Lawrence Jordan: Nothing instills confidence like the phrase, "You win the job by default." Ladies and gentlemen, the Jake Delhomme era! (credits to Bill Simmons)
Why is Jake Delhomme still starting for the Carolina Panthers? There is no one on the roster that is a better option. How sad. Matt Moore, Josh McCown, and AJ Feeley are truly only skilled at holding clipboards.
After this weekend, Jake Delhomme has a QB rating of 60.3, good enough to rank #33 out of 36 qualifying QBs. There are only 32 teams in the league. The Panthers' backup QBs do not qualify to make the list due to lack of passing attempts, but they are even worse than Jake. So... it's safe to say the Panthers do not have a worthy starting QB on their roster.
Jake Delhomme, you win the job by default...and even though you're 34 and apparently on the downside of your career, here is a 5 year contact that guarantees between $12M and $20M dollars. Wait. What? Thank you, Marty Hurney.
Jake Delhomme is certainly to blame for his poor performances, which are numerous, but he cannot take the blame for the lack of preparation from the Carolina Panthers organization.
At some point, every "star" (I use this term loosely with Jake) has to be replaced. Ask Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, and Brett Favre (gritting teeth). Two of those three QBs were replaced with QBs their respective NFL franchises lined up to be their heir apparent, Steve Young and Aaron Rogers.
The third team, the Cowboys, ran through Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, Ryan Leaf, Clint Stoerner, Chad Hutchinson, Vinny Testaverde, Drew Henson, and Drew Bledsoe from 2001-2006 before finally landing on Tony Romo, and not coincidentally, have not won a playoff game in over a decade.
Jake Delhomme's star never shined as bright as the aforementioned trio, so the Panthers not moving/planning to groom a successor is beyond shortsighted. It is ludicrous.
The Carolina Panthers style of play under John Fox was to play stingy defense and control the clock with the running game. Where has this been this year? It's been burried behind all the interceptions and trailing scores.
So when "bad" Jake shows up, the Panthers are immediately down due to three straight turnovers, the running game is ignored, and Jake waddles back onto the field shrugging his shoulders...know this was all part of the "plan."
GO PANTHERS!
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