A quick quiz for die-hard Carolina Panthers fans who have been following the team for, oh, the past 20 days or so:
Question: When quarterback Jake Delhomme made his first appearance in a regular-season game, who informed his teammates he would be coming in?
Answer: Nobody.
It missed being one of those storybook entrances by about a mile, not that a lot of fans were in their seats to witness it anyway. The opening day crowd at Ericsson Stadium was less than a sellout, and more than a handful of fans were still milling about the concession stands when Delhomme was summoned into the game.
At halftime, with the Panthers trailing Jacksonville 14-0 after an uninspiring 4-for-10 effort for 19 yards by veteran starter Rodney Peete, offensive coordinator Dan Henning told Delhomme he’d play the second half.
Nobody mentioned it to the rest of the team.
By the time Delhomme got his chance, Jacksonville had taken the third-quarter kickoff and turned it into a field goal for a 17-0 lead, which happened to be a deficit larger than any Carolina had overcome in franchise history.
Welcome to the Panthers, pal.
Delhomme came running into the huddle clapping his hands, and his teammates looked at him as if to say, “Hey, look who’s here.”
“I didn’t even know he was coming in until I looked up and saw him running on the field,” rookie tackle Jordan Gross said. “It was very calm at halftime; we just talked about a bunch of little things we were doing — or weren’t doing, I should say — and we all knew we had to pick it up.”
Delhomme’s entrance is generally credited as the point at which the Panthers picked up their season. The new quarterback’s first words to his teammates were profane, according to wide receiver Steve Smith.
Delhomme, generally reticent when it comes to discussing himself, was in an expansive mood recently when Chris Collinsworth spent some time with him in a one-on-one interview for HBO.
“I can remember telling the guys ’one play at a time, just one play,’ “ Delhomme said. “I can remember going up to the line thinking, ’This is it, this is what you always wanted.’ “
Maybe he wasn’t ready before that moment, or maybe he was ready all along. It doesn’t really matter because when his time came, he grabbed hold and never let go.
“We were down 17-0 to Jacksonville and I’ll never forget it,’’ Panthers tight end Kris Mangum said. “He comes in, slapping people on the helmet, high fiving, and he says, ’Let’s roll.’ I was telling someone you can’t coach that ... There are certain quarterbacks who walk into a room and people rally around them. He’s definitely our guy.”
On the field, he’s exhibited the cold, calculating instincts of a veteran. This was a guy who had been cut five times in different situations, couldn’t start on an NFL Europe team where he played behind somebody from indoor football named Kurt Warner, then later starred in the spring league that serves as a kind of junior varsity for NFL aspirants.
“(In NFL Europe) I’m playing behind an Arena League quarterback,” Delhomme said. “Kurt Warner, he played at Northern Iowa, then he started playing and he did well. I’m thinking, ’How am I going to make a roster if I can’t even play in NFL Europe?’ I’m going to camp in New Orleans thinking ’I have no shot to make this team.’
“I got a little playing time,” he said. “Next thing you know I was on the roster and the next year Kurt Warner was dominating in the NFL and the confidence started to grow. You know, it’s ’maybe I can’ at that point; you just keep working and who knows what can happen?”
He chose Carolina over Dallas this past offseason. In Carolina, he liked his chances of beating out Rodney Peete and was especially impressed by the spunk the Panthers showed in the ’02 finale, when they beat the Saints to finish 7-9 a year after going 1-15.
“That stayed in my brain all offseason,” he said.
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