty of time to do something about it if you do fall behind.

Instead, Samuels kicked deep, trusting his defense which allowed 12 consecutive touchdown drives over almost five full quarters before the Hippeard fumble in the second quarter and didn't force a single third down in the entire first half of play.

That defense did exactly what that defense has done for most of this season. Uncontested pass after uncontested pass left the Preds at the Tampa Bay 5-yard line and just 24 seconds to play.

From there, the Predators just had to put a couple balls into the stands, and they could have kicked the game-winning field goal with the most reliable kicker in the league, or they could have tried to score a touchdown with just a few seconds left. Instead, they did Tampa Bay a favor, as Michael Simons rather inexplicably ran into the end zone.

Not that Samuels could do anything with the favor. Instead, he came up a second short, and he left this game with nothing left to show for his work but some timeouts which he left in his pocket.

No, it wasn't one yard or one second why the Tampa Bay Storm were beaten by the Orlando Predators on this night. It was one coach.

You don't see Kevin Guy get outcoached like this. You don't see Les Moss get outcoached like this. You don't see Rob Keefe get outcoached like this. You don't see Clint Dolezel outcoached like this. You don't see Steve Thonn outcoached like this.

And that's why the Storm are what they are. They're a mediocre team with mediocre results, and they've been that way ever since 2011.