Week 5 - Dallas

In a sport oriented around the excitement of offense, this game "should" have been boring, right? No no no, defense can be even more exciting than offense - we learned that today.

First I will admit that I was half wrong in my prediction that the Dragons would be crushed in a loss. While they did lose, they most certainly were not crushed at all. For almost the entire game the Dragons led one of, if not the best teams in the Arena Football League. Just as I saw in the home opener, the excitement from the individual defenders lit a fire under the defense as a whole - and it was quite a sight to see. Henry Taylor was an absolute monster with two and a half sacks and a fumble recovery. His sacks accounted for negative 17 yards total for Dallas, and he played like I had never seen before. If only he had played like this the whole season - THIS is the real guy we got for Horacek - not the weak d-linemen we saw in the first four games. The D-Line had four sacks total and is really looking better after multiple weeks of mediocrity. It wasn't a solo effort from Taylor - as Jason Hardee played a solid game as well. The others were not so great - but I will take that overall performance every game if we can get it.

Also on defense - the secondary played very well too. I stood up and danced as I sang "Welcome back, welcome back, weeelllcome backkk" when Angel Estrada returned his interception for a touchdown. A great return to New York for him. John Walker AGAIN recovered a fumble, something he does EVERY week. Seriously, this guy has a specialty. Otherwise, Levy didn't pick one for the first time this season, but he played an overall ok game - he did get beat a few times. Billy Parker got beat as well, but he got lucky as much of the time the passes were either errant or there was a penalty somewhere on the field. On the topic of penalties - there were MANY from Dallas. I did not expect that from this team, but the Dragons got a couple of big breaks during this game via the yellow flag.

I guess it is time to talk about the offense. All ignorant Garcia lovers can stop reading after this beep - "beep" - ok, now I can justifiably rip into this guy! WOW, what a terrible game from Garcia. His one interception isn't that bad, but the three touchdowns and many missed plays ARE. I am convinced that not only is Garcia's body no longer in the game, but his head isn't either. He made an extraordinary amount of errors - most likely mental and not physical this time around. In the early quarters with the o-line looking surprisingly able (more on that later), Garcia threw errant pass after errant pass - continually missing players and reading plays poorly. From overthrows to underthrows to missing wide open men - Garcia hit the trio of mediocrity in this one. He is showing signs of an early Rohan Davey - and I know how much you guys dislike THAT type of a quarterback. If anyone tries to defend Garcia at all, I will laugh hysterically. Sure, the coverage was pretty good, but the amount of errors were no result of the coverage. One play had me sitting on the edge of my seat as Garcia shed a would-be sacker and dropped even further back. We were all yelling throw it away, but no, an overcompensating Garcia decided to hold onto the damn thing and take the huge loss. On another play on 3rd and goal, Garcia dropped back and the coverage was tight. He stepped up and there was an enormous running hole. On a play where the o-line could not have opened up a bigger opportunity for Garcia to make a game changing run - he decided to throw into coverage and had the ball batted away. If we had a competent QB running our offense today - we would have won. End of story.

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Onto that O-Line. Not too shabby guys...or so I thought. In the early goings of this game, the line was looking pretty solid. Garcia had time, and although he used the time poorly, there definitely was a better look to the whole thing. As the game progressed, though, they started to weaken and by the fourth quarter they could not keep up with the game anymore. A friend and I closely examined the line, trying to see where the real issue was once more. On previous examinations of sacks and offensive line struggles, we found that Joe Laudano was the true weak link in the line. Under further examination, I can once again confirm that Laudano is almost the sole reason for the line break downs. What a surprise!

They say there is no such thing as a good loss - but this game revealed a lot about this team, good and bad. While the D played their best, Glassia played his worst. Very interesting, and the Dragons only lost by a safety from a blocked kick.

On some other notes, the Dragons traded Damien Groce this week for o-lineman Steven Franklin of the Georgia Force. O-Line help? I'll take it. With the surplus of good receivers that the Dragons have, Groce wasn't much of a loss. This lineman can play guard and center as well. Have the Dragons realized that Laudano is terrible? Mayyybe.

Don't forget to check out my youtube show this Wednesday as I talk about this past week vs. Dallas, next week vs. Grand Rapids, and many other Dragons tidbits. My youtube profile can be seen here: http://youtube.com/user/SchwartzVideo

Feel free to look at past editions as well.

Well that wraps up another week, thanks for reading and I'll see you vs. GR!