The road to redemption
November 12, 2008
Andrew Mason
Panthers.com
http://www.panthers.com/Common/Article.aspx?id=40902
CHARLOTTE -- Getting over a performance like Sunday's might not be a process of a dozen steps for Jake Delhomme. But it does require a few stages -- the first of which came 35,000 feet over a continent shrouded in night.
There, on the Panthers' chartered airplane, their starting quarterback and team captain was the subject of barbs and jokes about his 7-of-27, 72-yard, four-interception performance against the Oakland Raiders.
"When you have a long ride back home, you can get a ton of jokes out of the way -- especially after a win -- so it was fun," Delhomme said. "You're able to unwind a little bit on the ride home."
The jokes were on Delhomme -- and some came from himself.
"I don't know why I didn't win the AFC Defensive Player of the Week this week because it seemed like I could have won that," he said. "We joked a little bit. I sit with Jordan (Gross), and they're not afraid to tease me, either.
"I think (Josh) McCown was going to give him a defensive game ball," tight end Jeff King said, "because he probably got it for the Raiders."
"After you get a win, it's easy to joke about stuff like that," added defensive end Julius Peppers. "We can laugh about it now."
The win "cured a lot of pain," Delhomme admitted. But levity in the face of what was last Sunday some ultimately harmless struggles only goes so far.
"I laugh about it now because we were able to win, but certainly you've got to learn from it and you've got to move on," he said, "because there's other days where you feel like you can do a lot right -- and that's when you'd better not feel like you've arrived, because you can get humbled pretty quickly."
A similar performance in the coming weeks might not yield such a positive team result as the 11-point win last weekend.
"There's games where you're not as sharp as you need to be," Delhomme said. "Certainly, I kind of felt that the other day. But it seemed like every decision I made was wrong. I had a choice of going right or left on a certain play, and I chose right.
"It was just not my day. For some reason, I just wasn't on, and (the Raiders) did a pretty good job -- I'll give them some credit -- but certainly there were some opportunities we probably could have had and we just didn't get it done."
Yet as Delhomme studied the footage of the game, he found that the issues weren't in the decisions he made, but the execution thereof. He only castigated himself for one decision -- on his second interception.
"There was one -- the second interception, the second quarter -- we had a stutter go on and the safety (Rashad Baker) was so deep, and after the fake really shot over to Steve," Delhomme said. "I wish I would have thrown more to the sideline.
"But if I felt like I was just making some awful decisions, then it would be like, ‘OK, what are you doing?'" Delhomme added. "There was one I wish I would have had back, when I was trying to take a shot, and the other three, the results were awful,," but I watched the film again this morning; all the quarterbacks and (passing-game coach) Mike (McCoy) wanted to watch it again, and Mike said, ‘Hey, we've had five picks off of tips this year.'
"It's just one of those deals. You've got to keep going. That's one thing I'll keep doing. I won't be hesitant to throw the ball."
But Delhomme doesn't operate in a vacuum.
"Jake's only a part of this thing. We have to give him some time," King said. "When you give him some time, he's going to deliver some throws, and we're going to be successful. So it starts up front and then it trickles down to receivers, tight ends, running backs, etc."
But at the very least, Delhomme took a step back towards redemption Wednesday -- simply by stepping back onto the field
"I've been in a situation where I've played some bad games, and you've just got to move on," he said. "I don't know how to explain it, and it is hard to explain; you've just got to get ready to get back out there and do well."
Which is exactly what Peppers believed he did at practice.
"Jake had a great day," he said. "He's looking good, so we expect him to be back in form."
And that's no joke.
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