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By JOHN C. COTEY
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 26, 2001
This is the good life for an Arena League coach: coming to camp knowing who your starting quarterback and wide receivers are, having a replacement for your biggest off-season loss in place and getting back a few players who were injured the previous season.
This is Tim Marcum's 2001. When the team opens preseason play tonight in Buffalo against the Destroyers, there will be fewer questions than a year ago.
Most notably: John Kaleo is the starting quarterback. Coaches will tell you one position does not a team make, but anyone who saw Thad Busby's Storm and Kaleo's Storm in action last season might challenge that assertion.
There still are decisions to make, such as finding a backup quarterback, fine-tuning the defense, looking for leaders. But camp has been smooth. Then again, compared to last year, what wouldn't be?
A year ago, Busby was wowing them in practice and eliciting groans during games. Marcum was searching for, and ultimately failing to find, replacements for George LaFrance, Stevie Thomas, Sylvester Bembery, Les Barley and Tracey Perkins. The kicking game was a mess. The defensive backs couldn't cover the deep pass.
The league's new collective bargaining agreement, which made all four-year veterans free agents, paved the way for the Storm to address its biggest concerns. When wide receiver/linebacker Lawrence Samuels, the most consistent Storm player last season, left for bigger bucks in New Jersey, the Storm went out and signed Bernard Edwards, who averaged 861 yards and 15 touchdowns a season with a terrible Florida team from 1993-98.
Free agency also brought in Mike Black, the league's all-time leading kicker; a slew of defensive back prospects, including former Gator Brian Dock Pollard; and Indoor Football League defensive MVP Ken Bouie.
Considering the team signed Kaleo, leading wide receiver James Bowden and top rusher Andre Bowden, the offense is in markedly better shape than a year ago.
That leaves Marcum to focus on getting the Storm's defense back to form. Judging by the off-season activity, the league's winningest coach is intent on helping the Storm avoid another 9-7 season and regain some of the luster it has lost in recent years.
PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Instant replay may become a permanent part of the NFL rulebook the next three seasons.
The league's competition committee, which met this weekend, is prepared to make the three-year recommendation to the owners, who begin meeting here today. It would be the first time in the nearly 20 years the NFL has been experimenting with the rule that it would be implemented for more than a year.
"We think we have the support to get the three-year window," Bill Polian, president of the Colts and a member of the rules-making committee, said Sunday. "We would leave it open for change from year-to-year, but the basic structure would remain in place."
The committee's recommendation isn't binding, and the recommendation has yet to be cleared by commissioner Paul Tagliabue, though that seems likely.
STEELERS: The team, unable to find a suitable partner to buy its new stadium's naming rights, may call it "Steelers Stadium" until it lands a corporate namesake. "The economy is a little bit of a factor," team president Dan Rooney said. "We had talks recently with a company that was quite interested." The stadium is scheduled to open in August.
ORLANDO 17, N.Y./N.J. 12: Brian Kuklick passed for 202 yards and a touchdown as the host Rage clinched the Eastern Division title. Orlando, coming off a 31-6 loss in Los Angeles, gained homefield advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
CHICAGO 13, BIRMINGHAM 0: Running back John Avery ran for two touchdowns to lead the host Enforcers.
- Information from Times wires was used in this report.