What a week it was to be a Ragin’ Cajun in the National Football League.

A trio of former University of Louisiana stars enjoyed eye-catching moments in victories last Sunday, two on teams marching to the playoffs and the third making the kind of play that may help his team to postseason sooner than expected.

The Carolina Panthers have clinched the NFC South division title, two years after finishing 1-15, but lately they were looking more like that 2001 squad than one with postseason prospects.

Carolina staggered into the Arizona desert with three straight defeats, and trailed the lowly Cardinals 14-10 in the fourth quarter.

That’s when ex-Cajun Jake Delhomme took over, first guiding a 9-play, 93-yard drive to take a 17-14 lead and then responding like a champion when an Arizona field goal forged a 17-17 tie with 1:15 to play.

Another 9-play march, this one for 49 yards, set up a game-winning, 49-yard John Kazay field goal in a 20-17 triumph.

Delhomme hit 11-of-15 passes for 125 yards in the fourth quarter, guiding his sixth fourth-quarter comeback of a remarkable season.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com