Browns QB Delhomme aims to reverse ‘winning-to-misery’ trend
By Steve Doerschuk
CantonRep.com staff report
Posted May 18, 2010 @ 07:07 PM
Last update May 18, 2010 @ 10:23 PM
BEREA — New Browns starting quarterback Jake Delhomme has been around. Take a look around as spring practice gets rolling.
His primary running backs and wide receivers figure to be Jerome Harrison, Monterio Hardesty, Peyton Hillis, Mohamed Massaquoi, Brian Robiskie and Josh Cribbs — average age, 24.
“I know there are a lot of young guys,” the 35-year-old slinger says.
Delhomme has been up — in 2008, only Tennessee had a better record than his Carolina team’s 12-4.
He’s been down — beginning with a bad playoff loss to the Eagles on Jan. 10, 2008, his record for his last 12 starts is 4-8 (Derek Anderson was 5-7 in his last 12 Browns starts).
“There’s winning, and then there’s misery in the National Football League,” the 12th-year pro says. “There’s no in-between.”
What happens this fall — one more day in the sun, or a fade to black — doesn’t change what almost surely comes next. He will be the starter in September and keep the job unless he plays poorly or gets hurt.
Cribbs acknowledges as much, saying in a live chat on nfl.com:
“Jake Delhomme is our veteran quarterback. He’s a guy that’s going to usher in all the up-and-coming talent. Seneca Wallace will be a triple-threat, running, passing and Wildcat. He’ll be the relief pitcher. Colt McCoy will be the future.”
When President Mike Holmgren agreed to pay Delhomme big money this season, it was based on a projection Delhomme can start and operate the Browns’ offense much better than Anderson and Brady Quinn did in 2009.
Conclusions that led to signing Delhomme most likely override anything short of disaster in Dehomme’s preseason play. For now, he’s trying to sharpen his game in non-contact spring practices.
Delhomme’s preseason work has been an erratic indicator of what he will look like in the real games.
For example ...
In his first extensive work during the 2007 preseason, Delhomme threw wildly at Philadelphia, was intercepted once, and took three sacks in a half of work. In the first three real games, he threw eight TD passes and just one pick and had game ratings above 100.
In the 2009 preseason, he looked sharp in his final major tuneup, passing for 180 yards and posting a 106.2 rating in a half of work against the Ravens. In the first real game, he threw four interceptions in a 38-10 home loss to Philadelphia.
Head Coach Eric Mangini said he trusts Delhomme’s “body of work.” The national media can’t get past Delhomme’s age and his 2009 collapse.
In placing the Browns 29th in his first 2010 NFL team rankings, Peter King of Sports Illustrated wrote, “(I) still can’t believe the Browns could end up paying Jake Delhomme $7 million to play quarterback this year.”
Delhomme’s last game in 2009, a 17-6 loss to the Jets, was a nightmare. He went 14-of-34 for 130 yards, with four interceptions and three sacks. His season rating of 59.4 was more than 20 points lower than his worst in the previous six seasons.
“When you bring someone in,” Mangini said, “you look at the body of work. Jake has an outstanding body of work.”
In groping for an explanation of why his 2009 turned out so poorly, Delhomme says he did too much thinking and forgot how to have fun.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” he said. “I just tried to do too way much, and I wasn’t myself.”
The last time Delhomme joined a new team, Carolina in 2003, he didn’t become the starter until early in the regular season. The Panthers, who were 7-9 the previous season, became a Super Bowl team several months later.
From Day One in Cleveland, he has the advantage of working with the “ones.”
It doesn’t cost anything to dream.
“This team won the last four games,” Delhomme says. “I don’t care how you look at it. When a team is 1-11 and you win the last four, there’s something. I don’t know what it is, but ...”
One big “but” ... these years later, what is Delhomme?
http://www.cantonrep.com/browns/x884182515/Browns-QB-Delhomme-aims-to-reverse-winning-to-misery-trend
