Fort Wayne Freedom

af2 all-stars released

Even though the Fusion didn't perform great this season, I still was a bit surprised it didn't get a single player on either the first or second all-star team. Fort Wayne and Boise (8-8) were the only teams in the 16-team American Conference that didn't get a player to earn all-league status.
I suppose the hardest position for non-coaching types to rate would be the offensive line play. That's where I figured the Fusion would get a nod -- with Stephenol Santos. Instead, players from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Quad City, Stockton and Manchester took those spots. Those were the top four teams record-wise in the conference.
Receiver Cesare Manning, linebacker Derek Brown and safety Nate Williams really didn't have much of a chance, even though they were clearly Fort Wayne's best players.
Manning had a nice season (78 catches, 1,176 yards, 29 TDs), but he didn't play enough games while nursing hamstring injuries. All six receivers on the two teams had at least 110 catches, 1,480 yards and 28 touchdowns. 
Brown was the team's most intense player, but I think he had to learn a new position (jack linebacker) and that may have slowed him initially. He finished 13th in the league in tackles with 86 and seventh in fumble recoveries (four).
Williams had 75 tackles, 16 pass breakups and three interceptions. That latter total perhaps hurt him most for a chance to make second team. Of the three second-team picks, none had fewer than five interceptions. All had more tackles than Williams.

• I'm hoping to speak with general manager Mike McCaffrey on Tuesday to get an update on the search for new ownership. When I know more, so will you.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Fusion at Quad City

As I write this, it's about an hour before game time here in Moline, Ill. The fans are just filing in while the Fusion is warming up. It's weird because there's no music playing at all, so it's super quiet in here. But the team is going through it's normal drills. All the regulars are active, though there is no backup quarterback. Dean Jackson, who does the radio broadcasts, told me that the team cut Joe Micco. That appears to be the only roster move since the last game.

• I was hoping general manager Mike McCaffrey would make the trip so I could get an update for you on the ownership situation. But he's still in Fort Wayne, so that will have to wait a bit. I did have contact with him briefly today, and he said he's still hoping an announcement will be made soon. I will have player reaction on this crazy season in Friday's paper.
• Be sure to check back. I will be filing blogs throughout the game.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Pre-game against Tennessee Valley

The last time the Fusion played Tennessee Valley, it won in part by mixing up its formations on offense. Coach Eddie Brown wore the Vipers down by using his "heavy" package that includes more blockers near the line of scrimmage. But during practice this week, Brown showed a bit of a "bigs" package, which had linemen out wide in order to block for a quick screen pass.
Brown said it will depend on game situations how much he uses either package.
Joe Johnsonbaugh will be back starting at fullback with Terrel White out with another hamstring injury. Last week was White's first off the injured reserve (hamstring), and he got the start. But another injury put him right back there and his season is over.

• The team took a bus to Alabama for the game. Brown said it was about a 10-hour drive, about the same length as the trip to Albany, N.Y. For that trip on June 2, the team flew.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Notes from Thursday

The players didn't have pads on again today during practice. Couple of guys seemed banged up -- Derek Brown has been hurting for awhile now -- so I'm sure it's nice not to have to hit during practice.
The offense looked OK. Blayne Baggett made a couple bad reads again, but he made some good ones and nice throws, too. Coach Eddie Brown really got on Baggett when he made a throw over the middle that was nearly intercepted by Derek Brown. Eddie Brown didn't understand why Baggett was looking at the mack linebacker. Baggett pleaded his case, but Brown simply said "throw it out then." Baggett threw another pass over the middle later, and I heard Brown tell him "one day, you're going to listen to me."
Interesting dynamic there.
I think Brown still has confidence in Baggett, but it's got to be tough to see a guy at such a crucial position still taking unnecessary chances. Baggett is pretty hard on himself, too.

• Receiver Jermaine Jackson likely will make the trip to Tennessee Valley, but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't start. Jonathan Graham got more reps in the practices I saw, and Jackson got yanked after only a couple plays with the first team offense Thursday.
• Defensive lineman and Northern Illinois product Ken West won't play this weekend. He collided with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton wide receiver Jim Jones last week and was shaken up. I didn't mention it after the game, but Jones was a real jerk about it. He made a slashing motion across his neck twice (that I saw) while West was on the turf hardly moving. Real classy. I didn't notice Jones say anything to West or clap like some of his teammates when West left the field either.
• The turnstile count for the final home game was 2,298. Based on turnstile counts, the team averaged 2,866 fans over its eight home games. There's really no way to rank that in af2 because all of the attendance numbers supplied to the league are what the teams provide. Those aren't turnstile, which is the actual number of people who get tickets scanned and the amount that matters for rent purposes.
• I won't be making the trip to Tennessee Valley this weekend, but I will be listening on the radio and blogging throughout the game. So check in for that.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Fusion can't convert 2-point conversion, lose

When I saw Blayne Baggett in the field of play talking to coach Eddie Brown, I figured I missed something. Why wouldn't Baggett be trotting to the sidelines after throwing a touchdown pass with 13 seconds left, putting Fort Wayne on the verge of overtime with the af2's best team, and passing kicker Kyle Hooper on his way to the field?
Two-point conversion? Really?!!
I think my first words to colleague Ben Smith were, "Brown better have gotten the OK from his players for this."
The conversion failed, and the Fusion lost, 48-47.
I spoke to a couple players after the game, and they said they wanted to go for the victory and not settle for overtime. If it was the coach's call without any kind of consultation then I would be more adamantly opposed. But if the players wanted to go for broke, then it should be up to them.
Still, I would have felt better if the final call was a more traditional play, so to speak, than a reverse pass. Why not take your chances with Cesare Manning one-on-one with any of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's defenders? Or even given Mario Pratcher, a strong, 6-foot-3 receiver, a chance to go up and snag one over a DB?
Brown said he didn't regret the final play call but said he did regret "three or four other calls that we didn't do a good job on."
Curious to hear what you guys think of that final play.

• I thought the Fusion had the game won after the defense got a huge stop in the fourth quarter. Fort Wayne already led 41-34 and had the ball at midfield, primed to strike. Jonathan Graham moved the ball to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's 14-yard line with about 12 minutes to play. But then Blayne Baggett threw an interception in the end zone. It wasn't even close to Graham. I don't know if it was simply a bad throw, which is what it seemed, or if Graham messed up the route. Eddie Brown was yelling at both of them on the sidelines afterward, so I couldn't tell. But that may have been the play of the game. The Pioneers came back and scored a touchdown to tie it, and Fort Wayne lost all its momentum.
• The call I had the most problem with was when Brown opted to go for it on fourth-and-10 from the 2-yard line in a tie game. I asked him about it afterward -- he was a bit defensive -- and his response is in my Sunday story. My point was at least make Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's offense earn a touchdown and give your defense a chance. Instead, the Pioneers only needed to pound out 2 yards. I understand what Brown talked about when he mentioned linemen are on the field goal team and they probably wouldn't cover that well. But isn't forcing the Pioneers to go even 20 yards better than 2? Derek Brown didn't agree with me either.
  • "In arena ball, you can score so fast and you can score so quickly, that's the right play. You don't kick it. You go for it. You've got to score. That's the nature of this game. In the NFL, it would be different. But this isn't the NFL. So you go for it, and you make it. We didn't make it, so I guess we should have stopped them on defense. We didn't."
• Baggett finished with 260 yards and six touchdowns but threw two interceptions, both picked by Chris Royal. Manning caught 10 balls for 151 yards and four touchdowns.
• Terrel White rushed seven times for 58 yards, including a touchdown, and provided a nice spark. I chatted with him after the game for an article for Monday's paper.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Pre-game against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton

I'm interested to see how the Fusion come out initially tonight. One would figure players would be jacked at a chance to end a team's unbeaten season, but I thought the Fusion would be pumped to beat Green Bay up there a couple weeks ago.
And look how that turned out.
That loss likely ended Fort Wayne's playoff chances. A victory tonight against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton couldn't be as special. Yes, it would be nice to say you were the team to snap a streak, but if you're sitting at home while other teams are playing when it matters, how much weight does that really carry?
I suppose the biggest boost from a victory could be in terms of fan support for next season. But if there's no one here tonight to see it, is it still important?

• No surprise: Jermaine Jackson isn't in uniform. I have to find him after the game to see what's up. I watched him at points during Thursday's practice and didn't notice anything specific injury-wise. So he won't play for the second consecutive game. I don't think it hurts the receiving corps too much. Jackson has pretty good hands, but Mario Pratcher provides the same size-strength combo, and Jonathan Graham has better speed. And as long as Cesare Manning is healthy, the Fusion has one of the league's biggest play-makers.
• We'll see how much time the team's best offensive lineman, Stephenol Santos, gets tonight. He's active but didn't practice much Thursday. I would be more optimistic if there weren't three other offensive linemen active (Randy Degg, fresh off injured reserve, Lenard Black and Lou Vega). With Terrel White starting at fullback instead of the bigger, more experienced Joe Johnsonbaugh, that would seem to lend itself to the Fusion using more of its heavy package. Can't imagine White will fare too well picking up blitzers.
• Starting linebacker Tyus Jackson wasn't at practice Thursday -- or at least for the last 90 minutes -- but he's active. Defensive coordinator Tony Henderson told me Thursday he thought Jackson was at a doctor's appointment.
• Pretty surprised to see only three defensive backs active - Nate Williams, Morris Virgil and Arthur Berlanga. Apparently, Derrick Simmons was the one singled out after a dismal Thursday practice by the secondary.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Notes from Thursday's practice

Practice wasn't as crisp as I'm sure coach Eddie Brown would have liked two days before his Fusion is going to play the af2's best team.
The offense only got through a couple mistake-filled plays on 8-on-8 drills before Brown made the team huddle, run, stretch and start over. Before the offense huddled again, quarterback Blayne Baggett urged his teammates for "absolute perfect execution now." The next 17 plays maybe weren't perfect, but the offense did look much better and didn't have any false starts or obvious miscommunication. They mixed in some runs and different packages with the normal three-receiver sets.

• The secondary did not look good for most of practice, especially on 3-on-3 work. Secondary coach "Downtown" Eddie Brown was urging his guys to be more aggressive in the red zone, but he didn't seem pleased with the results. The first-team offense scored touchdowns on its first three plays before the defense finally forced an incompletion.
• Neither Jermaine Jackson nor Stephenol Santos worked with the first-team offense but both were in pads and practiced a bit. Jackson missed last week with an injury, and I'd be surprised if he plays Saturday. Santos could be the bigger concern. He's started every game on the offensive line and has been the team's anchor. If he can't play, that could be a difference-maker. Brown left the Coliseum before I got a chance to talk to him, so I'm not sure what's up with Santos.
• Receiver Mario Pratcher was one of the most vocal guys at practice, encouraging teammates as well as calling them out to play harder and be more focused. Lineman Lou Vega also got pretty heated in his criticisms a couple times, which I don't think was taken very well by all of his teammates. I thought I saw a couple players mouthing off to Vega in the huddle and while the team was running. Keep in mind, Vega got yanked from starting because of poor performance early in the season, was going to get traded until it didn't go through and then is starting again because of other injuries on the line.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

More about personnel changes

I'm interested to hear what you thought of our stories in today's paper regarding the Fusion's player movement. I'd heard/read how frustrated some of you were with the constant turnover -- and understood -- so you'll have to let me know if what coach Eddie Brown said reassured any of you.
I thought he made perfect sense on almost every issue I presented.
There's no doubt the team wouldn't have had so many moves if not for the rash of injuries. It's rare to find an adequate replacement quickly during the season, and so Brown sometimes went through a couple guys before he found the right one.
GM Mike McCaffrey joked the team would have saved itself at least half a dozen moves if R.J. Harvey hadn't gotten hurt.
I hadn't thought much of guys simply leaving the team, but Brown pointed out a couple of those. Of those guys, I think center Gary Freeman's loss hurt the most. He left for financial reasons.
But there's no question some guys didn't agree with Brown's willingness to pull the trigger quickly. Some players were cut after one game, and some were told during a game they were done. I'm not so sure I agree with that, but I also don't have the football knowledge Brown does.

• Brown wanted me to address your plea for local players. He said he'd "love" to have local players but only three tried out. Two of them, former Freedom guys Alf Fertil and Luther Stroder, were playing well in camp but opted not to stay with the team. Stroder couldn't play because of family arrangements. Fertil, who works full time, couldn't adjust his work schedule to free up time to commit to the Fusion. Even if he was able, Fertil said he wasn't sure if he would have played. He said he liked Brown but wasn't sure he could play for him because "there's no praises when he rides you."
  • "He's tough," Fertil said. "A lot of it is his mentality, 'I did this and you should be able to do it.' ... 'You did that but can you do it better?' I'm like, 'Hold up.' It'd be tough. I honestly don't know if I would have made the whole season."
• I spoke with Sunungura Rusununguko last week, a couple days before he was essentially released (though Brown said he put Rusununguko on team suspension). He had some interesting things to say about the personnel changes.
  • "We've got such a high turnover in some of our positions that it's like rolling the dice," he said. "There's a learning curve, and we're suffering because of it. It's a couple of guys' first arena game ever, so they're going to make mistakes. It hurts us because we're 12 weeks into the season and we're trying to make a run."
  • I asked also asked Rusununguko specifically about Brown's personnel decision-making. "I'm not going to tell him what he should do at any point," he said. "It's his team. We had injuries in the beginning of the season that turned us all the way around and then we just had poor performance by some guys in coach's expectations. They didn't do what they were supposed to be doing. Coach didn't like them. It's his will. He wanted them out. He got them out. Now, whether they would have stunk it up next game, who know? But that's his call to make. It's his first year, and he's learning the players and how to coach grown men. It's a learning curve for everybody."
• I left messages for Rocky Harvey and Rachman Crable for the ex-Freedom players story but didn't hear back. Too bad. I really was interested to see how they're doing. The Bloomington Pantagraph (Ill.) did a nice story on Crable a couple weeks ago. You can check it out here.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Scaling back

Eddie Brown took heed of his players' requests to scale back on practice this week, so the team went just over two hours Tuesday instead of its normal three. The team also didn't practice in pads for the first time since, well, I can even remember. Typically, the team goes in shoulder pads and helmets for all three days of practice.
During the weekly team meeting Monday, Brown said players told him they thought focusing on being sharp and not having as many breaks throughout practice would keep them fresher. So Brown obliged, and he said players told him after Tuesday's practice they appreciated the new format.
I spoke with former Freedom player Alf Fertil this week, and he mentioned his new team in Kalamazoo hasn't practiced in pads for six weeks. He could have been exaggerating a bit, but still, that may say something. Perhaps Fusion players should have spoken up sooner -- or Brown should have thought of it sooner -- to lighten the load a bit. With as many injuries as this team has had, it would make sense to try less contact during the week.
We'll see if it means anything for Saturday -- when the Fusion will need any kind of help it can get against the league's best team, undefeated Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

• I was chatting with Fertil for a story that will run Wednesday. We're going to have a couple stories, mostly dealing with the Fusion's frequent player movement. Ben Smith wrote a column, and I will have two stories. I'll discuss them more in a blog Wednesday, once you've gotten a chance to read everything.
• Brown said eight AFL scouts will be at the game Saturday. He'll certainly use that as motivation for his guys.
• Turnstile count from the game Saturday was 2,275, according to Coliseum general manager Randy Brown.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Fusion beats Cincinnati

I'm not sure I'd call Fort Wayne's 47-25 victory convincing necessarily (let's keep in mind Cincinnati is the league's worst team), but especially at this point, any victory is a good one.
I wrote about quarterback Blayne Baggett in my story for Sunday's paper, so let's talk about the defense here.
Yes, the Jungle Kats had a new quarterback playing and he looked really bad at times, but I thought the Fusion defense was pretty solid most of the night.
I liked that they mixed up their guys in the secondary - Morris Virgil, Nate Williams, Arthur Berlanga and Derrick Simmons. Virgil had two interceptions and knocked down four passes. Williams knocked down three passes. Berlanga had 4.5 tackles, and Simmons had 4. 
The front guys actually got some pressure, certainly keyed by A.J. Lindsay's return to the team. He was credited with one sack, and linebacker Tyus Jackson had two sacks and smoked Cincy quarterback Patrick Josten on the blitz several times.
Derek Brown also was solid, typical, and had a team-high seven tackles.
So a great showing by the defense, though certainly the caliber of opponent wasn't top notch.
Let's see how they do next week against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.   

• I had a nice conversation with Virgil after the game and will have more from that in a story for Monday's paper. Along with the two interceptions, he provided a big spark on kickoff returns tonight in only his second game with the team -- and second arena game. I liked his energy afterward, too. He seemed super excited to be playing, and that enthusiasm can only help this team down the stretch.
• The announced attendance was 3,828. I don't put those numbers in my game stories anymore because they're so inaccurate. And that's not a knock on the Fusion. It's rare to find an accurate estimate for any of the sports around town. I wouldn't be surprised if the turnstile count once again hits a season low. It's been a pretty steady decline for the season. The last home game, it was 2,315.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette