BALTIMORE BRIGADE---ARENA LEAGUE FOOTBALL 2017 DEBUT
Carden's six TD passes lead Brigade to first win, 52-49 over Cleveland Gladiators
Quarterback Shane Carden threw for 159 yards and six touchdowns and wide receiver Reggie Gray had 10 catches for 92 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Brigade to their first Arena Football League win, 52-49 over the host Cleveland Gladiators on Sunday in front of an announced 5,758 fans at Quicken Loans Arena.
Defensive lineman Dexter Davis had 41/2 tackles, three sacks, two forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery for Baltimore.
"I am happy to get our first win, I am happy for our players," said Brigade coach Omarr Smith said. "We made it hard on ourselves, made a few mistakes that we were lucky to rebound from, but we have to do better."
With the game tied at 28 near the end of the third quarter, Carden hit former Ravens wide receiver LaQuan Williams (Maryland, Poly) for a 13-yard score for a one-touchdown lead. Cleveland tied the game with a one-yard touchdown run on its ensuing drive, but the Brigade answered once again when Varmah Sonie returned the kickoff 50 yards for a touchdown, giving Baltimore a 42-35 lead with 11:10 left in the game.
After Baltimore recovered a fumble by Cleveland quarterback Tanner Marsh, Carden connected with Williams for a four-yard score two plays later to extend the Brigade lead to 49-35 with 5:17 remaining. Arvell Nelson replaced Marsh and capped the Gladiators' scoring drive with a 12-yard touchdown pass to trim to deficit to 49-42, but Patrick Clarke kicked a 20-yard field goal with 57 seconds left to make it 52-42.
Nelson threw a 45-yard touchdown pass with 46 seconds left, but the Brigade recovered the ensuing onside kick attempt to seal the victory. Baltimore plays at the Philadelphia Soul on Saturday at 7 p.m. (from The Baltimore Sun)
LaQuan Williams, Brigade ready to begin new era of Baltimore football
By Jonas Shaffer, The Baltimore Sun 4/6/17
LaQuan Williams is a professional football player and also an aspiring entrepreneur, so it was not without some knowledge of risk and bottom lines that the former Ravens wide receiver appraised the Baltimore Brigade's inaugural season as if it were some essential investment.
"I eat, sleep and drink football," Williams, 28, said Thursday at the Arena Football League expansion team's Baltimore practice facility. "That's all I think about, especially in the season. You only get so many games."
He knows this well. The former Poly and Maryland standout last appeared in an NFL game in 2012, last was on an NFL roster in 2014 and ended a brief stint with the AFL's Los Angeles Kiss last summer. Yet even as his fortunes in the sport seemed to shift and his interests outside it blossomed — he indulged his entrepreneurial spirit on Airbnb and took online classes as he worked toward a master's degree — he felt there were more games ahead.
So he worked out, stayed in shape, hoping there would again be a need in the market for what he thought were obvious goods. Now, more than five years after his first paid job in the sport became almost too good to be true — the hometown Ravens signing the undrafted Williams and then winning Super Bowl XLVII — he is happy to have returned to a Baltimore team.
The pay is not as great, the fans not as plentiful, the venues not as big — the Brigade will open the season Friday against the expansion Washington Valor at Verizon Center — but it is still football.
"To play the game that I love, get paid for it, being able to support my family, it's a blessing," Williams said. "I'm out here just running around, competing with other guys and just [ready to] dominate. It's fun."
Williams' presence on the Brigade makes for a strange reality: He is, for now, the Brigade's most recognizable, well-known player. He is also among their least proven.
After finishing his Ravens career with four catches for 46 yards and a half-dozen kick returns over two seasons, he spent less than a year with the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2015-16. Cut last June, he was assigned midseason to the Kiss, helmed then by current Brigade coach Omarr Smith.
He had four catches for 58 yards and two touchdowns in the team's final two games, the last of which was an early-August loss to the Portland Steel. Two months later, the Kiss folded, one of five teams to leave the AFL in the offseason. In November, the AFL announced that a franchise was coming to Baltimore.
Williams by then had learned to accept change in the league. The AFL game was different, with field dimensions (85 feet wide, 50 yards long) nearly half that of those in the NFL (160 feet wide, 100 yards long). It was a step away from traditional gridiron football and into a league that allowed receivers to barrel toward the line of scrimmage before the snap.
"He was very open to accepting the game, and that's something that's very challenging to do from guys that have spent time in the NFL," Smith said. "He came in at the end of the season, learned the nuances and did a pretty good job in the couple of games that he played, so having that experience really works in his favor in terms of coming into this year."
Williams is humble about his NFL pedigree. Brigade quarterback Chase Cartwright praised the receiver's physical assets — "He's a big-bodied guy, runs great routes, got great hands" — but Williams said his preparation would have to separate him, both from his peers at the position and opposing cornerbacks.
It is another job for Williams, but one he loves. At the end of practice Thursday, the Brigade split into two teams for a series of relay races. As his squad's ball neared the final leg of the competitions, Williams ran over, shadowing it from a safe distance. After the final race was won, he mobbed his teammates in a raucous celebration.
When Smith was asked about his team's readiness for its first-ever game, it sounded as if it could double as an assessment of Williams, too.
"I think we're in a decent spot," Smith said, "but we won't know until tomorrow."
In home debut, Brigade lose a thriller, 62-55, to Tampa Bay before enthusiastic but sparse crowd
By Jonas Shaffer, The Baltimore Sun, May 7, 2017
When the first-ever Arena Football League game in Baltimore kicked off Sunday afternoon, there were not many inside Royal Farms Arena to see it. When it ended nearly three hours later, those among the announced 5,915 who had come, and who had stayed, could say they'd at least seen a good game.
A back-and-forth, down-to-the-last-minute matinee between the league's oldest existing franchise and one of its two newest ended in a 62-55 win for the Tampa Bay Storm (3-1) over the Baltimore Brigade (1-3). It was the kind of game advertised when the franchise formed in November: high scores, loud music, a combined 75 pass attempts and seven carries, more video game than something seen in "NFL Films Presents."
It was also, most saliently, a defeat. Brigade wide receiver Paul Browning's third touchdown catch, a go-ahead score late in the fourth quarter, was one-upped with five seconds remaining when Tampa Bay's Lamark Brown caught a 3-yard pass in the end zone. The novelty of the afternoon — the sights, the sounds, the attempt to comprehend why a team would (smartly) attempt an onside kick while leading in the final minute — was reduced to a footnote.
"It was a great atmosphere," Brigade coach Omarr Smith said. "As far as the game's concerned, very unhappy with our execution, our attention to detail."
On the field, what was old to Smith — handcuffed by injuries and a midgame ejection, the Brigade continued their struggle for respect in the five-team league — was new to almost everyone else.
Fans clapped and gasped and groaned as the unfamiliar action, held in a venue more accustomed to Blast indoor-soccer games, played out before them. The Brigade will have to wait until at least May 27, against the Cleveland Gladiators, for their first AFL victory within city limits, but the man who brought the team to Baltimore sees promise where other second-tier football franchises have failed.
Ted Leonsis had spent the night before watching the Washington Capitals avoid season-ending misery. On Sunday, the Monumental Sports & Entertainment owner was in Baltimore, wearing a Brigade sweater, to take in the start of something new.
"I really am doing everything I can to get the league relaunched," Leonsis said of the AFL pregame, leaning against a stage behind one of the end zones. "I really think that arena football has unbelievable potential to reach young kids. They just want to be exposed to lots of action, and traditional football, while it's the No. 1 sport, there's just not a lot of action in it."
Behind him, in the "Brigade Fun Zone," was the other entertainment. It was like a mix of after-prom activities and boardwalk sideshows.
Brigade cheerleaders were offering signatures. Fans tried to throw footballs through holes on a Brigade-branded inflatable. Others posed for photos with Brigade footballs and helmets in front of a green screen as images were superimposed onto the background. One man sat still on a chair, like a statue, as a caricaturist drew an exaggerated portrait. A radio DJ blasted top-40 hits over the public-address system. There was even a game of cornhole going on.
It was an intimacy unfamiliar to games featuring the city's other professional football team. There were some operational errors, sure — the gameday host, in her pregame introductions, welcomed fans to "American Football League" action — but the fans who did show up could not have mistaken the atmosphere for any other sport's.
During one timeout, a young fan kicked a short field goal for a prize. As he came off the field and the Brigade came on, he got low-fives from players. The crowd roared at the prospect of free T-shirts being thrown into the stands. One Storm wide receiver toppled over the dasher boards and into some seats, empty though they were, as he tried unsuccessfully to hold on to a pass.
"This is something a little different," said Renate Buttrum, 51, of Eldersburg. "It's something new."
She smiled as she stood next to her husband, Joe, 51, at halftime. Together they embodied the Brigade's target customer base: What money they spend on entertainment, they spend on sports, from the Orioles to the Capitals. When they heard the Brigade were coming to town, they bought tickets. When Renate told friends and coworkers she was going to the game, they seemed interested.
But others, Joe said, were more caught off guard: "Really, Baltimore has arena football?" The franchise has existed for less than half a year, after all. That Royal Farms Arena could even host the game Sunday, when it didn't have a suitable turf field until last month, was an achievement unto itself.
Leonsis said he was "hopeful" that the game would be the first in a history with a "a lot of — a lot of — seasons for it." He also acknowledged that the obstacles were more structural than a matter of amassing talent in Baltimore.
The building, he said, is "older"; the fan base, "skeptical." Even as Royal Farms Arena pulsed in the final minute, bringing fans to their feet, a panorama of the lower bowl would not have made for good promotional material. Rows of empty seats raised an obvious question: Where are the other fans?
The answer, or part of it, was less than a mile away. The Orioles were playing the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards, and it was Little League Day.
Carden throws for six TDs as Brigade notches first home win
from baltimorebrigade.com, 5/29/17
The Baltimore Brigade (2-4) earned their first win in Royal Farms Arena with a 63-60 victory over the Cleveland Gladiators (1-6) on Saturday night. A back-and-forth final quarter that featured six lead changes ended on a last-play goal line stand by the Brigade, sealing the win.
"That's an arena football game at its finest,” said Brigade Head Coach Omarr Smith. “The game is always going to come down to the last possession most likely. I'm really glad that we were able to get a win, at home, for the city of Baltimore.”
Cleveland took an early lead on their first possession of the game when QB Arvell Nelson found WR Quentin Sims for the first of his five touchdowns, a 15-yarder to put the Gladiators up 6-0. Just five minutes later, the Gladiators extended their lead when Sims found the end zone again, this time from seven yards out. In his first game for the Brigade, WR Milton Williams found the end zone early, putting Baltimore on the board with 1:55 remaining in the opening quarter. Sims notched his third score of the game with 13:10 left in the second quarter. The Gladiators’ third missed extra point attempt of the game left the score at 18-7. The Brigade answered, however, as QB Shane Carden and WR Julian Talley connected on a 39-yard touchdown with just under 12 minutes remaining in the half. Talley entered the game with three straight 100-yard, two-touchdown outings. A Carden dive from the one-yard line brought the Brigade within four points, trailing 32-28, at halftime.
Early in the third quarter, Brigade FB Rory Nixon took a short pass and turned it into a 30-yard gain. Only a few plays later, Williams made a highlight reel catch as he managed to haul in Carden’s pass for a touchdown while falling over the end zone wall, giving Baltimore their first lead of the game, 34-32. The lead would be short-lived, however, as the Gladiators answered with a 29-yard Quentin Sims touchdown, his fourth of the night.
The fourth quarter featured six lead changes, including Sims fifth touchdown of the night, a 47-yard catch and run that gave the Gladiators a 47-41 lead early in the quarter. Brigade WR Paul Browning answered with a long touchdown catch of his own, a 42-yarder to put Baltimore back on top. Cleveland took a 50-56 lead with 0:47 remaining when they FB Jermaine Richardson punched it in from one yard out. Brigade WR Kendal Thompkins returned the ensuing kickoff 54 yards to give Baltimore a 63-60 lead with 0:39 left. Cleveland got the ball inside the Brigade 10-yard line, but Baltimore stuffed the Cleveland offense on consecutive passing plays with under 10 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
"That's an arena football game at its finest. The game is always going to come down to the last possession most likely. I'm really glad that we were able to get a win, at home, for the city of Baltimore. It's really important to us to have some success at home. It was a very entertaining game from the fan perspective I'm sure," said Smith. "Arena football is here in Baltimore, and it's a good show. It's entertaining, it's a good night out for the family, and my thought is that if we keep winning, more people will come."
"We needed it. We needed it desperately tonight. We kept fighting, we've been in dogfights before and have never finished, so our whole thing this week was 'you have to finish'. The offense was expecting to go back on the field and finish the game. We got a great return from Kendall (Thompkins) and I was kind of like 'alright defense, this is your turn, this is your time' and they came up big for us," said Carden.
KEY STAT: The Brigade overcame a steep possession-time deficit in the final frame. Baltimore outscored Cleveland 29-21 in the fourth quarter despite the Gladiators holding the ball for 11:03 of the quarter’s 15 minutes.
