Does the story about a new offensive coordinator and a struggling veteran quarterback sound familiar?
It should, because it was just last fall that Jake Plummer ran aground with the Broncos after Gary Kubiak left the team’s offensive coordinator position to become coach of the Houston Texans. Mike Heimerdinger stepped in as the assistant head coach for offense and Plummer fizzled and was replaced during the season by rookie Jay Cutler.
A look at the first six games of the Colorado Crush’s 2007 season suggests a parallel situation might be in the works with quarterback John Dutton and offensive coordinator Chris Boden, who joined the Crush’s coaching staff this year. Boden replaced Brian Partlow, who left Mike Dailey’s staff to become head coach at Austin.
In an Arena Football League that Dailey acknowledges is an “offensive league,” the Crush (3-3) isn’t meeting the needs.
Dutton has engineered 288 points in the first six games this season, down 42 points from the same stage of the season in 2005 and down 53 points after six games last year.
With the Crush playing today against the New York Dragons, Boden is saying what Crush fans want to hear.
“We’re going to click, hopefully sooner than later,” Boden said. “The effort is there and we have great players. We have some new players. They’re different and it takes reps on the practice field for everyone to get to know each other.”
Dutton has new targets this season in Willie Quinnie, Brad Pyatt and Robert Redd to go with veteran Damian Harrell. But so far, Quinnie, Pyatt and Redd haven’t shown they can replace the departed Willis Marshall, Andy McCullough and Ahmad Hawkins. Harrell has been injured through the early part of the season.
While he’s in his first season with the Crush, Boden is no stranger to Dailey. Boden played quarterback for Dailey when both were with the Indiana Firebirds. He was the quarterbacks coach for Nashville last year.
“Boden is a guy who has worked under me and knows this system,” Dailey said. “There’s always a learning curve with new people. I wouldn’t debate that Dutton hasn’t played as well as he’s capable of. There are other factors. I think Chris and John have worked well together. We’re working at improving ourselves and hopefully have that happen within the course of this season.”
Today
What: Arena Football League
Who: Colorado Crush (3-3)
at New York Dragons (1-4)
When: 11 a.m.
Where: Nassau Veterans
Memorial Coliseum
TV/radio: FSN/KKZN 760 AM
Scoring history
(Year Record Points after six games)
2003 2-14 281
2004 11-5 267
2005 10-6 330
2006 11-5 341
2007 3-3 288
