Owner John Elway has ambitions of seeing his Colorado Crush return to a place among the elite teams in the Arena Football League and to a level of play that earned an ArenaBowl championship three years ago.
The Crush begins its 2008 season today at 2 p.m. in the Pepsi Center against the Columbus Destroyers with a revamped roster, one that will be without wide receiver Damian Harrell. Harrell, a fixture in the Crush offense since the franchise began play in 2003, became a free agent and signed with the Chicago Rush, the Crush’s biggest rival. Harrell, 32, was the AFL’s offensive player of the year in 2005 and 2006.
“Damian Harrell was a great player for us, but he’s getting up in age and we had to make a decision,” Elway said.
“It always hurts to lose a player like him. We are trying to improve our team. We don’t plan on being 8-8 again, but we do plan on getting back to being among the top four or five teams in the league.”
The Crush opens the season with six players new to the roster, including kicker Clay Rush, who returns to the Crush roster after a year’s absence. Rush kicked the winning field goal in Colorado’s 51-48 victory over Georgia in ArenaBowl XIX.
Veteran fullback/linebackers Saul Patu, John Peaua and Anthony Dunn and wide receiver/defensive back Robert Redd also are gone from the Crush roster this season.
“There always are changes in sports,” coach Mike Dailey said.
“We’ve lost some key people and we’ve added some key people. Time will tell, but we’re always fighting to get back to a championship-caliber program. We still have quarterback John Dutton, and this is a quarterback league.”
Elway remains encouraged about the future of the AFL even with continued franchise shifting. Teams in Nashville, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, aren’t in the league, and the Las Vegas franchise moved to the Cleveland area.
The loss of Nashville and Bud Adams, owner of the Tennessee Titans, comes a year after the arena league was touting its growing ties to the NFL.
“It always raises eyebrows when an NFL owner decides to fold a team,” Elway said. “We’ll move on as we eliminate owners who don’t want to be in the league. I think Bud didn’t want the hassle of running two franchises.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
