Despite Loss, San Antonio has strong AAF Team & Fanbase

Written by: B. Keith "Grizz" Crear | SFL Photographer/Sports Blogger

On Sunday, the San Antonio Commanders took on the Orlando Apollos in the Alamodome. In a most entertaining battle of week 2, the Apollos came back to defeat the Commanders in the dome. The 1-2 punch of Gilbert and Johnson pushed Orlando in the 2nd half to take the “W”.  Charles Johnson, who played three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, had seven catches for 192 yards and a TD. Garrett Gilbert became the first AAF player to rally up a 300-yard passing benchmark in a game, as he completed 19 of 28 passes for 393 yards.

But let’s not discredit the Commanders though. San Antonio seems to be a fast scoring team in the AAF with a solid defense. Commanders QB, Logan Woodside completed 20 of 29 passes to total 223 yards, with a touchdown for the night. Running back Kenneth Farrow had 13 carries for 74yrds with a TD and University of Houston’s own De’Marcus Ayers had 5 catches for 80 yards.

Just to show how impactfull the Commader’s Defense was, the Apollos completely blew out the Atlanta Legends last week , 40-6 only to come back in last night’s game and win by 7pts. I think the Apollos expected to blow out San Antonio and didn’t foresee the defense to hold them to a 12-0 deficit in the first quarter. The Commanders held the Apollos in the redzone for majority of the game, resulting turnovers in maintaining the lead at the half till the mid 4th quarter.

Fan engagement and participation at the dome last night, was TO…THE…MAX. Steve Spurrier, Head Coach of the Apollos, said the Alamodome was “just as loud as Rocky Top to tell you the truth”. The way the crowd looked, you would have thought that this was a seasoned fanbase in San Antonio. With so much speculation of how the league would be received, the fandom has infected itself in San Antonio. Bringing a team to the Alamo city was a SMART move by the AAF. To put it in perspective, nearly 30,000 fans showed up in the dome last night. 30,000 fans…. and that’s just week 2. The Commanders has the HIGHEST fan turnout of the AAF to-date.

 As I watched from the press box and took pictures from the field last night, it was AMAZING to see the city of San Antonio to embrace and cheer for a professional sports team in the football realm that they can call their own.

The next run of games are on the road for San Antonio in Birmingham, San Diego, Atlanta and Arizona. The next home game is March 23rd against Salt Lake.

Get a full schedule and tickets here—> https://aaf.com/san-antonio-commanders/