The New York Guardians lost their second consecutive game in XFL Week three to the St. Louis Battlehawks on Sunday afternoon, 29-9. The Battlehawks used several huge first-half plays on the strength of a raucous home crowd to surge ahead and never looked back. This included a 90-yard kickoff return by Battlehawks DB Joe Powell as the Guardians became the first team in the XFL to surrender a KO TD.
Let’s take a look at the positives and negatives for the Guardians.
The Positives for the Guardians vs. Battlehawks
Believe it or not, there were some positives for the Guardians. Firstly, the Guardians needed to contain the XFL leader in total yards: Battlehawks’ QB Jordan Ta’amu. As I astutely posited in my game preview, the key to a win would depend on this. This was a little victory as Ta’amu had only 133 total yards. Another win for the defense was allowing less than 300 total yards for the first time this season. Even though the scoreboard doesn’t reflect it, the defense played a pretty good game. Offensively, the Guardians finally got on the board in the second quarter with a long-distance field goal by Matt McCrane. The 53-yard field goal was their first points in seven quarters. The Guardians also got their first offensive touchdown in nine quarters with QB Luis Perez throwing an eight-yard touchdown pass to WR Austin Duke in the fourth quarter. It’s positive momentum for an offense that has been struggling since the first half of Week One.
The Negatives for the Guardians vs. Battlehawks
And now, it’s time for the negatives. The first negative is the play of the special teams: not only did the kickoff team succumb to trickeration for the kickoff touchdown, but the punt team suffered its first blocked punt. The blocked punt in the second quarter was converted into a one-yard touchdown run for Battlehawks RB Matt Jones. The second negative was another meltdown on offense. No, it wasn’t Matt McGloin again; he was replaced by Marquise Williams in the second half after suffering an upper-body injury in the first half. This week, the Meltdown of the Week honor goes to guard Ian Silberman, who had a couple of unnecessary roughness penalties, bad snaps, and barely blocked Battlehawks DE Andrew Ankrah on Ankrah’s way to a sack. He was also nearly tossed in the first half. Silberman’s rough game lead to him being benched in favor of fellow lineman Damian Mama in the fourth quarter.
Overall Performance
There were some considerable improvements from the Guardians in XFL Week three, especially defensively. The Guardians had two sacks and limited the Battlehawks’ passing game. However, their weakness continues to be stopping the run game; St. Louis gained 156 total rushing yards and had two rushing touchdowns. Offensively, the Guardians slogged through another game, converting only two of ten on third down and were one-of-three on fourth down. But the offense seemed to have come to life when Perez stepped on the field. Is it a sign of things to come? Guardians fans certainly hope so.
