Coach Mike Dailey on Monday described the abrupt ending of the Colorado Crush’s season as running into a brick wall at the end of a 100-mph run.
Dailey met with his players a day after the Chicago Rush had taken them out of the Arena Football League playoffs with a 63-46 decision at the Pepsi Center. It was a subdued group Monday as the players dealt with coming up two victories short of defending their Arena- Bowl championship.
“They’re hurting right now,” Dailey said. “We lost a game we had hoped to win. To play sloppily like that and turn the ball over so many times, it hurts even more because it wasn’t our best effort.”
Four turnovers were costly to the Crush as Chicago converted them into four TDs.
The players went through the task of cleaning out lockers Monday and preparing for the offseason.
“I’ve never had to clear my locker out this early,” defensive specialist Rashad Floyd said. “This time of the year, you can’t beat yourself, and that’s what we did.”
Dailey said even with the loss, he doesn’t think his team is broken. He isn’t looking to a task of putting a lot of pieces back together.
“In pro sports, there’s always an evaluation,” Dailey said. “We’ll do that. We’d be foolish not to evaluate everything. We’ve always said that our goal is to be world champions.”
Dailey said there were many positives from the 2006 season, which ended at 11-6 with division and conference titles.
“In my three years here, this was our best regular season,” Dailey said. “We beat Chicago on the road and here. We beat Orlando; we beat Philadelphia on the road. We beat Arizona here. Those are all teams that were in the final eight teams in the playoffs. We had a great regular season, but we were failures in the playoffs.”
Dailey said being more consistent will be the focus for next season. Inconsistent play contributed to a 60-57 loss at Los Angeles, a 65-21 loss to Columbus at the Pepsi Center and a 52-40 loss to Utah at home.
“We’re not in a business where plateaus in performance are acceptable,” Dailey said.
Most players on the Crush’s roster are under contract for next year. But there is the possibility of an expansion draft for a team in New Orleans. There’s also the possibility of NFL contracts. Lineman Seante Williams, on injured reserve for most of the season, has signed with the Seattle Seahawks.
“This almost is like a bad dream,” wide receiver-linebacker Willis Marshall said. “The fact that it’s reality really hurts. We want to keep our team together, but we have some important players who are free agents.”
The Crush has five free agents: linemen Kyle Moore- Brown and Hugh Hunter; fullback-linebacker John Peaua; kicker Clay Rush; and quarterback Todd Hammel.
“It finally settles in that someone else is practicing for the next game and we’re cleaning out our lockers,” quarterback John Dutton said Monday. “We have to have resolve and come back next year and go for it again. We don’t want to start over just because we didn’t win. We’re a championship-caliber team. It’s not a rebuilding year.”
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-820-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
