Jake Delhomme is Looking to Have “Fun” in Cleveland this Year
June 3, 2010 – 9:35 am by Chris FedorLast season Jake Delhomme was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. He threw the ball to the wrong team far too often and derailed Carolina’s season before it could even get started. As unfortunate as it may be for Delhomme, his injury may have been a blessing for the Panthers and for him as well. While it’s never great to see someone get hurt or lose their job because of injury, that’s exactly what happened to Delhomme in Carolina. When he went down, Matt Moore got his chance to take over and he threw as many touchdowns (eight) in just five games as Delhomme threw in 11 games. Moore’s stellar play left Delhomme as an afterthought in Carolina and the Panthers ate a ton of money to release him and move forward. When he was let go, there were many opportunities for him in a backup role. However, there seemed to be just one team that was looking for Delhomme to come in as the starter. That team was the Cleveland Browns.
The new regime in Cleveland was apparently looking to find an upgrade over the combination of Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson last year that combined to throw just 11 touchdowns. If you’re asking me, I don’t think Jake Delhomme is a starting caliber quarterback anymore in the NFL, but he has a good understanding of the offense and is a tremendous leader in the locker room. On top of that, I think anything would’ve been an upgrade over the Cleveland QB situation from last year. Except of course for JaMarcus Russell.
Jake Delhomme joined ESPN 850 WKNR with Michael Reghi to talk about what went wrong in Carolina, what his expectations are in Cleveland, and what he learned from missing the last five games of the year with a broken hand last year.
On how he felt after getting released by the Panthers:
“Let’s be honest, it was a blow to the ego. You get released from a team where you have some success and I thought I was gonna finish there. It was more of a shock. Then reality set in and I had to sit back and decide what avenues we wanted to take and what avenues might be there. We had a bunch of phone calls from teams, a lot of them were for backups, I’m not gonna deny that and a couple were to come in and compete and things like that. As I weighed the pros and cons as I’m taught to do in every situation, there was certainly Coach Holmgren coming in, Tom Heckert I know it with Philly, but for this football team to go 1-11 and then win the last four games, that says something. That doesn’t happen in the National Football League. Guys will have their bags packed. It is what it is and that’s something that weighed heavily on my mind. It was very similar to when I went to Carolina in ’03. They started off 3-0 the season before and they lost eight in a row. Then they won four out of the last five. Something was going right. They were doing the right things. You had the right guys in the locker room and that weighed heavy on me for some reason. I came out to my visit with an open mind, I asked a lot of questions that I wanted answered and wanted to hear what everything was going on. Just seeing Tony Pashos sign, seeing Scott Fujita sign, and I just felt good about it. I want to be a part of helping turn this around because this is one of the true American football cities and America to me is football. That’s what I believe and I want to be a part of helping try to turn this around.”
On whether or not he is upset by the fact that the Browns may be looking at him as a “stopgap”
“No. Not at all. I’ve been lucky enough…I’m going into my 14th season. I came out in 1997 and I’ve seen a lot of things. You have to worry about this year. One year at a time and that’s how I’m looking at it. You look at a guy like Jeff Garcia, the guy played pretty well toward the end of his career. He won the division, won our division in Tampa and you look at Kurt Warner. He was written off. He was written off in St Louis, then he goes to New York for one year, he was written off there. He can’t play anymore. He can’t hold on to the football and this and that. It is what it is. Certainly he left on top. It is what it is. That’s what people are gonna say but you can’t worry about it. You just gotta go out and play, do the right things, and make the right decisions.”
On whether or not he has confidence in the offense:
“Absolutely I do. Obviously I think the run game is not bad. I will say that with the way they ran the football toward the latter part of the year. They brought in some new weapons in the pass game along with Seneca and myself. Some young guys are a year older and understand being in the system. Absolutely. That’s the thing that you want to do as an offense. You want to be balanced running and throwing. But also what it does for our defense. If you can continue drives and keep the defense off the field, the special teams are pretty good over here and that’s putting it lightly. If you can play solid defense and put some points up, anything can happen. This is the NFL, its year to year. It’s proven every single year and the good thing is we’re going under the radar. We’re working extremely hard I can promise you that but it’s a good work. Things are getting done. You can see progress.”
On how excited he is about starting over fresh in Cleveland:
“It’s true. Maybe that’s something that got away from me toward the end in Carolina for whatever reason. Possibly because I played so bad in the playoff game. I just didn’t play. I didn’t go out and have fun and play. That’s something that you start over. It’s fresh, it’s new, and it’s exciting. I’m 35 years old. I don’t how many years I’m gonna have left. I think you learn from it and you have to enjoy it. You have to enjoy it and you have to have fun. That’s what we’re gonna try and do but along the way, the way you have more fun is winning games.”
On whether or not his confidence was shaken last year:
“Yeah, absolutely. I’m not gonna deny it. The film is there, you can go look at it. I’m not gonna make excuses and paint myself a victim. At that point it’s like, you can’t make another mistake, you can’t make another mistake. If you play that way, you’re hesitant. You’re not playing. For whatever reason, that’s just the way it was and things compounded themselves. I broke my hand the last month of the season and I was able to watch Matt Moore play and watch him play with kind of a loosey goosey attitude and I mean that in the nicest way. The kid just went out and played. Just threw the football around like it was practice and that was something that I think I got away from. You start thinking about too many things instead of just reacting and playing like you do in practice. I think it was very beneficial for me to sit back and watch and things happen for a reason. I’m a firm believer of that. I think it happened for a reason.”
Listen to Jake Delhomme on ESPN 850 WKNR here
Tags: Cleveland Browns, ESPN 850 WKNR, Jake Delhomme, NFL
