Here is the deal

Two teams in need of one virtuoso lineman, and big Ed Ta’amu had his pick.

The Memphis Xplorers called. Ta’amu had friends who had played there in 2005 when the Xplorers were champions of arenafootball2, and so that seemed a likely choice. But Ta’amu, 345 pounds of pure bodyguard who was once a fourth-round NFL draft choice, was intrigued by the Spokane Shock, an expansion team that appealed to his soft spot for the underdog, even if their record didn’t suggest an underdog.

So Ta’amu did his due diligence and settled on Spokane.

“The main reason was,” he explained with a laugh, “they had better looking cheerleaders.”

Who knows? It’s plausible.

In the day-trader world of af2, rosters – and we mean every team’s roster – churn daily and the talent net is being cast cross country for players willing to sacrifice their bodies for $200 a game. Who can know which of these mostly blind dates will actually have some legs, and why?

Player or personnel director, you only know this: You never stop shopping.

Take the Shock, bound for Puerto Rico and Saturday’s ArenaCup showdown with the Green Bay Blizzard. In a span of 44 days this summer, they added Ta’amu, quarterback Kyle Rowley and defensive backs Jesse Hendrix and Isaiah Trufant to the roster and found the extra gear that’s carried them on their current eight-game winning streak.

“Even without those guys we’d be a playoff team,” insisted coach Chris Siegfried. “But I don’t think we would have been here.”

Being 60 minutes from a championship in the club’s first year of existence was beyond the expectations of anyone – but a sense of duty overruled expectations.

“We always felt if there was a position we could get stronger at, we need to do it,” said general manager Adam Nebeker. “We owe it to the team. We didn’t want to make changes just for change’s sake, but the guys knew from day one that if we found somebody better, we were going to take them.”

So while they don’t make much money, what they do have is … no job security.

Actually, in the af2 world of open auditions, Spokane’s roster was more stable than most. Throw out injury transactions and the Shock moved 26 players via activations, reassignments and trades. Make that 27 – lineman Voncellies Allen joins the team this week.

Just as a point of reference, the Seattle Seahawks in their run to the Super Bowl last year added and subtracted 10 names, plus three from the practice squad.

But it’s about who, not how many. OK, it’s also a little bit about how.

For instance, there is no better example of Siegfried’s gambling side than his benching of quarterback Alex Neist after leading the Shock to a 9-2 start in favor of Rowley, who was acquired in mid-May. If that seemed especially cold to Neist, the way the change came down suggests otherwise.

Early in the season Siegfried took a call from Kevin Porter, coach of the Kansas City Brigade in the Arena Football League. He wanted the Shock to sign his practice squad quarterback, Steve Bellisari – on the condition he be immediately installed as the starter.

“No offense, but our quarterback just threw for 300 yards and eight touchdowns against Amarillo,” Siegfried said. “I’m not going to bench my man.”

So Porter pitched his quarterback to the Manchester af2 team instead (“where he didn’t start for five weeks,” Siegfried said). Rowley, who had started three games for Manchester, had his rights traded to Bossier-Shreveport, and Siegfried engineered a deal to bring him to Spokane – where he waited a month for his chance. Since taking over, Rowley has been the league’s most efficient quarterback.

Hendrix and Trufant, old Eastern Washington roommates, came aboard just days apart when injuries started to tear apart the secondary. Hendrix had originally turned down the Shock to try out in the Canadian Football League, but Siegfried had told him, “I want you today, I want you tomorrow and if things don’t work out, I want you in a month.” And things didn’t work out – Hendrix was cut, and then towed Trufant back to Spokane with him. They’ve transformed a secondary that already had solid performers in Johnny Lamar and another late arrival, Leo FenceRoy.

“And we could have had Isaiah for the Louisville game (Spokane’s last loss), but we said let’s wait a week,” Siegfried said. “We didn’t want to have too many changes all of a sudden.”

As for Ta’amu, Siegfried said simply, “He’s obviously our biggest pickup, but he might have been our best pickup.”

For Nebeker and CEO Brady Nelson, the personnel shuttle was a bit of a shock.

“In some of these cases, you’re ending people’s dreams,” Nelson said. “We’re not used to that. Firing somebody in business is one thing, but usually it’s not their dream job.”

They also risk the team’s chemistry with every move, though Nebeker noted that “I never felt we had head cases. We had one guy who was a little bit of a bad apple and we cut him pretty much because of his attitude.”

That was volatile lineman Chuck Jones, who has been on three different rosters this season. But even he contributed – blocking the extra point that was the difference in Spokane’s season-opening win.

“It’s all about putting the right guys together,” said Ta’amu. “I was fortunate – they were already doing well when I came. They were 6-1. I didn’t want to mess up the chemistry they already had. Then we got Jesse and Trufant and FenceRoy – some good guys. Every time we get another piece of the puzzle, things just seem to get better.”

Except maybe his rationale for being here – but like the Shock, that will likely forever be a work in progress.