The mental gamesmanship surrounding Summer Bowl 2004 began long before both teams entered the Citrus Bowl on Sunday. That is not abnormal for a championship game, though usually it is Media Day on Thursday that produces the bulletin board quote that inspires a team, or the flub that reveals something the coaches did not want known. This time it came two days earlier, when New Jersey, as the team with the better regular season record announced their decision to wear their road white uniforms instead of the traditional home look chosen by the top seed in nearly all Summer Bowl games.
The move gave New Jersey an edge in two ways, first, wearing white on a hot Florida July evening is sure to help the Generals deal with the heat, though with a 7pm Eastern kickoff, and with the temperatures in Orlando expected to be a reasonably moderate 82 degrees, this does not seem essential. The second is that it forces Arizona to wear their red jerseys. Arizona always wears white at home, and in about 90% of games on the road as well, since many teams prefer to wear their dark jersey for home games. That fact has produced a bit of a legend, a jinx, you might say, associated with the rarely worn red jerseys.
Was it an intentional effort to take Arizona off their game? We certainly would not put that past Coach Parcells, who was very tight-lipped about the decision, but who always seems to have a trick up his sleeve. At the very least it forced Arizona to spend the next 5 days answering questions about something as silly as a perceived jinx, or New Jersey’s disresepect, or just the weather. Did it affect the game? Certainly not once the pads were on and the blows started being delivered, but you never know how a distraction could impact a game.
Both teams entered the game glad to be done with the weather issues that impacted both Conference Title Games, Arizona dealing with 103 degree heat and New Jersey with a nearly 90 minute halftime caused by lightning near the stadium during a late afternoon thunderstorm in Tampa Bay last week. The Generals stayed in Florida for the week, training at Florida International University, while Arizona took their squad up to Northern Arizona University to train in somewhat cooler environs ahead of the game, arriving in Orlando on Wednesday night. When the game started, both teams were happy that the forecast had stayed true, and it was 82, with a decent cooling breeze.
After the fanfare of the National Anthem, sung by Florida’s own Gloria Estefan, and the traditional flyover, with jets coming in from McDill Air Force Base, it was time to kick things off. Arizona won the toss and, rather than differ, opted to go on offense to begin the game. The Wranglers took the ball on the 25 after the opening kick from Ryan Longwell sailed out of the endzone. Jake Plummer led the squad out, and began the action with a play-action pass to TE Matt Cushing. Cushing had been listed as doubtful for the game, but would end up playing 33 snaps on offense. The game had begun, but in their first drive the Wranglers quickly faced a 3rd and 11 after a holding call wiped out a 7-yard Davis run. Plummer used the opportunity to take a deep shot to Larry Fitzgerald, avoiding Deion Sanders on the other side. The Ball sailed just a bit too far and Arizona was forced to punt.
New Jersey had similar luck in their first drive, as Arizona’s linebackers limited Curtis Enis to only 2 yards on 2 carries. A third and 8 pass to Donald Hayes went for only 7 yards and New Jersey had a quick three and out. And so it would be for the entire quarter, with both teams trying to establish the run, with middling success, and both taking occasional shots, but missing as the defenses held their ground. It would not be until the final drive of the quarter, one that extended into the 2nd period, that we would see the first points of the game.
Arizona received a punt from Josh Miller and got a solid 11-yard return from Nate Jacquet to set up with the ball on their own 48. The drive reached the New Jersey 22-yard line before a missed connection on 3rd and 5 forced Coach Fassel to send out Rob Bironas and the field goal team. Bironas connected on a 39-yard kick and Arizona had the early lead with a minute and a half gone in the 2nd quarter. New Jersey’s turn with the ball, and the Generals would also find success with their first drive of the quarter.
The Generals took the kickoff at the 5 and Tay Cody returned it to the 27 yard line. No sign yet that New Jersey would put Deion Sanders back to field kicks. Tom Brady and the offense put together a solid drive, relying on short passes, a nice screen to Enis on 3rd and 6 that went for 15 yards, and a couple of James Jackson runs that helped put the ball right on the edge of the red zone. On first and 10 from the 20, Brady would fake to Enis and roll slightly to the right side. He quickly spotted WR Jerome Pathon on the right sideline and connected with the lanky receiver for a nice back shoulder catch. Pathon would spin out of the tackle from Drakeford and into the endzone to put New Jersey up 7-3.
That score would hold into halftime as Arizona managed to move the ball into field goal range, but Rob Bironas missed left on a 39-yard attempt, one he normally would make based on his performance this year. The missed kick sent Arizona into the endzone down 4. The analysis was that the New Jersey secondary, with help from their pass rush, was making it difficult for Arizona to make the big plays that they often relied on to gain large chunks of yardage. They would have to be patient and slowly move the ball, But, they were down only 4 points at the half, and New Jersey had also found it difficult to sustain drives against the Wrangler D.
As the fans in the Citrus Bowl watched what felt a bit like a Girl Power halftime show made up of performances by Pink and Jennifer Lopez, the players hydrated, talked strategy, and got no small chewing out from Coaches Fassel and Parcells. Intensity was a theme in both speeches, and both teams came out for the second half fired up to turn the heat up on the opposition.
New Jersey received the opening kickoff, and they found immediate success on a pair of short routes, the first a slant to Terry Glenn, and then a crossing route that turned into a 21 yard gain for Pathon, the TD scorer. In 7 plays they had the ball at the Arizona 11 yard line and it looked like they would take an 11-point lead, but the Arizona defense led the league in takeaways this season, and they got one right when they needed one. It was WR Donald Hayes who was the victim of the game’s only turnover, as a short hook route produced a catch, but as Hayes turned around, CB Philippi Sparks swatted at the ball, and it slipped out of Hayes’s hands. Sparks pounced on it. Hayes emphatically demanded that it had been an incomplete pass and not a completion with a fumble, Coach Parcells called for a review, but the call on the field of a fumble stood. Arizona ball on their 5-yard line.
The Wranglers would hand off three times, trying to push the ball out of the shadow of their goal line. They would net only 7 yards on three carries, and they would have to punt. They got a good roll on the kick and the ball came to a stop on the New Jersey 39. Once again the Generals would begin a drive hoping to increase their lead. This time there would be no turnover, and once inside the red zone, Tom Brady would connect on his second of three TDs on the day, this one to his favorite red zone target, TE Anthony Becht. Arizona had dodged the bullet once, but New Jersey had shown that their patient offense could get the ball into the endzone. Up 14-3, they kicked off to Arizona with just over 3:30 left to play in the third.
Arizona would feel a sense of urgency as they received the ball. The Wranglers picked up the tempo, while still relying on short passes to move the ball. A 25-yard swing pass to Dominic Rhodes would highlight the drive, but the big play was a 3rd and defensive holding call against New Jersey that allowed the Wranglers to stay on the field despite failing to connect on the pass. With 43 seconds left, Jake Plummer connected with Tim Dwight for a 5-yard TD toss. With Moss covered by Deion Sanders and with the safety protecting against a fade to Fitzgerald, Dwight got inside leverage on Brian Dawkins and Plummer connected to pull the Wranglers to within 5 at 14-9.
The Wranglers would go for two, and they would be successful as Plummer hit TE Dustin Lyman with a low pass after an effective play fake to Davis. Arizona was back within 3 and the game had shown some spark as the final quarter was about to begin. New Jersey would go 3-and-out to start the 4th, but Arizona would also struggle to keep possession, punting back to New Jersey after only 17 yards gained.
The Generals would take the punt at their own 16 on a fair catch, and they would begin the slow, methodical march into Arizona territory. This was exactly the kind of drive the Generals had been completing all season long. Slow, almost plodding at times, mistake-free, and effective. A 4-yard Enis run, a short pass to Becht, a Jackson run for 6, a couple of missed passes, followed by a 12-yarder to Hayes, even a plunge for 3 yards by the fullback, Dyer. It was not a spectacular display of skill, but a simple and effective progression of plays. With the ball at the 11, Tom Brady again found a connection, this time with the club’s top receiver, Terry Glenn. Glenn would only have 5 receptions on the day, for a less than typical 63 yards, but this 11-yard strike proved essential as I put the Generals up by 10 with 6:50 to play.
Arizona would now have to pick up the pace. They needed two scores and had less than half a quarter to get them. Jake Plummer would help the team along on the very first drive, a play action roll out that turned into a 7 yard scramble, one of very few Plummer runs on the day. It was followed by a 6 yard connection with Santana Moss, and then the Larry Fitzgerald show began. Fitzgerald would catch all 4 of Jake Plummer’s passes from this point in the drive, including the 2-yard slant that would pull the Wranglers back to within 3. With Deion Sanders on Santana Moss, Arizona used Matt Cushing to force safety coverage into the middle of the field, and that left Fitzgerald one on one with Mike Rumph. The tall receiver made two catches that Rumph was helpless to defend, well over his head, and another on a diving ball for a first down. On the TD the rookie made an initial outside move, and Rumph, concerned about the fade route, bit on it, allowing Fitzgerald to make the inside move and land the laser shot that Plummer had fired.
Down 3 with only 2:06 left to play, Coach Fassel, a former Special Teams coach, had a tough choice to make. Kick deep and hope the defense could use its time outs and to make a stand and hold New Jersey to a 3-and-out, or try the onside kick, a move which only had a 17% success rate all season. Fassel opted to kick it away and trust his defense. First down produced a 1-yard run for Curtis Enis. Time out Arizona. 2nd down was only slightly better, 3 yards for Enis on the right side. Time out Arizona. Third and 6, would Parcells run it again, or take a risk on a pass play to get the first down and kill the clock. It meant possibly stopping the clock with an incompletion.
Parcells found a middle ground, a play Arizona simply did not see coming. Lining up in the shotgun, Brady took the snap, turned to James Jackson and put the ball in his gut. But Brady pulled the ball out just as the linebackers were racing to the left to follow Jackson. He then shovel passed it to 3rd TE Sean Ryan, who was pulling to the right. When Ryan turned the corner with the ball in his hands, there was not a LB in sight. He raced 10 yards before safety Je’Rod Cherry was able to trip him up. It was a risky call by Parcells, though not as likely to produce an incompletion as a standard pass, and it had worked. New Jersey would be able to assume the victory formation and run out the clock.
The Generals had won their second title, keeping Arizona from claiming their first. They had not been awe-inspiring in their performance, but they had played efficient, smart, and largely mistake-free football. Tom Brady, for his 3 touchdown performance, was named MVP of the game, Coach Parcells held aloft the Tom Bassett Trophy, and the confetti poured down in New Jersey (and USFL) red, white and blue. The Wranglers, for their part, had shown grit and heart, but could only watch as Generals’ players and their families celebrated on the field at the Citrus Bowl.
And so ends another USFL season, with an elated champion, a worthy opponent, and a solid game that came down to the final minutes. Soon the attention of spring football fans would turn to the hot stove, to trades and free agent moves, but for this night, a very pleasant one in Orlando by game’s end, the focus would be on the Generals and the USFL title.
