BillyC

It was an exciting ending for sure, but when you play as bad as Jake Delhomme did in the first half, there is no where to go but up. I was at a friends bar where there was plenty of betting going on. We even bet on the coin toss. But, that wasn't the strangest bet of the evening.

After watching Jake throw incompletion after incompletion, we decided to bet when ol' Jake would finally complete a pass. At one point I think Jake was 1 for 9 for 2 yards. Jake seemed confused for the better part of the game. He dropped back and held the ball for what seemed like 30 seconds allowing the Patriot's defense ( which isn't known as a sacking machine) to sack him time after time. One of those sacks created the fumble which led to the touchdown that cost the Panthers the game.

Sure Jake was able to complete some good passes later on in the game, but when your completion percentage was 11% in the first half, it's hard to overcome that. For the record, Jake had a completion percentage on the day of 48%.

Jake was almost the come back kid. But when the QB is the reason you are having to come back, I don't know how good of a thing that is. Jake packed all of his stats in 1-quarter of football and when you're playing a team like the Patriots, that just ain't gonna cut it.

Maybe Cinderella will get to dance at the ball again, but for now, the Panthers will go home in a pumpkin.

Jake seemed to be all smiles when interviewed on ESPN after the game. I guess when you never expected to be in the super bowl it doesn't hurt as bad. But, as Ron Jawrorski said, when Delhomme wakes up in the morning it will probably hit him that he just lost the super bowl.

In any event, my team didn't make it to the super bowl this year, but the look on Jake's face when the game winning field goal went through the uprights made me almost as happy.



[Edited on 2/2/2004 by BillyC]