Jake Delhomme Receives 5-Year Extension From Panthers

Jake Delhomme is a controversial figure in the Carolina Panthers organization, despite his quiet off-field demeanor and the success he's brought to the team in his time there. Much of that controversy stems from a horrible season-ending game against the Arizona Cardinals in last year's playoffs.

Expect to hear even more fan reaction now, after it was announced today that Delhomme and the team reached an extension. Particularly when it's to the tune of "five years, $42.5 million, with $20 million guaranteed." Yes, Panthers fans are going to freak out. But maybe they shouldn't. Why? Because delusional rationalization is an option.

The truth is -- and Ryan Wilson and I will cover this tomorrow morning in the white-hot FanHouse podcast -- Delhomme is quite obviously not the long-term solution for the Panthers at quarterback. He's on the downside of his career, he's had a few bad seasons (although everyone seems to forget he just had Tommy John surgery) recently and now he's making a ton of money.

But, here's the thing: Delhomme was checking in with an $11 million cap hit in 2009. And the Panthers had a serious deficiency of cap space heading into the season anyway. Now, I haven't crunched the entire set of numbers, and Delhomme's agent said the structure was "extremely complicated," but you have to guess that this isn't really a full five-year deal.

Instead, it's designed to give the Cats cap space now, to lock up a quarterback for at least three years and to get Delhomme some money. It may not end up being a great long-term solution, but for the immediate future, it gives the Panthers a lot more flexibility. Whether that's smart or not depends on how well Delhomme can continue to recover from injury; if his performance next year closer to the second half of last season, the enraged fans are going to look right.