Re: Tracking the Preaux Career of Jake Delhomme
http://www.catscratchreader.com/2008...f-jake-delhomm
The Origin of Jake Delhomme
Tiny by Revshawn on Oct 25, 2008 6:00 PM EDT
Did any of you guys ever stop and think about our Quarterback? Have you ever wondered just who Jake Delhomme really is? Where he come from and how the hell did he become the starter of the Carolina Panthers? In football lore, there is hardly a better story of a man overcoming all odds to accomplish his dreams like Jake Delhomme has done. He started out with nothing but the jersey on his back and his big swelling heart in his chest, and yet he managed to beat out everything in his way to get a starting position on a football team of his own. Sit down for a moment and let me tell you all a tale. Let me tell you the story of Jake Delhomme.
Jake Delhomme grew up in Breaux Bridge, a city in Louisiana. Also known as "The Crayfish Capital of the World." It's a small town, listed at just barely over 7,000 citizens by a 2000 census. Jake Delhomme grew up as your regular country boy with a love for raising horses with his father, and he went to Teurlings Catholic High School in the much larger town of Lafayette nearby. It was there he began his football career, playing as Quarterback and Defensive Back for the Teurling Rebels. He racked up over 3,300 yards and over 32 TD's as a senior on rout to the state semifinals.
Jake was not heavily sought after in college. He chose his school simply because it was his mother's Alla Meter. So he joined the Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana Lafayette, a small school in the Big West Conference. Starting as a college freshman, he was second in the NCAA in freshman QB's and managed to lead his team to the Big West Championship two years in a row with future NFL wideout Brandon Stokley as his receiver. It is important to note that in both seasons, they dropped their first two games and still managed to rally back and win the conference title. After the first two years they losing a bunch of good players that they didn't replace, so Jake Delhomme was unable to continue his success in the following years. Their loses started to come more easily, yet Jake Delhomme still continued to prove he had the ability to win games. In the second game of his senior year he helped his team beat the heavily favored Texas A&M 27-22. We will never know how Jake Delhomme played in that game, since football statistics in college wasn't required to be recorded until 2002. However it is important to note that upon losing Jake Delhomme as a senior, the team completely collapsed, going from a 5-6 record to a 1-10 record the following year. They only had two games that year that they scored above 21 points, and they also had two games in which they were completely shut out, a sign that they depended on Delhomme more than they were supposed to. The program would not have another winning season till 2005.
So Jake Delhomme moved on from college and entered the NFL draft. No one took a chance on the small school QB, so Jake Delhomme went undrafted. He was picked up by his home team the New Orlean Saints on a minimal contract and placed on their practice squad. This is where the majority of football players have their career end. Though the practice squad is meant for developing players with promise into potential backups and starters, most teams use it for a 'in case of emergency break glass' mini-roster. Players sit on the practice squad for a while, and all they can do is hope that someone on their team gets injured so that they might get a emergency contract for the rest of the year. No matter what Jake Delhomme could do, he would have just been another rookie-in, rookie-out victim of the system.
Yet fate seemed to have a different plan for Jake Delhomme. The following year he was assigned to a team in NFL Europa. He arrived in the Netherlands to a team known as Amsterdam Admirals and became the backup to future Super Bowl QB Kurt Warner. He played on this team for the year and never managed to break the starting position, so after another round on the Saints practice squad he was transferred over to another team in Europe called the Frankfurt Galaxy. It was there that Jake Delhomme's talent finally started to be recognized. Under an rare 2-QB system that became known as the "Double-Headed QB Dragon", Jake Delhomme led the team to a World Bowl where they were victorious.
The tides for Delhomme had begun to turn.
Riding the waves of victory, Jake Delhomme returned to the NFL as the Saint's 3rd string QB. He quickly climbed the chart and became the backup, yet he was not allowed to compete for the starting job due to great play by Aaron Brooks. And then it happened. The starting QB Aaron Brooks injured his leg in week 14 and the head coach Jim Haslett refused to send in Jake Delhomme to take care of the rest of the season, opting to start Brooks instead irregardless of his hobbled leg. It was the last boneheaded sway of fate that at long last brought him to the Panthers. If Jim Haslett hadn't been so hard headed, Jake Delhomme would have never been a Carolina Panther.
"We had a chance to go to the playoffs, and I got hardheaded because Aaron Brooks got hurt. I should've put the backup in, and didn't. Everybody wanted the backup in, and I didn't. In hindsight, I probably should have because the backup turned out to be a pretty darn good quarterback, Jake Delhomme." -October 2008
In the following offseason, he reiterated time and time again about how he was sticking to Aaron brooks. Jake Delhomme's contract had run out and he was finally brought to the Panthers by rookie head coach John Fox. Then came the first game of the season. Down 17-0 at halftime, John Fox decided that he has had enough of incumbent Rodney Peete. So he threw the new guy into the huddle, and Jake Delhomme exhibited for the first time in Carolina the fire that draws everyone to his side to fight for a common goal. On the arm of Jake Delhomme, they fought back and won that game 23-24. Jake Delhomme threw 3 touchdowns, the final one with 16 seconds left in the 4th quarter to seal the game. It was the same season that Jake Delhomme led his team under the radar all the way to the Super Bowl. In a perfect world, the Panthers would have won that game. Jake Delhomme set a record for the longest Super Bowl pass ever thrown, a 85 yard strike to Muhsin Muhammad. They should have won that game. The Patriots suck. They're cheaters! Bloody Patriots!
"I wanted to catch up to the moment of what it feels like to be on the other side, to be on this side, the losing side. To let it sink in, to hurt, so when we start practice in the fall, the two-a-days and there are days during the season when I'm tired and I want to go home, but I need to watch that extra film. I want to get back there, but I want to get on the other side of that field. They rope you off, the losing team basically. I just want to get on the other side of that rope. I just wanted to watch and let it sink in and hurt a little bit. When I have a tough day, I'll just think about that feeling and it will make me dig down just a little deeper." -Jake Delhomme on losing the Super Bowl
If Jake Delhomme never finishes the final chapter of his story, then I think I'll he's got a lot to be proud of. He survived overwhelming odds to become the QB of a team in the NFL when the stakes were stacked so hard against him. But there will always be that little part of him wondering if he had put forth just that little bit more effort, made that one last pass....could things have been different? On Sunday he goes back to work, and the rest of the season is uncertain. Yet with Jake Delhomme guiding this team, there will always be a chance we will win the big game. He's gotten this far in the league, in his journey, he might as well go all the way.
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Jake Gets It..So Should Every Cajun Fan!
Originally Posted by cajunref
