Cobras Look to Bounce Back
May 20, 2002 - Arena Football League (1987-2008) (AFL I)
Carolina Cobras News Release
The Carolina Cobras will look to bounce back from a 64-45 loss to the Grand Rapids Rampage this week when they travel to the Sunshine state to take on the Tampa Bay Storm this Saturday, May 25, 7:30 p.m. at the Ice Palace. Carolina gave up 27 points in the second quarter but battled back to pull within 43-37 midway through the third quarter on an AFL record 49-yard touchdown run by FB/LB Andre Bowden. The Cobras held the Rampage scoreless in the third quarter but gave up 21 fourth quarter points. Despite the loss the Cobras (3-2) still hold a two-game lead in the Southern Division. Here is some post-game reaction from the locker room.
HEAD COACH MIKE NEU (on the game) "Well, we had an opportunity. We got that turnover defensively when we intercepted the ball when it was 43-37, and we didn't do anything with it. I think that was obviously the turning point in the game. It was very disappointing. The defense battled back and they gave us an opportunity. They had that nice goal line stand and we didn't do anything with the turnover."
(on the play of OS Aaron Bailey) "I was glad to see Aaron Bailey get back into form again. I think that helped his confidence. He's been out for a couple of weeks and he's been down, but he really did a nice job tonight, and I was proud of him."
(on the adjustments made during the game) "Well I don't think it was so much the adjustments more than it was lack of execution on our part. We missed some throws that were there obviously, which was disappointing. We didn't have quite as many opportunities in the second half as we did in the first half as far as number of plays, but we missed some opportunities in the second half more than anything."
(on QB Connell Maynor's play) "Spotty. He did some good things in the first half, but I need him to do it over the long haul. There are a lot of times in the second half when we had some throws underneath, but he bounced a couple in the dirt. He was just spotty, I need him to step up and be a leader. Obviously when you are hurting someone deep like Aaron was in the first half, their adjustment to that is to fall off and give you some underneath stuff, and some other guys were open and we didn't get the ball to them."
(on having a good chance to win) "I would go to war with our defense anytime. The most important thing as a DB in this league is to have a short-term memory and both of those guys do [Kevin Gaines and Clarence Lawson]. You know Grand Rapids is a good football team, they are the World Champions and we knew coming in that nothing was going to be easy. We were going to have to battle and fight for four quarters and play mistake free to get a win. We did some good things but not enough."
(on playing at home vs. the road) "I know we are winning more on the road than at home, and that's weird, but who knows why that is. You'd like to think that coming home and winning at home and get your fans excited about the Carolina Cobras, but I guess we are in a situation where we are having more success on the road right now."
DS CLARENCE LAWSON (on the game) "This was one of those games where we just let it slip away. We had a lot of opportunities to comeback in the game, it was just one of those games that slipped away from us."
(on what the team could have done better) "Just make plays. We just needed to make plays out there. It was just of those games where all the positions had different times where they could have made plays and just didn't get it done. That's just the game of football."
FB/LB ANDRE BOWDEN (on the game) "We took one on the chin tonight. We came out kind of slow, kind of sluggish and they jumped out on us by 10 points. We just need to do the little things. We had some drives where we stopped ourselves, so we just need to come back on Monday and correct the little things and we will be alright."
(on his AFL record 49-yard run) "I had no idea. It was just one of those calls that we were running a toss out of a certain formation and they ran away from the play side and we ran it backside and it just broke open."
WR/LB JAMAAL GARMAN (on the game) "It was a pretty good game. We didn't execute on offense like we needed to, but we will bounce back."
(on the problems in the second half) "We just really shut ourselves down. They didn't do anything to stop us. We just had a lot of mental errors, but those will be corrected next week."
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Arena Football League (1987-2008) Stories from May 20, 2002
- Week Five Game Recaps - AFL I
- Cobras Look to Bounce Back - Carolina Cobras
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