Knight Hawks stick to ‘process’ to capture IFL title in 4th season
There was a moment during the offensive barrage of the Indoor Football League championship game Saturday night that Knight Hawks coach Mike Davis thought his team featured Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk.
“Watching our offense, kind of joking about it, it kind of looked like the old St. Louis Rams,” Davis said.
Comparing an IFL offense to the “Greatest Show on Turf” — one of the greatest units in NFL history — isn’t fair, but it’s a testament in Davis’ mind of how good the Knight Hawks looked the past two months.
It culminated with the Knight Hawks scoring nine touchdowns and not turning it over once to win 64-61 over the Green Bay Blizzard and capture their first championship in their four-year history.
“They were just humming,” Davis said. “For the last eight weeks, really, our offense has been just clicking. It was nice to see them be able to carry the load and bail us out time after time.”
The IFL’s top two offenses put on an instant classic inside Tucson Arena in Tucson, Arizona.
The Blizzard, led by league MVP quarterback Max Meylor, orchestrated a unit that averaged 53.3 points per game. The Knight Hawks, at 48.3 points, were capable of playing a back-and-forth game.
Neither team turned the ball over Saturday. The only field goal came from the Blizzard at the end of the first half.
There was only one fourth-down attempt — late in the fourth quarter with the Knight Hawks trailing — but it was wiped away after Green Bay was called for offsides.
After a combined 16 touchdowns and neither team able to get a defensive stop, Green Bay had the ball 2 inches from the goal line with five seconds left.
The Blizzard have their version of a “tush push” goal-line play, similar to the Philadelphia Eagles, that they’ve run countless times this season.
Except this time Meylor bobbled the snap and couldn’t get the ball cleanly. Defensive back James Caesar read the play and pulled the ball and Meylor’s arm away from the goal line at the buzzer, a lengthy review determined.
“The ref said before the replay, ‘We have to look at it, but he’s 100 percent short,’ ” Davis said. “All because they saw him bobble the ball and go to his left arm.”
The Knight Hawks defense was nonexistent in its prior two games. It allowed a combined 129 points, including 68 to the San Diego Strike Force in the Western Conference championship.
But both games saw the defense make a play when it needed to. The Knight Hawks made a fourth-down stop in overtime against San Diego, then scored on the ensuing drive to win.
Davis didn’t mince words at halftime, telling the CBS Sports broadcast, “Our defense sucks right now.”
“I feel like we just were lost out there,” Davis said. “Maybe the moment was too big for some and we were struggling in that regard. At the end of the day, we got the one (stop) that we needed.”
Davis has been at the helm since the Knight Hawks’ inception, winning 11 games the first two seasons before making the playoffs for the first time last season.
His team got off to a 1-2 start. Reigning league MVP quarterback Ja’Rome Johnson suffered a hamstring injury, and the Knight Hawks turned to rookie Jayden de Laura the rest of the way.
De Laura accounted for three touchdowns Saturday, including the winner with three minutes left, and was named the game’s MVP.
“It’s the process, right?” Davis said. “You lay the blueprint out. Some people panicked after a year or two, and I was like, ‘Guys, it’s a foundation. It’s a building block.’ We stepped to the plate, we stuck to the plan and we got it done.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.