Larry Brown Sports

Colt McCoy was unable to go for the Cleveland Browns on Sunday due to a high ankle sprain.  Naturally that was bad news for the Browns, who have been playing inspired football since McCoy took over Week 6.  The Browns’ signal calling duties have now been turned back over to Jake Delhomme, and we all know what that means.  That’s right, the Browns have given the Carolina Panthers a chance to pick up their second victory of the season.

If not for Peyton Hillis running like his usual self — an absolute beast — and scoring three touchdowns in the first half, the Panthers would be in control of the game.  Instead, Cleveland is hanging on to a 21-20 lead late in the third quarter.  That lead was once 21-7 before two field goals and a pick-six brought the score to where it currently stands.  Just Jake being Jake.  As a matter of fact, his first two passes of the second half were completions to the Panthers.

Delhomme’s stat line at the moment: 15 for 25 for 169 yards and two interceptions — against arguably the worst team in football.  One has to wonder where it all went wrong for the Panthers’ former hero.

If you missed this play over the weekend then you have to see it. With the memory of Ndamukong Suh’s monstrous Big 12 Championship game against Texas where he had four and a half sacks and tossed Colt McCoy around rag doll-style fresh in our minds, Suh had his first “I am here to dominate” moment in the NFL. Playing in Detroit’s third preseason game Saturday, Suh got a hold of Browns quarterback Jake Delhomme and spiked him to the ground like a volleyball. Donkey Kong got a personal foul flag on the play, but boy, was it worth it. Check out this must-see video of Ndamukong Suh on Jake Delhomme:

Lions fans are hoping there’s plenty more of that to come. I can’t even remember the last player to enter the league with as much animosity towards quarterbacks. I’m guessing Suh will be on Roger Goodell’s most wanted list by the end of the year if he keeps up this act. I hope he does.

Video Credit: YouTube user CastleDragon78

Even though Jake Delhomme said he was “blindsided” when the Panthers decided to release him, it wasn’t surprising that Carolina decided they needed a new starting quarterback for the upcoming season. What surprised me was that they didn’t keep Delhomme around as a backup considering he was still owed $12.65 million guaranteed from an extension he signed the prior offseason. Instead, the Panthers cut Delhomme loose, and Jake started looking around for a new gig — one where he could still start. Enter the Cleveland Browns.

The Browns decided to beef up their impressive haul of Seneca Wallace by agreeing to a two-year deal with Jake Delhomme on Saturday. Clearly Wallace and Delhomme will combine to form the most intimidating tag team of quarterbacks since Dan Orlovsky and Drew Stanton. The merits of debating Cleveland’s past quarterbacks (Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn) versus this year’s quarterbacks (Seneca Wallace, Jake Delhomme) is humorous but not intriguing. What catches my attention is that Delhomme reportedly will make $7 million — starter’s money — in his first year with the Browns. Add that to the $12.65 million price tag he’s scoring from Carolina, and Delhomme ends up pulling in $19.65 million this upcoming season, good enough to make him the highest-paid quarterback in the league. Attention Eli Manning: you’ve now been trumped.

Sources:
QB Jake Delhomme agrees to 2-year deal with Cleveland Browns [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

So if your quarterback turns the ball over six times to help you lose your biggest game of the season — the divisional round of the NFC playoffs — how would you reward him? With a five-year contract extension of course! Carolina’s choice to hand Jake Delhomme $20 million guaranteed this offseason was some of the worst money spent this side of Darrius Heyward-Bey’s contract. Now I’m not going to say I thought Delhomme was completely done after that game — he did lead them to a 12-4 season and he had a history of performing pretty well in the league — but there’s no way I would have rewarded him monetarily after that garbage game. What’s worse is that Carolina’s financial commitment exacerbated the problem because they didn’t pursueany good alternatives at quarterback, making the season a waste.

Jake Delhomme threw three interceptions against the Bills adding to his comedic total of 13 through six games, not to mention two lost fumbles. Delhomme is quite simply having a nightmare season and it’s not going away. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy wound up setting records with his horrible year if Carolina doesn’t make a change soon. It’s unfortunate because this team was 12-4 last year and they have a lot of talent on the offense; you could put a number of other quarterbacks under center for this team and see tremendous results. There are only so many breakdowns between him and the receivers, and only so many tipped balls that you can make an excuse for. As if it weren’t already abundantly clear it is now: Jake Delhomme is singularly the problem in Carolina and he is no longer an NFL quarterback. They need a change desperately. As they say in AA, Carolina, the first step is to admit you have a problem.

What can you really say after a hideous performance such as the one Jake Delhomme delivered on Saturday night? You’re probably at a loss for words if you’re Jake Delhomme — and he was. Or as John Fox said, they picked a bad night to have a bad night. Perhaps week five would have been more appropriate for a five interception/six turnover game by your starting quarterback, not the divisional round aka quarterfinals of the NFL playoffs. In what possible universe could one have predicted a six turnover day by Delhomme? If you had told me he was picked off three times and that’s why they lost, sure, I’d have no problem believing it. But five interceptions and a fumble? Are you kidding me? Not even nightmares are that bad. Thing is, I understand what Delhomme went through.

Sometimes you just don’t have it. Sometimes the defense is so keyed in on you that everywhere you look players are covered and passing lanes are being blocked. Sometimes things get rolling in such a bad way that your body starts to throw into bad coverage feeling there’s no choice because the game is already lost. There’s no doubt that happened with Delhomme. It’s really too bad because after that 7-0 lead, it looked like Carolina was going to get rolling. Not so much. I’m actually surprised they didn’t yank him after the fourth interception just to save face. Seriously, at that point you just don’t want him getting into the record books for dubious honors. The scary thing is how similar this game was to the win over Oakland back in week 10. This time the defense had Arizona to contend with, not the Raiders. That’s just too much to overcome.

As for the Cardinals, they say they’re trying to earn the respect of people. Well, getting into the NFC championship game certainly legitimizes you as a team. But while the defense certainly forced Delhomme into horrible throws and made great plays, don’t expect such a cake walk in the next round; the game won’t be handed to them. Still, an NFC title game run is nothing to laugh at.