The Utah Blaze lost their second game in a row late Saturday night — this time by 21 points on the road to the San Jose SaberCats, 69-48.
But it wasn't all the defense's fault this time.
That's not to say that Utah's defense wasn't suspect at times — it was. But it was better than it had been the week before in an 83-69 home loss to Arizona. In that game, the Blaze had surrendered a touchdown to the Rattlers for every 2.4 offensive plays.
Saturday, the SaberCats' offense had to work harder to score. The Blaze defense, after not stopping the Rattlers a single time, had three stops against the SaberCats.
"(The defense) played well enough for us to win" said Blaze coach Danny White. "We got some stops, some tips on the quarterback and some sacks that we haven't been getting in the past. If everything else would have stayed the same, we win the game."
He was talking about the Blaze offense in general and quarterback Joe Germaine specifically.
The Blaze offense, the top scoring unit in the AFL, had the ball 14 times but scored just seven touchdowns — getting stopped half the time.
While Germaine, the AFL's passing leader, once again put up gaudy numbers, he'd be the first to say that he was off his game a bit Saturday night. Germaine finished with 356 yards passing and seven touchdowns with just one interception, but he lost three fumbles.
The Blaze, after falling behind by as many as 21 points in the first half, rallied and trailed by just eight at the break. Utah then had the ball first in the third quarter and could have pulled to within one with a touchdown or even tied the game with a two-point conversion. Instead, Germaine was hit by ex-Ute linebacker Phil Glover, fumbling the ball. San Jose recovered and scored shortly thereafter to take a 15-point lead. Utah could never close the gap to fewer than eight the rest of the way.
"The fumble to start the second half was the real killer," said White. "We get the ball, we're moving it and close to scoring and we're going to tie the game up — that was the biggest (momentum changer)."
White was actually pleased by the way his two young defensive backs — LeRoy Smith and J'Sharlon Jones — played. Both were making their Blaze debuts after spending time on the injured list and the practice squad.
"I thought those young DBs played well," said White.
The other big problem area for Utah was, once again, giving up big kickoff returns. San Jose's Trestin George returned the opening kickoff 56 yards for a touchdown. He later had a 50-yard return, giving the SaberCats the ball on the two. For the game, George returned five kicks for 178 yards — for an average of 35.6 yards per attempt. The Blaze have now given up a league-high seven returns for touchdowns this season.
The loss dropped the Blaze out of the AFL's Western Division lead for the first time all season, as they fell to 5-4 on the year. They are one-half game behind San Jose, which improved to 5-3.
It won't get any easier, either. The 8-1 Dallas Desperadoes will be in town for a Friday night game at EnergySolutions Arena.
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com