Saturday night, the Portland Thunder played the final game of the regular season of their inaugural season. The Spokane Shock were in town and showed the Thunder what they could aspire to be.
The orange-clad Shock fans were at the game in force. With this being the first season the Thunder have been in existence, there is a lack of the “die-hard” fan. The Shock on the other hand have been around since 2005 and have won 3 championships. This year, the Shock finished the regular season with an 11-7 record. With wins and success comes fans. The Thunder won 5 games this year.
I realize that it is unfair to judge the future of a football team on their first year, but there are some troubling trends when you look at the make-up of this organization.
Coming into the season there was a strong marketing push of Darron Thomas, the former Oregon quarterback. Thomas came along with a ton of hype coming out of Oregon, went undrafted, bounced between practice squads and the CFL and finally fell in team owner Terry Emmert’s lap. Thomas was the show boy for the Thunder to bring to Blazer games, make radio appearances and be all over season tickets and marketing material.
The problem with Thomas: he is not fit for the Arena Football game. Thomas had his success at Oregon by executing Chip Kelly’s fast-paced offense and beating the opponent with his legs. On the smaller-sized Arena field, the threat of Thomas running is diminished greatly. Thomas had success passing at Oregon but things happen just a step quicker and within tighter boundaries in Arena Ball which tends to magnify the fact that Thomas telegraphs the majority of his passes. During the first quarter of the Saturday night game, he was 2-7 for 20 yards and 1 interception.
That is a problem when you are playing a high scoring game against a veteran team, led by the Shock’s back-up quarterback Brian Zybdniewski who went 9-15 for 86 yards and a touchdown.
The Thunder found a way in the middle of the season to win a few games. When they won those games, they were led by Kyle Rowley and Danny Southwick at quarterback. Thomas was unable to win a game when he was the focus of the Thunder offense.
For the longevity of the Thunder in Portland, they need to focus their attention on the football. The show is there. Emmert and crew have done a great job of making the games an event. The introductions of the game on Saturday was a loud, rock-and-roll, light show. Portland legend Jerome Kersey was there for the coin flip. There was an awesomely awkward marriage proposal by one of the Thunder lineman.
Once the Thunder bring more wins to the field, there will start to become the fanatic following that the Shock brought to Portland on Saturday.
I love football and bought season tickets as soon as I could, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the show turned out being for a first year team. But always left a little disappointed when the other team brought a more talented team to the field almost every night.
Personally I hope the Thomas can figure things out and be a successful quarterback for this team. That would be the ideal situation for Thomas, the Thunder, and the city of Portland. But winning needs to be more important to a franchise than how known a player is in the community.
Overall, this season has been a success for the Thunder. A fast, exciting, game of a football in a city that has a desperate need for football. The show is fun, the football lacks, but the Thunder look to improve moving forward.
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