SaintPauly

BEREA, Ohio -- Jake Delhomme completed his visit to Cleveland last week and drove to the airport for a flight to New Orleans.

He never made it.

Travel delays forced the quarterback to return to Charlotte, N.C., where he chose to sign a two-year contract with the Browns without visiting his hometown Saints. The chance to start was more important than being a backup in his home state.

"I had to decide if I wanted to still try to compete or if I wanted to hold a clipboard," Delhomme said Wednesday. "I just wasn't ready for that."

Delhomme, who grew up in Breaux Bridge, La., and spent his first five years with the Saints, would have been a backup to Drew Brees with the Super Bowl champions. In Cleveland, he is the favorite to win the starting job after team president Mike Holmgren and the Browns parted ways with Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn.

Delhomme's main competition will be Seneca Wallace, whom the Browns acquired in a trade with the Seattle Seahawks last week.

Delhomme, 35, struggled through his worst season last year with the Carolina Panthers, throwing eight touchdown passes and 18 interceptions. His season ended with a broken finger after 11 games, and the Panthers released him earlier this month.

Delhomme also acknowledges that the five-interception performance in a playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinals during the 2008 season carried over to the start of last year, when he threw four interceptions in the opener.

"I didn't play good football," Delhomme said. "I'm not going to blame anybody else for anything. The 2009 year football-wise wasn't fun. From January 10th, the playoff game, through when I broke my finger. I don't think there's any doubt I tried to do too much, and it didn't work, obviously."

Delhomme, who cried at his final news conference in Carolina, took a few days to get over the sting of being released. He wanted to visit just two teams -- the Browns and Saints.

Cleveland went 5-11 last season but won its final four games after a tough start. Delhomme was impressed by the resolve the players showed in fighting back to salvage the season and compared it to his situation in Carolina.

The Panthers went 7-9 in 2002, but they won four of their last five games. Delhomme signed with Carolina following that season and led the team to the Super Bowl in 2003.



"You find a lot of teams that start 1-11, those bags are packed in December. Guys are ready to get out," Delhomme said. "This team won the last four games. I'm telling you, that's something. Something was happening. Something was going in the right direction."

Holmgren earned the reputation as a quarterbacks guru after helping Brett Favre and Matt Hasselbeck develop into Pro Bowl players. Now he has a recovery project in Delhomme.

"He had a really fine career and a really bad last year," Holmgren said. "So did I. I had a pretty good career as a coach and then I had a really bad last year. ... If there are physical reasons why (Delhomme struggled), you probably don't do it. You can't overcome those. I think we have a fine coach, a fine staff, and I have every confidence they are going to make it work. I really have a lot of confidence in this guy."

What's popular is not always right, and what's right is not always popular.....

SaintPauly

So, after all of the hulla balloo, he did exactly what I knew he would do. He wants to start. That won't happen in New Orleans.

xan

Jake hasn't hit enough wrong colored jerseys, and since brown is revolting, he will be tossing many to blue, green, white, black, and red ones with satisfying frequency.

Good guy, past prime. Move on.

QBREES9

Good Luck to him. He just might get killed out there.

MatthewT

I wish him luck, being a starter for a bad team is still better than being a backup for a great team. Of course after he gets pounded around he may reconsider. I mean seriously, the Browns??? Pencil them in for a top 3 pick in the 2011 draft. The part that will suck for Jake is in a couple years when the team starts to turn it around, he will no longer be part of their plans... LOL

CantonLegend

i hate to be so blatently obvious......but DUH

hes started for the past several years.....he still thinks he can start.....why would he want to be a backup for a team that will never need their backup when he could go to a team and start on day 1

this is the most superfluous article ive seen in a long time

neugey

Well, gotta give him and Fujita credit for going to a bad team and trying to turn things around - that was the Saints a while back.

saintfan

I will lmao if Wallace wins the job...

JoanieNTX

I think Jake made the right choice. He would always be somewhat resentful towards the Saints organization for letting him go in the first place, and he has made the comment many times that he hates the Saints. (Yes, he even made it to me on MySpace two seasons ago). With that said, I wish him the best! Maybe he and Fuji will help give us a reason to dislike the Browns! (Although I think I will always be a Scott Fujita fan).

UK_WhoDat

Everyone's a winner baby