The Columbus Destroyers desperately needing a win heading into the second half of the Arena Football League season is now in serious jeopardy of not repeating last year's surprise playoff run with a loss at home to the Philadelphia Soul for ESPN2's Monday Night Football.
The Destroyers are now 2-6 on the season where Philadelphia remains undefeated. The Soul is owned by rock singer Jon Bon Jovi. The final was 76-55. Columbus went into the game with the third worse scoring defense, and that weakness showed.
“We didn't stop them, didn't slow them down at all. Do we need to work on defense? Certainly,” Destroyers head coach Doug Kay said.
The game got off to a very fast start for the Destroyers. After taking the opening kickoff to their own eight yard line, the first play from scrimmage was a 42 yard strike from quarterback Matt Nagy to receiver Calvin Russell to give the Destroyers the game's first score at 7-0. The Soul responded almost exactly the same way when Philadelphia quarterback Tony Graziani found receiver Larry Brackins for a 40 yard reception.
Nagy's next play was a 45 yard pass to Derek Lee to give Columbus a 14-7 lead with 11:54 remaining in the opening quarter. After the Soul tied the game with another Brackins reception, Nagy hooked up with newly acquired receiver C.J. Johnson for 45 yards with eight minutes left in the first. In the first seven minutes of the game, Nagy already racked up 132 yards of passing in just three plays. The Soul controlled from here on end.
“You are not going to drop back 11 times and throw 11 touchdowns,” Kay said about Nagy. “Somewhere along the lines, you got to get sober again, but I thought he did a good job.”
Graziani found tight end Phil Bogle to end the first quarter's scoring at 21 all. Philadelphia took their first lead when from former Columbus De Sales High School and Otterbein College quarterback Matt D'Orazio found Chris Jackson for a 12 yard pass to give the Soul their first lead at 28-21.
Columbus would tie the game at 28 with 8:49 in the second with a Harold Wells run, and then re-tie the game at 35 with another Nagy to Johnson pass with one minute left in the first half.
But Philadelphia had a fourth down conversion at the first hall buzzer when D'Orazio found Jackson to put the Soul up for good when they had a 42-35 lead.
D'Orazio took a two touchdown lead to start the third and Columbus' next possession was picked off by Philadelphia linebacker Rod Davis. Columbus would not get any closer than 21 points in the fourth quarter.
“We didn't play together as a team tonight,” Nagy said. “We had some stops on offense that we gave up and they were scoring so just a bad night.”
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