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GLENDALE, Ariz. – Maybe everybody was right. Maybe Matt Moore should be Carolina's quarterback. The Panthers played their best game of the season Sunday and, for the first time since the opener, Matt Moore got to play.
Jake Delhomme injured his sternum in the third quarter, briefly returned, and then walked off the field and was driven to a nearby hospital. He underwent a CT scan; he says he thinks he's fine.
In Delhomme's absence, Moore threw an incompletion and handed off and handed off and handed off again.
But Moore did his best work after Carolina's 34-21 victory against Arizona. The first Panther off the University of Phoenix Stadium field, he ran through the tunnel to the locker room cradling the ball in his left forearm like a running back.
"I'm giving that one to 17," he says of Delhomme. "He deserves it. He doesn't know about it yet."
A poor performance by Delhomme Sunday would have ended his run, which began in 2003, as Carolina's starting quarterback.
Delhomme had been so bad this season – with four touchdowns against 13 interceptions – that head coach John Fox debated benching him this week, primarily to protect the quarterback from himself.
But the trip to Phoenix from Charlotte began well for Delhomme when he got on the right plane.
"I thought our Friday practice out there was fantastic," Delhomme says. "We came off the plane and spun the football around pretty darn well. I was excited about coming out."
Delhomme deserved a chance to resurrect his season, and his team, here on the cusp of the desert against the team that began the great undoing. Arizona beat the Panthers 33-13 10 months ago in a Divisional playoff game in Charlotte, a game in which Delhomme threw five interceptions and lost a fumble.
Fans still haven't forgiven him and Delhomme might not have forgiven himself.
If he was ever going to become the quarterback he had been, never pretty but always interesting and usually effective, why not here against this team?
Arizona kicked to open the game and the Panthers scored 7:38 later. Five times they converted on third down. On third and eight Delhomme hit Dwayne Jarrett for 17 yards. On third and five he hit Steve Smith for six.
He completed four of six passes for 35 yards. And on a team that runs as well as Carolina, on a team with an offensive line that absolutely destroyed the Cardinals, that was enough. And most Sundays, it will continue to be.
At the half Delhomme was seven of nine for 90 yards and a touchdown and a passer rating of 145.4, which means among other things that he threw more passes to his teammates than opponents.
The second half was primarily a handoff-fest; he attempted five passes and did not complete any. But he was not intercepted. He did not fumble. He just played.
"Last week was a low point," Delhomme said about his three-interception performance in a home loss to Buffalo. "It was probably the lowest point I've ever had as a Carolina Panther. I did a ton of self-searching."
The answer was simple.
"Screw it, just go out and play," he said. "Just play."
The biggest of those plays came when Steve Smith took off down the left side against Arizona pass-covering superstar Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Smith flew off the line, Delhomme used a pump fake and Smith suddenly was alone.
Smith says that after Arizona's playoff victory Rodgers-Cromartie talked about how he had covered Smith all day long by himself. Not true, says Smith. He says the defensive back had help.
"This was personal for me," Smith says.
For Delhomme the game also was personal, although the opponent had little to do with it. This was about remembering who he was.
The people who pay to watch games, as well as the people who are paid to write and talk about them, wanted reasons for Delhomme's poor performances.
Although he is 34, however, this was never about his age or his arm. This was about his head. He no longer believed, and he had forfeited the right to.
In six days the Panthers go to New Orleans to play the most impressive team of the 2009 season. Delhomme, a former Saint, has never lost as a starter in the Louisiana Dome.
He believes again.
Do you?
