Arizona bought the Cardinals in the NFL in 1988 and they landed the Rattlers in 1992. Arizona sports mogul Jerry Colangelo was awarded an expansion team in the Arena Football League and the Rattlers were born. In this their inaugural season in the Indoor Football League the Rattlers have won the United Bowl title defeating the six-year reigning champion Sioux Falls Storm 50-41. The game lived up to the hype between the two powerhouse teams.

Arizona jumped out to a commanding half-time lead 34-7 but almost let it slip away late in the game. Arizona played a near flawless first half holding the storm to 5 offensive yards.

Cody Sokol threw two touchdowns in the first half but the Storm intercepted him and picked up his fumble in scoring 21 unanswered points.

The Rattlers came back in the final quarter capitalizing the Storm's failure to make a first down deep in their own territory with Darrell Monroe rushing for his third touchdown. The Storm's last TD was a 40-yard scoring catch by Mike Tatum.

The Rattlers advanced the ball to the Storm's 11-yard-line but didn't convert on third down with less than a minute to go. With only 47-seconds left Sawyer Petre made a 28-yard field goal to secure the nine-point win. The Storm came back yet again driving down the field but Arkeith Brown, part of three consecutive ArenaBowl championships with the Rattlers, made the game-winning interception returning it 46-yards securing the victory.

Ratters title town

The Rattlers have a winning tradition winning five AFL league titles and start out with another in the new league. Coach Kevin Guy said, “This title is very special, we had new rules, a new roster, started out 0-2 but here we are.” Justin Shirk was awarded the MVP because he was in Storm’s quarterback Lorenzo Brown’s face the whole game.

Shirk said, “Winning the MVP is a team effort, I couldn't do it without my team. We put together a strong first half, and held on through the fourth quarter."

For anyone that hasn’t seen an arena or indoor football game, there is a lot more action than in the NFL. They have a much smaller field, about a third the size of an NFL field, so the game is primarily passing.

As we all know the grinding running games not only eat up the clock they are also boring to fans that are on the fence about American football. Indoor football is almost as fast action as basketball and is more personal. After all, they play in the same arena.
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