Rattlers fail to keep up with Barnstormers
RICHARD OBERT
Two weeks into a new Rattlers era, coach Kevin Guy said he’ll have a lot of evaluating to do following Sunday’s 51-47 loss to the Iowa Barnstormers.
The Rattlers, among the elite for much of their 24 years in the Arena Football League where they won five championships, are now 0-2 in what many had considered a lesser league, the Indoor Football League.
A respectable crowd of 11,438 showed up for the Rattlers’ home opener at Talking Stick Resort Arena, where it seemed the Rattlers would take apart the team they beat 20 years ago at home in the ArenaBowl.
Even newly inducted Pro Football Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, who was on the losing end as the Barnstormers quarterback in that 1997 ArenaBowl, came out to be part of the pregame coin flip.
But after taking a 14-6 first-quarter lead on two Darron Thomas touchdown passes, the Rattlers were held scoreless until five seconds remained in the third quarter when Thomas found Anthony Amos for a 7-yard scoring pass.
By then, the Rattlers were scrambling back to try to catch the Barnstormers (1-1).
“We have to execute better,” said Thomas, who ran for 61 yards on seven carries. “It just comes with hard work.”
Amos is one of the only two holdovers from last year’s AFL Rattlers that reached the title game, and he served as a complementary piece.
“We’ve got all new players,” Guy said. “It’s not necessarily the rules and the game. You’ve got all new players and you’re learning what they can and can’t do. We’ve only had a few weeks with them. We’re trying to figure out who can do what.
“Right now we need some leaders. We need some guys to step up. Right now I feel like we’ve got too many individuals. It’s too quiet. Not enough energy on the sidelines, and guys stepping up like we’ve had in the past. That’s part of development. We’ve got to develop that right now as a team.”
After Guy felt good about his defense in the 40-29 loss at six-time defending IFL champion Sioux Falls in the opener, he now has to reevaluate that part of the team after the way the Barnstormers ran on his team Sunday.
Quarterback Travis Partridge completed 15 of 19 for 153 yards and four touchdowns. He also ran seven times for 25 yards and a score. Ryan Balentine, a wide receiver, ran nine times for 19 yards and two scores.
Guy didn’t want to see 36 passes thrown, but that is what Thomas did, completing 20 for 189 yards and six touchdowns. But he had two passes intercepted with the last one coming with 24 seconds left.
Thomas showed flashes of what made him such a standout college player at Oregon with his legs. He took off for a 20yard score, then found running back Ketrich Harmon for a 21-yard score in the final quarter when the Rattlers executed two onside kicks to overcome a two-touchdown deficit and regain the lead 47-44 with 5:51 left.
But a long kick return led to a 9-yard scoring pass from Partridge to Brady Roland with 3:53 left for Iowa’s winning score.
Harmon, starting at running back for the first time, fumbled two handoffs from Thomas. The Rattlers lost one of those fumbles.
“We need to look at our defenses and see if we’re putting them in the right positions,” Guy said. “The first thing I’m going to do is look at myself, critique myself, then we’ll move to the players. At the end of the day, it falls at my desk and I’ve got to get it corrected.”