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Jake Delhomme knows the doubters are out there, but he hardly pays attention. He doesn’t have time with football and family taking up all of his time.
Delhomme told me that a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old will “keep you humble.” He also admitted that for the first time in his career he battled serious doubts after turning the ball over five times against the Eagles.
“I probably battled doubts during the course of the Eagles game, I’ll be honest with you. I mean, it felt like the ball gets tipped twice and picked. And then we have two disasters on screens. OK, what can go wrong? What else can I do wrong? And I guess it’s human nature. It’s something that I’ve never battled that before.”
Refuge from the most scrutinized period of his career, all the questions, all the criticism, came on the practice field.
Jake told me, “We’re sitting here at 0-2 so I can’t say ‘oh, we’re gonna be fine.’ That’s just feeding you a bunch of B.S. I saw major improvement from week one preparation to week two preparation. And I think you saw some of that I know offensively carried out on the field on Sunday. I anticipate another step forward. That’s just what I anticipate.”
I asked, “I don’t want to put too much into it, but you said preparation was different between week one and week two?”
“I think just the mood and the feel. I’m not saying we did more week one and week two. No, not at all,” said Delhomme. “Just the feel, for whatever reason. But I think a lot has to do with egos. When you get embarrassed on your home turf you know that ego really kicks in.”
“You know what? I played better. I probably put too much on my plate going into the Philly game. I can say, tell you all the right things about, “oh, after the Arizona game ...' and what not. I probably put too much on myself in redemption. 'I’m gonna come out and I’m gonna play well.' And I didn’t do it. And I’m man enough to say I probably did too much and had too much going on, mentally.
“It’s a privilege to play in the NFL. And I’m grateful for that. We’ve done a lot of great things here. But we’re not done yet. It certainly hasn’t started out great, but hey, we have a marathon, this is not a sprint, and we’re still early on.”
I had to ask about the Cowboys' new stadium. “Are you intrigued to see a billion-dollar stadium? And the giant video board? Do people talk about it?”
“No, there hasn’t been much talk at all about it. I mean I’m sure it will be nice to see it. But it’s just like the Super Bowl, you had so many guys, our older guys talk about the hoopla and the circus surrounding it. But once that first snap is taken, all is forgotten.”
One thing Jake hasn’t forgotten - his sense of humor. So a wild card question wrappeds us up.
When you’re 65 or 70 will you get plastic surgery like Dallas Owner Jerry Jones? “Oh, probably not,” Jake said and smiled. “I wouldn’t think. What you see is what you get. I’m gonna have the same big nose when I’m 65 or 70 as I do when I’m 34.”
