LAS VEGAS, Nev. (Feb. 2, 2005) – San Jose and Arizona have shown the best way to build a winner.

Assemble a great core of players and keep them year after year.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, showed how not to build a consistent winner.

Believing last season was their chance to go all the way, the Avengers handed out easy-to-reach incentives to make a serious run at the ArenaBowl. Those incentives allowed the Avengers to stay under the salary cap because they counted against this year's figure.

It was a risky move to mortgage the future for the present, and it didn't work out. Los Angeles finished a disappointing 9-7 before being bounced in the first round of the playoffs.

The mortgage came due this season. They could've given up on the idea of retaining quarterback Tony Graziani and offensive specialist Chris Jackson, or they could've tried to re-sign both players and gut the rest of the roster.

It was a no-win choice.

Los Angeles did the smart thing and let Graziani and Jackson get what they could on the free-agent market, deciding it was more important to keep the majority of the team together.

"We were limited with what we could do in free agency," said Jason McKay, the club's first-year director of football operations. "Unfortunately, our biggest players were free agents, and they were out of our price range."

Now the Avengers are rebuilding, and Sunday's 46-37 loss at Las Vegas showed they have plenty of work to do.

Though John Kaleo is a serviceable quarterback and much is expected of offensive specialist Khori Ivy when he gets off injured reserve, success won't come this season for the Avengers. They need to think about what's best for the long-term success for the franchise.

"The teams that have been good in years past – your Arizonas, your San Joses – they've all played together for 10 years," Las Vegas quarterback Clint Dolezel said.

It will work for Los Angeles only if the front office is committed to such a plan.

QUICK THOUGHTS ...

• As stunning as Tampa Bay's 63-33 victory over San Jose was last weekend, don't count out the SaberCats. That was only the first week, and San Jose has too much talent and experience to fall apart. The SaberCats will be back, and they might even wind up facing the Storm again for the league title.

• Losing a player like T.T. Toliver would have been crippling for many teams, but the Storm played as if the preseason MCL injury never occurred. If he returns to the lineup this season, Tampa Bay could be scary good.

• Because defensive stops are so vital, they should become an official league statistic. One suggestion I heard, which I agree with, is to award a stop any time an opposing offense does not score and half a stop for a field goal allowed.

• Maybe it's the sign of pushing 40, but I don't understand why every arena announcer feels the need to scream. And are fans' attention spans so short that every second without football action must be filled with some sort of noise?

• I know it's Arizona and the Rattlers know how to win when it counts, but at some point, age has to catch up with a team. These geriatrics can't keep making runs at the ArenaBowl, can it?

• Yes, getting Graziani was huge, but I'm still not sold on rest of Philadelphia's roster.

• Getting on NBC is nice, but there are few crowd killers like playing on Sunday afternoons. That is especially true in Las Vegas, a city built for Friday and Saturday nights. The AFL let the Gladiators schedule more non-Sunday games this season, and that is the only way for the league to survive in Las Vegas.

• Speaking of surviving, the plug has to be pulled at Grand Rapids at some point. The league has grown so fast that small cities like that just can't compete anymore.

• New York will never embrace the AFL. Of course, playing in Long Island doesn't help.

• Overall, though, the league is on the right track. There still are perception battles to be fought with much of the media and public, but the AFL has grown much faster than just about anyone could have hoped.

Mark Anderson is the AFLWA executive director. He also covers the Gladiators for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.