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         Rattlers Win League, Division!
                            LA Plans Week 1 Repeat!

Los Angeles, city of dreams, magic and drama. The Rattlers like LA, especially when they play in their (Rattlers) west coast home field the Staples Center. A place where AZ never loses. This season the two teams split their series with LA winning the first game at AWA 51-32, it was a record setting game for both teams. Then Arizona went to California and made LA fans sit down for the Avengers when they won again at the Staples 42-38.

After the first win for LA in the first game of the 2004 season at AWA the Avengers boasted on their website of their soon coming AFL Championship and the birth of a dynasty. I went to their web pages on the teams site and the AFL's Avengers pages to pull up the archived releases. I was looking for the one they posted the week they beat the Rattlers. Even tho their archived site says this, "Every bit of official Avenger news released to the media is archived here for your convenience." I was unable to locate it anywhere. Except here in the Rattler Report, posted following the first game of the year.

Read some quotes from the Avenger site.  "The 2004 season started out just the way that the Avengers had hoped, with a 51-32 win on Sunday over the Arizona Rattlers in Phoenix. It wasn’t so much the fact that the Avengers won the game that was so promising, but rather how they won it -- in dominating fashion.

The result was Sunday’s dismantling of one of the AFL’s best offenses (Arizona was ranked No. 1 in several offensive categories in 2003). And Rattler quarterback Sherdrick Bonner had arguably the worst game of his 12-year AFL career as he was picked off four times. Never before in his career had Bonner thrown more than three interceptions in a game.

What may well be the final piece to the puzzle took place in the locker room after the game. The prevailing attitude of the Avengers was that they weren’t satisfied with their overall performance. They felt that they should have played better and that the game should have been even more one-sided."

It is missing from the Avengers pages. I for one will stand up and take notice. To aid them in their crusade was this preseason pick by Pat Haden. "It's the 18th season for the Arena Football League, which is growing with three expansion teams, including one in Philadelphia, which has rock star Jon Bon Jovi as a majority owner. The total number of franchises is 19 -- the most ever for the AFL. And the team that will emerge the AFL champion with a win in the ArenaBowl in June is the Los Angeles Avengers."

You would think that a team that uses "Stand Up" for a battle cry at all it's games would at least be that, with their information. But this is LA and the place where thousands come every year hoping to make a career for themselves in show businesses doing, yep, Stand Up. Sort of funny, if you like stand up comedy. What has to hurt worse for the Avengers is that the young owner is hoping to use this team as his resume to NFL ownership. He has the financial backing to put an NFL team in LA, but has his AFL team playing in a poorly attended arena. There was a better choice, but it lacked the pizzazz that the home the Lakers possessed.

Even more interesting than their bold "win it all" statement after one game was the write up and quotes on the AFL's LA site after the Arizona 42-38 win in the second game, this one at the Staples Center. The quote from game one is only a small part of the entire posted article. Here is the entire article after the loss to AZ.  "The Arizona Rattlers (8-5) stopped the Los Angeles Avengers (7-5) on third and goal on the final play of the game as the Rattlers won, 42-38, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif." There was a note to check back for more info later. The next post was about their next game, nothing on the loss. Stand up for that LA! They say history is written by the winners, must be, cause the losers just pretend it did not happen, then later they re-write it.

Why does any of this matter? Because while the AFL is slowly morphing into a giant corporate entity that will soon become NFL Indoors as it replaces NFL Europe. The team in LA is owned by a family who has made it's fortune in the industry of entertainment, glamour and storytelling. The NFL connected teams are getting special attention by the network. Consideration on where a team is placed, in what division. What games will be shown when. Can you imagine the Crush having the second season they did this year if they had to play San Jose, LA and Arizona twice? They did last year, but someone with pull, convinced the AFL to move the team.

While all this is going on the Rattlers are stuck in a time warp for pro sports. They are a team made up of front office, coaches and players that play the game without regard for tomorrow. They recruit, train and play to win it one down at a time. In pro sports today, coaches and players are cut, fired and traded weekly in the hopes of drawing the instant attention of the news giants and the casual fan. They try to generate short term "wow, did you hear about what that team just did interest." Then they send out press releases about the team and it's efforts to produce a quality product for it's fans and the community.

Some teams do this every few weeks, making the same speeches and promises. If you want to know what is new on the Rattlers you will have your work cut out for you. Personnel changes happen. Roster adjustments are made on a regular basis. The problem with the Rattlers in terms of the "wow" factor is that they usually do the right thing for the right reason for the most people. No need for NBC or the local affiliate to take notice. (What is the local affiliate for the Rattlers, I never see anything during the week on over the air TV?) If you want to see weekly stuff on the Rattlers you have to go outside the NBC family to FOX sports where McCabe, Jackson and Barcless are proud to talk about the Rattlers each week.

This season the Rattlers have set a record for injured starters being placed on the IR. The biggest run of these injuries started after the team was already 3-5 and looking at stretch run that included two games of three against the AFL's top cats in San Jose. They were in danger of being eliminated for four of those last eight games should they lose even one. Big time pressure by any standards.

The Rattlers have a lot of good things happening in this their 13th year. Their QB wears lucky number 13. They have the same coach they started with, a core of players that has been together for most of their successes. They have a winning tradition that is second to no other pro team in Arizona. They practice every week as if they just won their last game. Even at 3-5, even with the leagues top fullback Bo Dozer Kelly out, even with last years Ironman Randy Ironman Gatewood out. The list goes on.

The thing that the Rattlers players and staff do that makes them stand out, yet stay invisible on the AZ and AFL sports radar is practice well. That by itself is what most teams strive for. But more important than how they practice and play is how they prepare for both. Preparation and discipline are close cousins but not the same thing. Most of today's athletes talk about discipline and how when the whistle blows, they will be ready, they will have their game on! With the Rattlers, they not only play how they practice, which is very well. They prepare for both as if each practice session, each game matters, to every member of the organization.

No matter what a team tells you from a PR standpoint about being ready, the truth can only be seen by being there before during and after practice and games. Arizona is to arena football as the Dallas Cowboys were to the NFL in the '70's and '80's. They are the AFL version of "Americas Team", that explains why teams that will spend the season struggling to not only win, but maintain a staff and a roster can play a career game every time they face the Rattlers.

Teams like Orlando, Tampa Bay and San Jose get everyone's respect. But opponents don't play those teams with the same zealous aggressive style every time. One of the reasons for the extra spice in the Rattlers games is that on nearly every team AZ plays is a former Rattler, either a coach or a player. For the coaches, the respect from them to the Rattlers and back is mutual. But for the players their is a lot of bitterness. This is another reason the Rattlers resemble "America's Team", just like former Cowboy players, when the club releases them, they rarely perform to their best efforts as they did while a Rattler. It really sucks when your former team proves themselves right.

The irony in this game is that a player that the Avengers let go is also proving the Rattlers right. The other similarity to "America's Team" is how the Rattlers find the right players at the right time to help them out and make them better. They also find a way to get those players signed. Not always easy. When LA and AZ face off in the  2004 first round playoff game on Sunday. One of the AFL's top receivers is Siaha Burley. In fact in all purpose yards he is ahead of Jackson and Ingram of the Avengers.

Siaha has 1,922 total yards to 1,897 and 1,870 for the LA duo. Burley has scored 168 points on 28 touchdowns, this in spite of missing games due to injury. He has scored rushing, receiving and returning kicks. On kick returns he has 692 yards and 2 TD's. When he joined the Rattlers he and QB Sed Bonner found a connection and immediately began working together as if they had been team mates for years. He stepped in and took some of the reps and action that I figured would go to another future AFL hall of famer in Orshawante Bryant.

How did Orshawante react to this change and his changed role on the team. "Whatever I can do to help the team, I will do it." He finished the season with 3 interceptions and has been a huge factor in every game he played. In fact after one game coach Danny White responded to a question about OB's performance. Coach White said, "Thank you for bringing that up, what can you say about a player like that. I wish we could give 3 game balls, he would get them all." This is on a Rattlers team that has great players at every position and all are worthy of note.

The Avengers lead the league or are in the top three in nearly every major category. Their top guy, Jackson has 45 TD's and 272 points. The LA QB Graziani is tops with 4,254 yards and 99 touchdowns. LA is a team that can get it done. The Rattlers, well in nearly every category they are near the middle statistically. That is due in part to the huge injury count and also because they use a lot of players and spread the ball around more than most.

After the first LA-AZ game the Avengers website was quick to point out this information: "Rattler quarterback Sherdrick Bonner had different sort of day, throwing a record-setting four interceptions.  Never before in the 13-year history of the Arizona franchise had a quarterback been intercepted four times.  The same can be said for the Avenger defense, which established a new team record as Ingram, WR/DB Russell Shaw and defensive specialists Damen Wheeler and Cornelius Coe each recorded an interception."

I want to point this type of information out because I think you need to know that the Rattlers were written off by many fans and even the local media. After the loss at AWA to the Voodoo, they team was being called many things, most unkind and not polite in the press room. The team, according to most was done, the season a loss.

After the season opener the Avengers picked up Pat Haden's comment and declared themselves, "there". I said earlier that history was written by the winners. The history that became the 2004 AFL number one seed was written by the losers on that day, after the Rattlers loss to New Orleans. After the game, player after player echoed the comment made by Hunkie Cooper, "We have been here before. We did not do what we did in this off season to not be there at the end. We will fix this."  The next week the Rattlers lost a game they should have won. This week they earned home field advantage through the playoffs after eight straight wins.

You don't want to miss a single game as the Rattlers in their 13th Year, led by a QB wearing #13 wins their 3rd World Title as they become the most successful pro sports team in a town that has every pro sport. NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and more. They are going write history in the AFL. They are going to make history in Arizona pro sports and they will be ready.

Oh yeah, if you are an Avenger fan, then by all means stand up, the best place for that is the comedy channel, check your local listings.

Don't forget, the AFL is on NBC every Sunday.

The Rattlers quest for a third straight ArenaBowl began February 8, when they took on the Los Angeles Avengers at America West Arena. For season ticket information, call 602-514-TDTD or visit  azrattlers.com
 

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