XFL Arlington Renegades

Arlington Renegades Defense Schemes, Plays Its Way to XFL Championship

Published on May 15, 2023 under XFL (XFL)
Arlington Renegades News Release


SAN ANTONIO - Arlington Renegades co-defensive coordinator Jay Hayes sat on a chair in the team's locker room at the Alamodome with a cigar in his right hand and a smile on his face. It was past midnight and the celebration of the team's 35-26 win for the XFL Championship had died down over the previous few minutes. Players had started showering and many were changing back into their game-day fits.

But Hayes didn't seem to be in any rush and he had plenty of reasons to relish the moment. Along with fellow co-coordinator Tim Lewis, Hayes and the rest of the defensive staff had put together a tremendous game plan that turned a D.C. Defenders offense that entered the game with one loss, the XFL Offensive Player of the Year under center and the league's best running back into a shell of what it had been against almost every other team.

"They couldn't do anything they had done all year," Hayes said. "We figured out as a staff what they did by formation and how they lined up."

Figuring out those formations was just part of the battle. The next part was hammering it into the players throughout the two weeks of preparation. Suffice to say, they did a great job of that, too.

The Defenders ended the first half with just six points from three possessions in what was likely their worst half of football the entire season. The Renegades - who led the league in creating turnovers - forced Jordan Ta'amu into a season-high three interceptions and kept his rhythm scattered like a poor jazz ensemble.

They did it by running a lot of disguises, especially in the secondary. Arlington didn't want Ta'amu to have any idea about what the actual defensive coverage was before the snap.

The 25-year-old quarterback admitted after the game those disguises impacted how he played.

"Probably just more disguises I would say," Ta'amu said. "Especially with their safeties. They have really good safeties so they kind of mess around with showing me one thing and then right after the snap kind of switching to another thing pretty fast. Their defense did a really good job disguising."

The best example of that preparation paying off may have been the defense's final play of the game - Cre'Von LeBlanc snagging Ta'amu's third interception.

Hayes said they knew the play D.C. was going to run and instructed the team to be in position to defend it. That led to Donald Payne tipping the ball to LeBlanc to seal the victory.

"We knew they were going to try to run dig routes - and that's what they did," Hayes said. "We were all over it. We had walked the guys through that the last two weeks."

The numbers don't tell the full story of those disguises because the D.C. offense was able to connect on two big plays for touchdowns - and could have had a third if not for a Chris Blair drop on a deep ball.

But if you take out the two long touchdowns, the numbers show how well the Arlington defense really played. Outside of his 52-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-inches in the third quarter, Abram Smith gained just 3.2 yards per rush. Ta'amu averaged under six yards per attempt when removing his 72-yard touchdown throw.

More than half of Ta'amu's passing yards came on that touchdown throw and on the team's final possession late in the fourth quarter.

"We had a great plan and a grand scheme to slow them down, slow down the run game, which is big for them, and keep up with the RPO game," said linebacker Willie Taylor, who six months ago was playing college football. "We kept the pressure on them and just hit them in the mouth all game."

When the Arlington offense was struggling to reach double digits in the middle of the season, the Renegades defense was keeping the team in the playoff mix by holding teams to low scores. During one two-week stretch, they held the San Antonio offense to 19 points (the Brahmas also had a defensive TD) over 120 minutes of action.

Quarterback Luis Perez changed Arlington's season when he arrived at midseason, and there was no greater evidence of that than Saturday night.

But the offense's appreciation for what the defense did from Week 1 to the Championship did not go unnoticed in that postgame locker room.

"I kind of feel like the whole year defense has been keeping us in games. For the offense to be able to go out and do our share and give them some help and to see them step up - and we gave them a little cushion - it's awesome," center Brian Folkerts said. "We finally returned the favor for those boys."

As Hayes sat in the locker room reflecting on the night, that cigar still in his right hand and a smile on his face, it didn't come across as arrogant or braggadocious.

He said it all with a matter-of-fact tone because nothing he was saying was wrong. His game plan got pretty much everything right, so of course his reflection on it afterwards would have that same consistency.

"We were on top of it all day," Hayes said. "Don't take anything away from them. They had a heck of a year. But we have experienced coaches on defense and experienced players. Us all working together, we knew that if we just played the game the way that it was supposed to be played, no one could beat us."

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