 |
2010 Cleveland Browns Pre-Camp Preview: Offense - Part 1
July 26, 2010 By Jeff Biasella
|
Cleveland Browns:
(@Tampa Bay, Kansas City, @Baltimore, Cincinnati, Atlanta, @Pittsburgh, @New Orleans, BYE, New England, NY Jets, @Jacksonville, Carolina, @Miami, @Buffalo, @Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh)
Offense:
I've been trying to figure out how Jake Delhomme went from legit MVP candidate to battling Seneca Wallace for a starting job and here's the conclusion I've come up with: It has nothing to do with him undergoing Tommy John surgery. Unlike baseball where it seems like pitchers are contractility obligated to get Tommy John surgery before they turn 27, it's almost unheard of in football. Here's the list of every player who has undergone Tommy John surgery in the history of the NFL: Craig Erickson (QB), Deion Sanders, Sebastian Janikowski, Rob Johnson (QB), and Jake Delhomme (QB).
In the case of Craig Erickson, the year he had Tommy John surgery is a bigger secret than the location of a CIA safe house. I searched for hours trying to find the exact date but could only find he was the first QB to undergo the procedure. If I had to guess though, it was after the 1994 season when he went from starter at Tampa Bay, throwing close to 3,000 yards, to being Jim Harbaugh's backup at Indy and out of the league entirely following the 1997 season. As for Rob Johnson, he was never good to begin with and had Tommy John surgery following the 2003 season when he was basically already out of the league anyway, never making a NFL roster again. So it's hard to say what affect the surgery has on football players, specifically at the quarterback position, simply because there is virtually no sample pool and to say either Erickson or Johnson were at Delhomme's level when they had the surgery is entirely false. But from the three examples we have, it's also hard to disagree that after the surgery the careers of these three quarterbacks went down the toilet. That is, if you don't look at Jake Delhomme's 2008 regular season numbers, only remember the 2008 playoff game, and point to his 2009 season. Then it would be easy to say the same for Delhomme but that's not how it went down.
Delhomme had the surgery in 2007, but in 2008 he lit up the stat sheet. Here are his individual stats from 2008 with how they rank compared to his other 7 seasons in parenthesis: 3,288 yards (3rd), 59.4 competition percentage (3rd), 15 TD's (4th), 12 INT's (2nd fewest), 205.5 yards per game (4th), and QB rating 84.7 (3rd). The Panthers were 12-4, tied with the Giants for best record in the NFC and earned a first round bye in the playoffs. Only the AFC's Tennessee Titans at 13-3 had a better record than the Panthers. Then came the infamous five interception playoff game against the Cardinals which just so happened to be on his 34th birthday. So to say having Tommy John surgery is what caused him not to be the same quarterback is a flat out lie. I don't know what happened during that 2008 playoff game or what caused him to resemble a rich man's Derrick Anderson last season. All I know is this: It wasn't the Tommy John surgery. In order for that assumption to hold water, his 2008 numbers would have had to been somewhere close to his 2009 stats but they couldn't have been further apart.
Now for the bigger question: What does this all mean for his 2010 season? Answer: I have no clue. Jake Delhomme has never been a Peyton Manning/Tom Brady/Drew Brees/Kurt Warner type passer, who only gambles on sure things. He's more of a Brett Farve/Philip Rivers/Jay Cutler type passer who would rather go down in flames rather than feel like he left an opportunity on the field. Brett Farve is the most unique quarterback in NFL history because he makes wide receivers stars. Peyton Manning does the same but he needs highly intelligent wide receivers who can follow his offense. Brett Farve just needs somebody who can catch. Philip Rivers has always had talent around him to help his cause. So when I'm looking at QB's to compare Delhomme to in terms of style and current situation, I look at Jay Cutler. Jay Cutler didn't have a wide receiver last year with the Bears who could run professional routes and who he could count on being exactly where he was supposed to be like he did at Denver. This is why I'm a little scared about Jake Delhomme minus the baddest/craziest wide receiver in the NFL. But, the rest of the offense is the reason why I'm also not utterly terrified; convincing myself everything is going to be okay while wearing a Bernie Kosar jersey and drinking a fifth of Jameson. And yes, you read correctly, I'm not utterly terrified of the Jake Delhomme era because of the rest of the offense.
If Shaun Rogers could get John St. Clair to carry his luggage on all flights, the Browns would have a top 5 offensive line. With St. Clair, the Browns line is still in the top 10. That's just how good they are up front. Even a guy who couldn't protect the QB from the practice sled doesn't kill them. There isn't too much to say about Joe Thomas that hasn't already been said. Except he might want to consider growing dreads like Josh Cribbs because the people at the Q don't know what he looks like. I was walking to the Q to catch I believe Game 2 of the Cavs/Bulls series and saw a brand new, blacked-out SUV parked on the sidewalk next to a bunch of cops who didn't seem to mind so I slowly strolled by it to see who was in it. When I walked past, I noticed a huge man who looked like Joe Thomas sitting in the passenger seat and heard his buddy in the driver seat say, "So we can't get tickets? How do they not know who you are?" Moving on...
I was pissed when the Mangenius kept trading back two years ago before settling on Alex Mack. Being on East Coast time, the only West Coast team I ever saw was USC, so I had no clue who this guy from Cal was. Then I saw the 6'4'', 311 pound man-child move like Kristi Yamaguchi and remembered the Mangenius knows a thing or two about NFL ready centers. If you look at all the best veteran centers in the league (Nick Mangold, Kevin Mawae, Shaun O'Hara, etc) they all have one thing in common; the 6'4'' frame. Now I feel pretty good about passing on B.J. Raji and Clay Mathews.
