The Chaos were in the market for a new faceoff athlete coming into the 2021 season. During the 2020 regular season, the team had the lowest faceoff winning percentage (35 percent), and while Tommy Kelly won 48 percent of his faceoffs in the championship game against the Whipsnakes, Joe Nardella won several faceoffs in a row during a fourth quarter in which the Whips scored nine unanswered goals.
Towers said he fully intended to bring Kelly back for the 2021 season, but he left him unprotected during the expansion draft. He said he hoped he would slip through, but Sean Quirk made him one of the 18 players selected by the Cannons, leaving the Chaos with an even larger hole to fill at the position. So, when Adler slipped past the Redwoods — who were also looking for a faceoff athlete — Towers jumped at the chance to take him with the eighth pick.
Adler, a 2019 MLL All-Star and the 2020 MLL Faceoff Specialist of the Year, wanted to make sure he lived up to the high expectations.
“This offseason, I’ve never worked harder to get ready,” he said. “I’ve heard the outside noise of not being good enough to play in the PLL. I wanted to prove everyone wrong.”
He might have put too much pressure on himself, at least initially.
Adler struggled at the start of the 2021 season. In his first four games, his faceoff winning percentage was less than 50 percent in three separate games, and he had a winning percentage lower than 40 percent twice, including in his season debut, when he won only 7 of 23 faceoffs and picked up two ground balls against the Whipsnakes.
Towers described Adler as someone with “no self-doubt,” but Adler admitted he thought his professional lacrosse career might be over.
“That first game I get my a** kicked by Joe [Nardella],” he said. “We get blown out. They drafted me so we could beat the Whipsnakes, and I played like crap. I felt like a failure and let down. I took it personally.
“In the MLL, there weren’t many games I went under 50 percent. After our game in Minnesota, I called [Towers]. I said, ‘I’ve done everything I can.’ I said, ‘Maybe I’m not the guy.’ He reassured me to stay the course, and that I was the guy.”