Billings Outlaws win ArenaBowl championship with victory over Albany Firebirds

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Isaac Harker threw five touchdown passes — all to Duane Brown — and the Billings Outlaws won ArenaBowl XXXIII on Friday with a 46-41 victory over the Albany Firebirds at the American Dream Meadowlands.

Harker and Brown connected on two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter as the Outlaws surged with the lead. Their first, a 9-yarder with 14:55 on the clock, put Billings up 39-29 and their second, a 37-yarder with 4:23 left, gave the Outlaws a 46-35 advantage.

A late 2-yard touchdown pass from Albany's Jake Medlock to Darius Prince made it a five-point game with nine seconds remaining but the Outlaws were able to run out the clock.

Harker threw for 184 yards and also hit Brown for touchdown passes of 9, 13 and 36 yards. Brown had nine catches for a game-high 125 yards. Brown's two TD receptions in the second quarter gave the Outlaws the lead for good.

Medlock threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns, with Darien Townsend catching his other TD toss. Townsend had 101 receiving yards while prince finished with nine receptions.

Albany had 250 total yards of offense to that of 198 for Billings, but the Outlaws had the games only takeaway — an interception by Cedric Thomas. Billings also sacked Medlock four times, including two by Laquan Johnson.

The 2024 season was the first for what is a new version of the Arena Football League. The original AFL was founded in 1986 and played 22 seasons between 1987 to 2008 before dissolving after the 2008 season. The league was relaunched in 2010 but went bankrupt again in 2019.

It was a trying campaign for the new AFL, as eight of the league's 16 teams folded before former NFL coach Jeff Fisher took over as commissioner in May.

It marks the third league championship in Billings' indoor/arena football history. A previous version of the Outlaws won a National Indoor Football League crown in 2006 before capturing Indoor Football League titles in 2009 and 2010.