Last year, the Ohio Valley Greyhounds laid an egg after several years of dominating their level of indoor football. Might the Freedom be headed for the same fate this year - without even the titles OV could show for their time? They got ownzored by Lexington on Friday night, 65-32.
With three losses in a row, Fort Wayne is pretty much out of the division title hunt - now being three games and a tiebreaker behind Lexington - and will be hard pressed to make the playoffs at all, let alone get a home game. It's clear that without Jeremy Dutcher (retired), Bryan White (shoulder), and Rocky Harvey (ankle), Fort Wayne's offense is in trouble, and the defense can only hold up for so long if they're always on the field.
And I think the fans sense this, too. The home crowds aren't nearly as loud as they've been in years past, and although I think attendance per se is down only a little bit (as judged by my totally un-scientific "looks like we got about this many" scale), there were several critical junctures in the Sioux Falls game a couple of weeks ago where the PA announcer had to beg the crowd to get into the game. Contrast that from the Lexington home game two years ago, where the crowd confused the Horsemen into two delay of game penalties.
Nobody fears the Coliseum crowd right now. Nobody fears the Freedom offense right now. If Harvey and White don't come back soon, the season is over.
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