The Desperados swept New York in the regular season but couldn't pull off a third straight win.

IRVING, Texas - Changes are coming to the Desperados.

That shouldn't surprise anyone considering the team lost its third straight playoff game in three years, the most recently its 77-63 loss to the New York Dragons in the wild-card round of this year's AFL playoffs.

"It's kind of inevitable now that the same result three years, it's just what it is, the reality of it," linebacker Duke Pettijohn said. "Will [McClay] and Shy [Anderson] will get together and decide on those changes and it's for the best of this team and the organization."

But one change that will not occur is the head coach.

Shy Anderson, the Desperados' chief operating officer, said the team will keep McClay as its head coach. Anderson said he and McClay are on the same wavelength and will work together this off-season to evaluate the team and decide what changes need to be made.

"Coach McClay is in my mind one of the best coaches in the Arena League, might be one of the better coaches I've been around period. He's very good with the players, very good strategist," Anderson said.

"We haven't won those games and I don't necessarily think that's a reflection on him. To his benefit, there are a lot of teams that would like to have Coach McClay as their head coach and I wouldn't want to play against him."

"Shy has always been in my corner," McClay said. "At the end of the game he said that we're looking forward to next year and all of those things."

Next year is a long ways off for the coach and players, who are wondering how a team that has the best regular-season record in the Arena League over the past three years, 40-8, can fall short time and again in the postseason.

"I haven't cried in a long time," McClay said. "I cried Friday night because it meant so much to me for these guys to be successful."

The coach said he has run the game back in his head at least a thousand times trying to figure out what else could have been done.

"I haven't slept very much," he said.

Quarterback Clint Dolezel admitted to doing the same thing, wondering what he could have done differently to keep the Desperados in the game.

"Plays we didn't make, plays we did make, things like that," he said. "When you lose you look for the little things, why you lost."

While change is expected, no one is quite sure how drastic any such changes would be.

The defense is an obvious target after the unit failed to earn a stop against the Dragons after the opening drive and gave up 77 points - the most all season. The only time New York didn't score was when quarterback Aaron Garcia threw an errant pass off the bottom of the goal post and Dallas recovered the ball.

"After the last game, yeah, I think you would have to say we didn't stop them," said Anderson, who added that the defense would be reviewed and evaluated along with every other position on the team.

Dolezel, who calls his own plays as the offensive coordinator, said he would give his advice if asked for about needed improvements for the offense. But he is not in favor of a big shake-up.

"You don't want to do anything too drastic," he said. "We have a lot of success over the last three years even though it hasn't spilled over in the playoffs."

McClay said changes should be expected, but he hasn't thought about anything specific yet. Right now, he's still getting over the wild-card loss.

"We have ultimate goal and to get so close to that ultimate goal time and time again and then to not achieve it for whatever reason, it's disheartening," he said.