Richard Obert

azcentral sports

Less than 12 hours after the Rattlers finished celebrating their fourth Arena Football League championship — and second in a row — in Orlando, Fla., in August, plans to upgrade were already in place.

Kevin Guy, Rattlers coach and general manager, met for more than two hours with team president Joe Windham on ways to get better.

How much better can a team that has gone 52-11 in the past three seasons, reaching the ArenaBowl all three times, get?

The Rattlers became the first team to capture back-to-back AFL championships since the Tampa Bay Storm in 1995-96.

"We're dealing with high-end athletes here, so we want to make sure we're providing (for) our players to have the best success on the football field," Guy said.

The Rattlers — who hired a strength coach, Leland Rodgers, with NFL experience — have as sound a front office, led by majority owner Ron Shurts, as there is in the league.

As long as Shurts is running the team, Guy has said, he will remain all in as far as building the franchise into the best it can be.

So far, they've got this rolling to the point where "dynasty" is being used to describe the Rattlers. It is the closest the Valley sports market has been to one since the Rattlers began playing indoor football in 1992.

"The game plan when Ron Shurts and I first talked (in 2011) wasn't what we're going to do this year, but we're going to do over the next decade," Guy said. "Looking at it, we're only into Year Three. We've got seven more years on this plan."

Guy and Shurts look at the Rattlers as if the team was an NFL product.

"We're coaching professional athletes," Guy said. "A lot of these guys could fit on a 53-man (NFL) roster if given the right opportunity. A lot of these guys already have. Some of these guys played in the NFL two or three years. We've got guys who have been there and done that, and want to continue to play football and keep that window open, and they're hungry.

"One thing for me: I want to catch a player on the way up, not on the way down."

Guys believes it starts with the character of the man. Work ethic, pride and ability all come with it.

"The people we got here, the core group of players that we kept and the staff that we kept, it's because they're winners," Guy said. "And they don't get complacent. And they haven't gotten complacent.

"It doesn't mean they won't. That's my job. I've got to keep on them and make sure I'm pushing the right buttons.

"So we're going to keep working and keep getting better as an organization."

It starts up again Saturday at 6 p.m., when the Rattlers open the season at US Airways Center against the team they've beaten in the past two ArenaBowls, the Philadelphia Soul.

Most of the core is back.

It starts with quarterback Nick Davila, who has driven the Rattlers offense during this three-year run of success.

Davila — the AFL Most Valuable Player in 2011, ArenaBowl MVP in 2012 and a six-touchdown-pass star in last year's 48-39 championship victory — isn't content.

He hired a personal trainer in the off-season to get into what he calls the best condition of his career.

But don't say "dynasty" to him.

"As a football player, that's for you guys in the media to talk about," Davila said. "Right now, we're focused on playing football, and Philadelphia is the first opponent. The expectation here is that we're trying to win every game we play in.

"When you win a lot of games, that's going to happen. And as a quarterback, you have to stay focused. You let other people talk about that."

After the Rattlers got together at Shurts' home last weekend and were given "Back 2 Back" championship rings, the focus turned to Saturday's opener.

"This is the 2014 season," defensive back Jeremy Kellem said. "Everybody starts 0-0. Now we're striving to go win a championship this year. We're not really focused on a dynasty. We're just focused on one game at a time."