Published: Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009 / Updated: Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009 12:04 AM

Friends, teammates pulling for Delhomme

CHARLOTTE -- It didn't seem out of the ordinary when Brandon Stokley looked down at his cell phone last Sunday night, and saw the text congratulating him on his miracle catch for a game-winning touchdown.

It wasn't until he got home and saw some highlights, realizing his friend Jake Delhomme had essentially gone through the opposite kind of day, that he appreciated the message's true impact.

“It was the usual stuff, great catch, congratulations,” Stokley said. “But when I first saw it, I didn't know what had happened to Jake. I thought to myself, ‘Wow.' He had to be hurting, but he took the time to reach out to someone else.

“To me, that says everything about the kind of person Jake really is.”

Delhomme's game last week is now the stuff of legend, a five-turnover meltdown against Philadelphia that came on the heels of his six-turnover playoff meltdown against Arizona on the same field eight months prior. It's had his home fans questioning his abilities all week, while those who know him best swear he's going to come out of this stronger than ever, because that's the way he always has.

Stokley probably knows Delhomme as well as any non-relative, having played with him at Louisiana-Lafayette, when both had to work their way to extended NFL careers. He has seen his old quarterback go through slumps before, even if there was nothing of quite this magnitude when they played for the Ragin' Cajuns.

Mostly, he remembers the fire, the way Delhomme fights.

During Delhomme's senior season, there was a paycheck game at Florida (then in the height of Steve Spurrier's reign). Already trailing in the game (they would lose 55-21), Delhomme looked to Stokley and saw him waving his right hand. Since cornerback Fred Weary was pressed up on his go-to receiver, Delhomme audibled to a deep route at the line of scrimmage.

As it turns out, Stokley was merely trying to fire up the crowd with his hand signal, so when he broke his route off short as planned, Delhomme had already lobbed out a mortar shot for an easy interception.

Delhomme's response to said play can't be reprinted in these genteel pages.

“He's such a competitor, and that led to some clashes between us in college, because he wanted everything to be perfect,” Stokley said. “You see all the emotion in him, he pours his heart into every game, because all he wants to do is win.

“That's just the way he is, and you love seeing that in your quarterback.”

Granted, love is the last thing Delhomme is getting back home this past week. Talk radio programs have been filled with vitriol, Internet message boards filled with screeds demanding he be demoted, cut or worse.

Teammates had to answer the question of whether they still trusted him — the answer was a resounding yes — making it anything but the normal preparation for today's Week 2 trip to Atlanta.

Because of the storm, Stokley admitted he didn't call, opting for an upbeat text instead. It's the modern way of communicating between players, but also speaks to the stiff-upper-lip act these guys put on when things are going poorly.

“Who wants to bring up the bad, it's not going to help,” Stokley said. “He's as good a friend as he is a player, and when I've gone through a tough stretch, he's always been there for me. But it's hard, when you're going through a stretch like this, you don't want to hear from people. It's awkward for me, and for him too.

“Way I figure it, he had enough people talking to him, so I just wanted him to know I was behind him. He's going to be fine.”

Those closer to the scene have seen the narrowing in Delhomme's eyes this week. He spoke on Wednesday about letting last week's mistakes follow him onto the field for subsequent plays, and teammates say his work has been as focused as ever.

“He obviously has a lot of resolve,” backup quarterback Josh McCown said.

“I think the thing is, pretty much everybody knows it, but as bad as everybody feels, nobody feels worse than Jake. And he wants to get it corrected.