Pro. Jake Delhomme

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HOUSTON -- Not since the St. Louis Rams' Kurt Warner went from grocery clerk to league MVP has there been such an inspiring Super Bowl story.

Win or lose Sunday, Jake Delhomme will spend his offseason as he always does: in Breaux Bridge, La., visiting family and friends and tending to the stable of thoroughbreds in his father's barn.

Delhomme hasn't changed since leaving Breaux Bridge, but his world has been altered dramatically. That was apparent when the satellite TV trucks crammed into his parents' driveway, and the writer approached him about the book deal, and the PR reps had his picture shot for the "Got Milk?" ad campaign.

The mop-topped Cajun with the funny accent and the French name that translates loosely as "The Man" is the starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl VIII.

"Jake Delhomme is the story of the Super Bowl," said Delhomme's agent, Rick Smith. "This could not have happened to a better person. He is just an unbelievable human being. His story is genuine."

To be where he is today, Delhomme has defied all odds, said former Tulane University assistant coach Frank Monica.

"He wasn't supposed to succeed," Monica said. "He came from a small school and a small town. He's kind of the Seabiscuit of quarterbacks."

For most of Delhomme's football career, few believed in him.

Monica remembers the first time he saw Delhomme. It was spring 1992, the end of Delhomme's junior year. Monica and Tulane head coach Buddy Teevens went to scout Delhomme at a spring practice at tiny Teurlings Catholic High School, where the quarterback was rewriting the school's record books.

Monica said he had doubts about "the narrow-butted, pencil-necked kid" and the competition he faced at Louisiana's lowest level of prep football. But he also remembers Delhomme's flair and infectious enthusiasm.

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BY JEFF DUNCAN
c.2004 Newhouse News Service

jduncan@timespicayune.com.

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FOR all 11 years of a journeyman's career, he swore he would never come to the annual celebration of success known as the Super Bowl unless he earned his way down to the field. Then Jake Delhomme was on the line, barking out an audible, making the call.

"I have two tickets for you and your son," Delhomme told his old friend, his former teammate, Billy Joe Tolliver.

"Naw, Jake, this is your day," Tolliver replied. "Use them for your family."

• But here was the point Tolliver really wanted to make during a telephone interview about Delhomme, the mystery quarterback on the Carolina Panthers' surprise ride to a date with destiny and the New England Patriots at Reliant Stadium: it was no accident, no serendipitous bounce of fate, that Delhomme, at 29, had emerged from the shadows, evolved from career scrub to Super Bowl starter.

"Jake didn't ask me to come, he told me," Tolliver said. "Jake wouldn't let me not come because he's not a guy who takes no for answer. He's not what the media makes him out to be, all that Breaux Bridge backward bull. People who know him see that right away."

They answer his call, his commands. Tolliver, nine years Delhomme's senior, retired from football, took the tickets, planned his drive here, three and a half hours from Shreveport, La., with his 15-year-old son.

They spent two seasons together in New Orleans, Delhomme and Tolliver, Cajun and Texan, mostly in the film room, the weight room, waiting on the sideline many a Sunday afternoon. Mike Ditka, then the Saints' head coach, made Tolliver the starter in a typically woeful Ditka-era season, 1998. He cut Delhomme the same day, another body blow during a six-year bout with himself and the football world to keep his career upright.

Understand something about Delhomme: even as roster filler, a third-stringer, he kept the company of some pretty fair-haired quarterbacks. We know how he served as a backup to Kurt Warner in N.F.L. Europe before Warner went on to star in two Super Bowls, winning one, in St. Louis. Brett Favre is a Louisiana homeboy. Most of all, Delhomme during his time in New Orleans forged a relationship with the Family Manning, working at camps run by Archie, Peyton and Eli, proud now to call them friends.

But ask Delhomme to name the quarterback he considers his mentor, who most encouraged him with conviction to not surrender to the sadness of Sunday inactivity, and he will not hesitate for a moment.

"By far Billy Joe Tolliver," Delhomme said. "When I was first in New Orleans, I was lucky enough that he took me under his wing. His family wasn't living with him and I wasn't married yet. I did a lot of things with him, a lot of dinners, and I just tried to learn from him how to be a true professional by what he did, on the field and in the classroom."

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By HARVEY ARATON
The New York Times

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JUST how anonymous are the Carolina Panthers?

Before Super Bowl XXXVIII, in which the Panthers face the favoured New England Patriots at Reliant Stadium this morning, Carolina coach John Fox was asked about his quarterback, "Jack" Delhomme.

"His name is Jake," Fox reminded the journalist.

This week, Delhomme, an excitable 29-year-old with a fondness for horse racing, faced the ignominy of being stopped on his way to a Super Bowl news conference by security who had no idea who he was and demanded to see identification after he told them.

Rodney Dangerfield gets more respect.

But Delhomme laughs it off. "It doesn't bother me," he says. "Anyway, I've been called Jack my whole life, I've gotten used to it."

In every way, Delhomme is the perfect leader of a team which two years ago was the worst in the NFL, with one win in their 16-game season.

Like the Panthers, who in their nine-year history have rarely risen above mediocrity, Delhomme has spent a career hearing he wasn't big or strong enough to be an NFL quarterback.

In 1998, he almost believed it himself, going to Amsterdam to play in NFL Europe where he was relegated to the bench.

"Talk about a blow to your ego," he recalls, "If you can't start in NFL Europe, how are you going to make (an NFL) roster?"

But Delhomme persevered, even in the shadows of being a back-up with the New Orleans Saints for six years.

"You know, I thought I could play football," he says simply. "Sometimes if you're not the tallest guy, or have the strongest arm, you get pushed off to the side.

"One thing you can't measure out of all the normal tests is the size of someone's heart. I thought I had a lot of heart."

His team-mates could not agree more.

"There's no fear factor with the guy," centre Jeff Mitchell says. "He's got a lot of balls in his pants and not much of a lump in his throat."

The same could be said of the Panthers, who have been recast by second-year coach John Fox into a team that kills opponents with defence and pounds them with an unstoppable running game featuring Washington Redskins discard Stephen Davis, who this year amassed a career-best 1444 yards.

For a nation that has trouble distinguishing the Panthers from the Jacksonville Jaguars, believers in the team were few, even as they were recording impressive wins.

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By Robert Lusetich

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On January 30th, 2000, 1998's 4-12 Saint Louis Rams shocked the world and the Rams won their first Super Bowl. Previously unknown Kurt Warner beat the well-known Steve McNair. This started a string of an unknown or underappreciated quarterback who brought his team the NFL championship

Lately, Lombardi has smiled down on unknown backups in the big game. In 2001 (January 28th), it was a battle of non-stars as Trent Dilfer took on Kerry Collins in Super Bowl XXXV. Trent, the downtrodden Ravens QB, outdueled the Giants QB and Baltimore won its first NFL championship Baltimore 34, N.Y. Giants 7. Yes, the unheralded QB won a championship.

In 2002, the Super Bowl was a battle of the Cinderella story Warner versus backup Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. Brady had unseated the Pats all-star QB Drew Bledsoe. In one of the most exciting Super Bowls to date, Brady led his team to a New England 20, St. Louis 17 victory. For the third straight year, a new champion behind a relatively unknown QB.

Last year, we saw it again. In Super Bowl XXXVII, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Oakland Raiders soundly behind castoff Brad Johnson. This brought Tampa Bay its first Lombardi trophy.

So what will it be in 2004? Will Jake Delhomme, a six-year Saint who finally got his chance this year for Carolina, lead his team to its first NFL championship? I think so and I also expectthe press to hoist its new golden boy to the public's shoulders as we celebrate another championship with an unknown quarterback at the helm. If you think back to the years of Aikman, Favre, and Elway, it's amazing to see these new guys earn instant immortality as their franchises earn their first NFL championship. After all, if it were not for the Super Bowl, would the name Doug Williams mean anything to anyone not a Redskins fan? Congrats again Doug for your immortality.

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By Don Ackerman
Don@RamsNation.org.

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Jake Delhomme plays in the Super Bowl today. Aaron Brooks' Saints have failed to make the playoffs three years running. Many frustrated fans want to know whether the Saints let the wrong guy get away.

It's so easy to say now, isn't it? That the Saints would have been better off with Jake Delhomme as their starting quarterback.

So dang easy to say a year after Delhomme, eager for a chance to start in the NFL, left the Saints and helped lead the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl. Painfully easy to say after watching Aaron Brooks continue his quixotic play at quarterback. Of course, there's another reason it's easy to say.

Because it's true.

Yes, it is.

The Saints would have been better off with Jake.

Brooks has the stronger arm. Brooks has the faster feet. But Delhomme has something more important: leadership skills.

Last June, hoping to nurture those same skills in Brooks, Saints coaches joined him during a two-day leadership seminar conducted by author John C. Maxwell. Delhomme doesn't need to take the course.

His leadership skills are as unmistakable as his Cajun accent.

"I knew what kind of guy Jake was two months after I got here," Joe Horn, the Saints' star receiver, said this week. "He was a leader. Leaders are born, man.

"I don't care how many classes you take. They can't teach you how to be a leader."

He's right. You can learn Spanish. You can learn how to cook. You can learn good table manners. But you can't learn leadership.

Horn emphasized that he wasn't criticizing Brooks. I'm not here to bash Brooks either. I'm here to bash the man responsible for denying Delhomme a chance to start with the Saints.

Forget about Brooks' chronic fumbling. It was coach Jim Haslett who dropped the ball.

When Brooks injured his shoulder against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002, Delhomme came off the bench and preserved the Saints' victory with a critical third-down pass. Next week, Haslett was smart enough to see that Brooks was hurting, and in went Delhomme, who preserved the victory against the Baltimore Ravens, going 7-of-8 passing for 103 yards.

That was the last we saw of Delhomme. Instead we saw Brooks, gamely struggling with his injured throwing shoulder. Saw the Saints lose their last three games when they needed to win just one to make the playoffs. Saw Haslett stick to his guns and insist his quarterback was perfectly fine, when anybody with a pair of eyes and three brain cells knew different.

The Saints admitted as much after the season when they disclosed that Brooks would need surgery to repair his injured shoulder.

Billy Joe Tolliver, who played for the Saints in the late 1990s and urged the Haslett regime to keep Delhomme, said it was a delicate situation.

"All those coaches wanted to see Delhomme on that field and see what he could do," Tolliver said. "But they've also got some issues in that locker room. . . .

"Jake's going to go in there, and he's going to play his (butt) off, and then what do you do now? Now you're dividing your team."

Great. They avoided a controversy. Now they've got another controversy: the running debate among Saints fans about whether Haslett has stunted Brooks' development by coddling him and whether Haslett can ever reprise the glory of his first season, when he was chosen the AP Coach of the Year and the Saints won their first postseason game.

What's odd is Haslett has a reputation for taking chances. Onside kicks. Fourth-down gambles. The occasional fake punt. And yet he wouldn't take a chance on Jake.

It's not that Delhomme is the next Joe Montana or John Elway or Steve Young. He doesn't need to be. Just look at the past three Super Bowl winners and their quarterbacks.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won with Brad Johnson. The New England Patriots won with Tom Brady. The Baltimore Ravens won with Trent Dilfer. They won because they had punishing defenses, solid running games and quarterbacks who made more timely plays than spectacular ones and didn't lose games. Quarterbacks like Jake.

Oh, well. The Saints can take pride in knowing they had a homegrown Louisiana quarterback who made it to the Super Bowl. It might be the closest they ever get.

. . . . . . .


Josh Peter can be reached at jpeter@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3407.

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The Hype is over the game has begun.

I will scan the web and find writeups as they happen in real time

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The rush is intense.

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IF I'm reading this right it's 3 possesion 3 yards.

That is subtracting the penatlties.

Defense needs to step up

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Best commercial so far is the Ref taking a beating

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First sign they didn't seel all their commericals

Everybody loves Raymand 2:58 1st Q