You could fast forward about 15 years, and Smith would be coaching Delhomme in Cleveland, but their story goes back deeper than that. The Smith family established a home in Lafayette, La., during his stint at Southwestern Louisiana, and while helping out at the Manning Passing Academy, he got to know a young quarterback from Teurlings Catholic who lived in nearby Breaux Bridge.
“He was one of a kind; he was one in a trillion,” Smith said of Delhomme (though Delhomme says the same thing about Smith). “I was happy when he got a chance with the Saints and then ended up here and did really well. I’ve been a fan of Jake’s for a long time, so it was a thrill to be able to coach him, and he was, he was everything I expected him to be and more.”
Of course, by then, Delhomme was a different quarterback, near the end of a career shortened by injuries, including a series of high ankle sprains that began shortly after he won the starting job in Cleveland. But they wanted him as more than just a player, since they drafted Colt McCoy and hoped he could become their future.
“I’d say he made Colt McCoy’s career,” Smith recalled. “He just adopted him. He just said, ‘Colt, you’re picking me up at 6 o’clock or whatever time; it was early. You’re picking me up every day. Get your truck. So Colt was by Jake’s side all the time so he’d take him in. He’s the first one in the building and the equipment room, medical, the trainers, the whole thing. How to study, told him all that.
“Now, he did on the field; he surprised me. So he’s going to warm up; I mean, he’s playing catch. He’d thrown, I think it was either three or four balls, and said, OK, I’m ready. I said, what? He said I had a little thing I had to do here, so that’s all I need now. And it was OK, and he went in, and he’d start one-on-ones or whatever we were doing, and he was throwing it right there, and he was astoundingly accurate in games, in practice.
“OK, so whatever he had to do to his shoulder or elbow or arm or all that stuff, he was amazing.”