The Ravens’ Trent Dilfer Won’t Gloat About His Triumphant Return to Tampa, Where Fans and Media Drove Him Away With a . . .

Raymond James Stadium is hardly The House That Dilfer Built.

The house that Dilfer built sits on Harbour Island, where Trent and Cassandra Dilfer’s dream home overlooks the bay.

There is an oval-shaped office with a view of the water. Cherry beams and wainscoting. A flat-screen TV to watch game film. And on the walls of the office, a replica of a 17th-century map of the Mediterranean, painted by artist friends and embellished with Bible verses.

Somebody else’s family lives there now.

“Oh yeah, we had it all,” Dilfer said. “Took two years to build it. We were only in it a year.”

Then he laughed, without rancor.

“I’m going to go by and see the owners,” he said. “See if I can sit in my office for 10 seconds.”

Life unfolds, sometimes upsetting the best-laid architectural plans.

After being all but run out of town after six seasons as the Tampa Bay quarterback who never quite got the Buccaneers over the hump, Dilfer arrives in Tampa today as the starting quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV.

In the stadium where he once was mocked and ridiculed, in front of a press corps that called him a stiff as often as it called him a starter, Dilfer will play for the NFL championship Sunday.

“I have no bitterness whatsoever,” said Dilfer, cut loose after last season when the Buccaneers declined to exercise a $4.6-million option on his contract after Shaun King took over for the injured Dilfer and led the team to the NFC title game. “It was the right decision for them and the right decision for me.”

His career a shambles, Dilfer signed a one-year, $1-million contract to back up Tony Banks in Baltimore.

Eight games into the season, he took over for Banks--by then being vilified much as Dilfer had been--and led Baltimore on a 10-1 run all the way back to Tampa.

“It’s going to be a great thrill,” said Dilfer, 28. “It’s a place that was very special to me. People can say what they want, but it was six of the better years of my life and I appreciate what I learned from my experiences there. I have a ton of people that I’m very close to, and I look forward to playing in front of them.”

The Buccaneers and their fans weren’t the first to doubt Dilfer, and might not be the last, considering he had the 20th-best passer rating in the NFL and there’s no certainty he’ll be back with the Ravens next season.

Story of his life.

Back at Aptos High near Santa Cruz, Dilfer wasn’t even the first-team all-league quarterback his senior year.

He made it as a safety and punter, but was the No. 2 quarterback behind Todd Whitehurst of North Monterey County High. If the name isn’t familiar, it’s because Whitehurst went on to a career as a punter at San Jose State.

Dilfer didn’t have the passing statistics to draw much attention.

Like the Ravens, the Aptos Mariners did what worked.

“We ran the wing-T. We had a big offensive line, good running backs,” said Jamie Townsend, Dilfer’s high school coach.

“But Trent had that poise. He was really comfortable audibilizing and checking off, even in high school.”

Dilfer didn’t have the numbers, but he had the savvy that came with being the stepson of a football coach, Frank Lynch, a close friend of Townsend’s who coached at Aptos and later at Cabrillo College, often with Trent as his ball boy.

College recruiters noticed Dilfer, but they saw him as a 6-foot-4, 229-pound tight end.

“Cal was going to recruit him as an ‘athlete,’ and Trent and I talked about it and decided he was just interested in playing quarterback,” said Lynch, who played at Berkeley.

“They would have gone to the Rose Bowl with him at quarterback.”

Fresno State wasn’t sure about Dilfer until assistant coach Rich Olson--now the Arizona Cardinals’ offensive coordinator--watched him play basketball.

He quickly saw the athleticism that made Dilfer a high school standout in four sports and a scratch golfer who has won three celebrity tournaments.

“Trent’s our man,” Olson told Townsend.

Basketball and baseball were forgotten.

“I couldn’t throw a curveball in baseball so I figured the quickest way to big league sports was to throw a football instead of just a straight fastball that everyone can hit out of the park,” Dilfer said.

He made Fresno State look brilliant.

Playing for coach Jim Sweeney, Dilfer led the nation with a 173.1 passer rating his junior year--the third-highest in history at the time.

He’s remembered as the winning quarterback in one of the most notorious upsets in USC history, helping Fresno State win the 1992 Freedom Bowl with a team that, in retrospect, shouldn’t have been such an underdog: The Bulldogs had not only Dilfer but future NFL players Lorenzo Neal, Marquez Pope, David Dunn and Ron Rivers.

Terry Shea, who had been the California offensive coordinator when Dilfer was recruited, watched from afar.

“I didn’t think he could make it as a Division I quarterback,” Shea said. “I was wrong.”

Even more wrong now.

Dilfer turned pro after his junior season, becoming the sixth pick overall in 1994.

The fans hoped for more than they got.

In his first three seasons, Dilfer threw 43 interceptions and only 17 touchdown passes. He fumbled 25 times.

It was the turnovers that drove the fans crazy.

His wife, Cassandra, mother of the couple’s three children, would go to the store and hear people talk.

Family members in California at least could avoid that.

“Maybe it seems so awful because we know him,” said Dilfer’s mother, Marcie, who was divorced from Trent’s father when her son was a toddler and later married Lynch.

“I can remember Steve Young being lambasted here. I can remember awful things they said about him. Steve Young? Come on.

“Even now, the very same talk show host who was praising Rich Gannon says now he’s over the hill and can’t win the big one.”

She took solace in the fan mail she used to sort.

“He has wonderful, wonderful fans who would write letters of encouragement after a bad game or a bad article, ‘We’re cheering for you, we’re praying for you,’ ” she said.

“All that time I did it, there was one letter that was unpleasant. It’s easy to express vocal displeasure. It takes a little more brainpower to write a letter.”

It wasn’t only fans who doubted Dilfer’s ability to win.

Jimmy Johnson did too.

The former Dallas Cowboy coach was approached about the Tampa Bay job after Sam Wyche was fired in 1995 as the franchise continued to wallow and Wyche and Dilfer clashed more and more.

Johnson eventually took the Miami Dolphin job instead, saying, “For my sanity, it would be best to go to a place where the quarterback is a future Hall of Famer, not with a guy I don’t have faith in.”

Tony Dungy had more faith, and after he was hired as coach, Dilfer began to come around.

By 1997, he made the Pro Bowl, cutting down the interceptions--he had 21 touchdown passes and was picked off only 11 times--though he still struggled with fumbles.

That season, in his last playoff game before the Ravens’ run, Dilfer completed only 11 of 36 passes for 200 yards with two interceptions in a loss to Green Bay.

Even last season, Dilfer was benched in favor of Eric Zeier only to return when Zeier was injured.

After Dilfer broke his collarbone in November, King’s run to the title game made the Buccaneers’ choice clear, even though the ties to Dilfer were strong.

The Ravens were still on the bus after winning the AFC title game against Oakland when Dilfer’s phone rang.

“I gave him a call to congratulate him,” Tampa Bay safety John Lynch said. “He said to me, ‘I wish I could share this with you.’ ”

They all do, of course.

“I’m happy for Trent, and I’m excited for him,” Dungy said. “I always thought he was good enough to get to the Super Bowl, and I’m glad he is proving me right.

“He’s doing all the things you need to do to win. They’re playing great defense, and he’s taking care of the football and has come in and given them a spark and they’ve won 10 straight games.”

They do it by playing to their strengths--defense and the running game.

Dilfer hasn’t passed for 200 yards in any of the last seven games, and hasn’t completed more than nine passes in any of the three playoff games, with Coach Brian Billick calling for only about 16 passes a game.

Dilfer has thrown only one interception in the playoffs, and his passer rating of 85.2 ranks third among playoff quarterbacks. (The Giants’ Kerry Collins is first at 110.3.)

All that means determining Dilfer’s value after the season is going to be tricky.

Billick bristles at those who think the Super Bowl quarterback won’t be back with the team, saying the Ravens will attempt to re-sign Dilfer and all their free agents. But at what price and in what role could be a sticking point.

“Qualify it how you want, he’s the starting quarterback in the Super Bowl,” Billick said.

Dilfer has yet to be quoted as saying, “Nah-nah, nah-nah-nah” to Tampa about that.

“He gets nothing out of bashing Tampa, out of laughing, saying it wasn’t me, it was you all,” Baltimore tight end Shannon Sharpe said.

“But as bad as things got for him, I guess now they realize it wasn’t Trent’s fault. There were some other factors that caused them not to be successful.”

Funny how it has all worked out.

“The greatest lesson I’ve learned in life is you have to appreciate the moments in your life that are hard,” Dilfer said. “You can’t go run from adversity. You have to let it hit you straight in the face.

“I just thank my teammates. They carried me. I have no problem saying that. I don’t know how good I am, but I know I’m the right quarterback for this football team.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Farm Club

Baltimore’s Trent Dilfer is the latest quarterback to have success with another team after struggling with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

DOUG WILLIAMS

*--*

Seasons TD Int Yards Rating Comment With Tampa Bay 1978-82 73 73 12,648 66.2 Tampa Bay record in those seasons was 34-38-1. Post Tampa Bay 1986-89 27 20 4,350 79.9 Washington record in those seasons was 40-23. Led Washington to Super Bowl XXII victory.

*--*

STEVE YOUNG

*--*

Seasons TD Int Yards Rating Comment With Tampa Bay 1985-86 11 21 3,217 63.1 Tampa Bay record in those seasons was 4-28. Post Tampa Bay 1987-99 221 86 29,907 101.4 San Francisco record in those seasons was 148-57. Led 49ers to Super Bowl XXIX victory.

*--*

VINNY TESTAVERDE

*--*

Seasons TD Int Yards Rating Comment With Tampa Bay 1987-92 77 112 14,820 64.4 Tampa Bay record in those seasons was 28-67. Post Tampa Bay 1993-2000 149 104 21,487 82.0 Record of three teams in those seasons was 62-65-1. Led N.Y. Jets to AFC championship game in 1998.

*--*

CHRIS CHANDLER

*--*

Seasons TD Int Yards Rating Comment With Tampa Bay 1990-91 5 14 1,021 44.5 Tampa Bay record in those seasons was 9-23. Post Tampa Bay 1991-2000 111 65 16,332 87.4 Record of four teams in those seasons was 60-84. Led Atlanta to Super Bowl XXXIII.

*--*

TRENT DILFER

*--*

Seasons TD Int Yards Rating Comment With Tampa Bay 1994-99 70 80 12,969 69.4 Tampa Bay record in those seasons was 48-48. Post Tampa Bay 2000 12 11 1,502 76.6 Baltimore record this season was 12-4. Led Ravens to Super Bowl XXXV.

*--*

Note: Records, statistics for regular season.