(June 29, 2004) -- Kicker of year Jay Taylor, Greg Krause and Cecil Caldwell all ink for 2005 season. Photo: Greg Krause resigned with the Predators. Photo by Mark Lepow.

Orlando Predators Head Coach Jay Gruden announced on Tuesday that three key members of last year’s team have resigned for the 2005 season.
Inking new contracts were kicker JAY TAYLOR and linemen GREG KRAUSE and CECIL CALDWELL.

Taylor earned first team All-Arena, All-Rookie and was named AFL “Kicker of the Year” in his first season. He set an Arena Football League record for field goal accuracy with 72%, hitting 18 of 25 attempts. Taylor also tied an Arena Football League record by hitting 10 consecutive field goal attempts. For the season, he hit 79-85 extra points, setting a team record for consecutive extra points made at 38. That streak is still alive and will carry over to the 2005 season. Taylor scored 133 points this season, second highest total on the team.

Krause emerged as an outstanding center in his first AFL season. He played in nine games. He had 2.5 tackles with a fumble recovery, sack and touchdown on defense.

Caldwell is a young lineman who has shown tremendous potential at defensive tackle. He had seven tackles in nine games.

“Our goal coming into the off-season was to resign 12-14 key veterans,” Gruden said. “We have made solid progress to this point but still have some work to do. Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep this core group together and then improve when the free agent signing period starts.”

The signings now give the Predators ten players under contract for the 2005 season. AFL Ironman of the Year Cory Fleming resigned last week; while DS Kenny McEntyre, DS Damon Mason, OL/DL EJ Burt, WR/DB Mike Brown, FB/LB Idris Price, and WR/DB Lin J Shell were already signed to multi-year deals.