| 6/12/2007 3:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Brett Dietz...
• Has completed 157-of-235
passing attempts (68.8%)
• Has thrown for 1,854 yards
• 38 touchdowns against
6 interceptions
• 119.6 quarterback rating
• Has turned 1-6 Tampa Bay
Storm into 7-7 playoff team |
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| “I’m not a big stats guy. I just try to do what I can to win. If that means throwing eight touchdown passes or handing it off eight times, it doesn’t matter to me as long as we win. That being said, I’m not playing perfect and there are still areas I need to work on. Each game, I learn a new lesson and it’s starting to pay off. Our coach has said that you want to be getting better at the end of the year. Look at Chicago last year. They were 7-9, but they were getting better and they ended up winning the Arena Bowl. That’s what we want to do.” - Former Hanover quarterback Brett Dietz, now a starter with the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League |
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Eye of the Storm
Dietz has calmly led Tampa Bay into AFL playoffs
David Campbell
Courier Sportswriter
The Grateful Dead sang "What a long, strange trip this has been."
That could serve as an anthem for Brett Dietz.
Over a span of four years, the former Hanover College quarterback has gone from relative exile in Finland to a leading rookie of the year candidate in one of the best professional leagues in America.
And since March, things have really picked up. In three months, Dietz has bounced around four different teams before ending up in the place where he started.
"It's been going fast. One second, I'm on the practice squad and the next, I'm playing in a game," Dietz said Monday after practice with the Tampa Bay Storm. "One phone call can change it all."
That phone call, summoning Dietz from the Kansas City Brigade's practice squad to the Storm, has turned the quarterback into one of the Arena Football League's best stories. In just two months, he has presided over a turnaround that saw the Storm go from a 1-6 start to 7-7, clinching an improbable playoff berth in the process.
Not that Dietz takes credit for the turnaround, or even a small part of it. The self-effacing former Hanover College Panther has always been quick to deflect attention from himself and onto others and his latest professional stop is no different.
"I don't think in my wildest dreams I thought it would turn out like this," said Dietz. "They were 1-6 when I got here and I didn't know if that was because they were bad or why. But going back and watching film, I saw that it was just huge moments in games where things just didn't go well. Whether it was back-to-back scores, or a turnover or what. They would just lose momentum and they wouldn't bounce back. It's not all me, I can tell you that. I'm not the answer."
Whether Dietz has been the answer is debatable. But there is no question about the Villa Hills, Ky. native's poise under fire since replacing the injured John Kaleo one quarter into the April 29 game against the Columbus Destroyers.
Up until that moment, the Storm had been on the verge of an implosion. Losers in six of its first seven games, Tampa Bay had seen nearly everything go wrong.
When Dietz took over, all he did is what he has done in each of his three previous professional stops: Win. The Storm won that game and have lost just once since, to the top-ranked Georgia Force on a late comeback.
Over the seven-game span, Dietz has completed 157 of his 235 attempts (66.8 percent) while throwing for 1,854 yards, 38 touchdowns and just six interceptions for a quarterback rating of 119.6.
It's a far cry from where Dietz started the year. After earning arenafootballleague2 Rookie of the Year honors with the Louisville Fire last year, Dietz opted to sign with the AFL's Chicago Rush, the defending league champions.
Dietz had other suitors - namely the Storm, whom he spent a brief time with in 2006 as a member of the practice squad - but opted for the team closer to home.
But the Rush cut Dietz just before the season opener and what resulted was a whirlwind week in which the 6-foot-5 quarterback signed with Spokane of the afl2, spent a session with the NFL's Buffalo Bills and was courted by Grand Rapids of the AFL before signing with the Kansas City Brigade.
"I kept getting told that Arena 1 teams were looking at me but nobody was calling me," Dietz said. "Then, on the Friday before the lockdown date (in which afl2 players could no longer go to the AFL), I signed and that's when Grand Rapids and Kansas City came calling.
"I asked a coach I knew why teams weren't calling and he told me this was a funny league. Anything could happen."
Several weeks later, anything did happen. Tampa Bay starter Stoney Case was lost for the season with injury and the Storm needed a backup for Kaleo. Tampa Bay coach Tim Marcum immediately called Dietz.
"I have to give Kansas City credit, they were excited for me," Dietz said. "(Offensive coordinator Chris) Siegfried told me before I left that he had a weird feeling that I would play in that first game so to make sure I was ready. And so I did and I ended up playing.
"I have to thank Kansas City. If they hadn't picked me up, I would not have been able to play (for Tampa Bay)."
The quarterback has packed a season-full of highlights in this brief seven-game stretch. He has already been named the league's Offensive Rookie of the Month for May and was the Offensive Player of the Week after his eight touchdown performance against New Orleans two weeks ago.
"(The awards) give me confidence that I can play at this level and that I'm doing a good job and people recognize that," Dietz said. "On the other hand, that's not why I play. Awards are not my goal. I just want to win."
It was that desire to win that led to maybe his most exciting play of the season. While lining up for a short field goal Saturday against Philadelphia, Dietz got a chance to throw his body around old-school style.
The field goal attempt went wide right, but in the AFL, any ball that bounces off the net is fair game. Dietz saw the ball fly in the air and immediately thought touchdown.
"I was just trying to get the ball, but we can't cross the 5-yard line. And one of their wide receivers was about to catch the ball," Dietz said. "So I went after him and I hit him right as he caught the ball. I hit him as hard as I could and the guys on the sideline thought I had killed him."
The ball popped loose and went straight into the hands of Storm offensive tackle Lincoln Kennedy. The 6-foot-7, 350-pound former Oakland Raider easily walked into the end zone for the touchdown.
"The radio guys said I threw a block and the paper did too, but I was trying to lay the guy out," Dietz said with a laugh. "It was awesome. That was the first time I've gotten to hit a guy since (playing in) Finland. I was jumping around and fired up because we scored a touchdown, but I was also happy that I tackled the guy.
"What's funny, is that the play before, Lincoln was eligible and I had him wide open for a score but a D-end came out of nowhere to knock it down," Dietz added. "Lincoln has been complaining all year long that all he wanted to do was score a touchdown. And then on the very next play, he scores."
Tampa Bay is just the latest stop in what has been a steady climb in pro football for Dietz since his graduation from Hanover College. He spent his first summer after college with the Turko Trojans in Finland before returning stateside with the Cincinnati Marshals of the National Indoor Football League.
Last season, he initially signed with the Storm but decided to move to the Louisville Fire, a level below, in pursuit of more playing time. In retrospect, Dietz considers the move the best decision he has ever made.
"Last year really helped me. We had a lot of close games and that helped me to manage the game in the last minutes," he said. "That really prepared me for this year."
While playing in the AFL has been an eye-opening experience for Dietz - "FSN had a TV camera in the dressing room up close on me while I was putting on my shoulder pads. I had never been so nervous getting dressed before," - he has also felt comfortable in his new digs.
"I think I've been doing a good job on my reads. What I need to work on is staying strong in the pocket and being a little smarter with the ball," he said. "I threw two balls off the net (Saturday) and that's a big no-no in Arena football. One, I was just trying to throw away and the other, I was throwing away but I wanted to give my receiver a chance to get it and he was hit and it went off the net. That's something that I have to get better at. I can still take my chances, but I have to be smarter in my decisions."
Since arriving in Tampa Bay, Dietz has experienced extreme highs and the lowest of lows. While the team has been winning, it has also had to deal with the death of a teammate's wife while giving birth, the death of another player's father and the departure of the team's leading receiver. The Storm also suffered through a difficult road trip to Austin in which Dietz got just four hours of sleep before making his first AFL start.
But through it all, the Storm have persevered and Dietz thinks the team will be better for it.
"We've had a lot of tragedy. It's been very tough for us but we've stuck together and we're acting like family," Dietz said. "We've been looking out for each other and have been very supportive of each other. I'm glad to be here. I couldn't imagine a better place to be."
The Storm have two games left in the regular season before heading to the playoffs during the last weekend of June. In the meantime, Dietz plans on getting better and preparing for his first game on national television.
"I'm not a big stats guy. I just try to do what I can to win. If that means throwing eight touchdown passes or handing it off eight times, it doesn't matter to me as long as we win," Dietz said. "That being said, I'm not playing perfect and there are still areas I need to work on. Each game, I learn a new lesson and it's starting to pay off. Our coach has said that you want to be getting better at the end of the year. Look at Chicago last year. They were 7-9, but they were getting better and they ended up winning the Arena Bowl. That's what we want to do."
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