Dilfer Situation Not a Super One

Trent Dilfer never expected to make history this way. But here he is, a man without a team, the guy who went from Disney World to no-man’s land in a matter of weeks.

Dilfer is the only starting quarterback in NFL history who was released after leading his team, the Baltimore Ravens, to victory in the Super Bowl. John Elway didn’t play after his Denver Broncos won it in 1999 but that was his choice. He retired.

Baltimore could have re-signed Dilfer but made its intentions clear in March by signing Elvis Grbac to a five-year, $30-million deal, sealing the fate of Dilfer, who had gone 11-1 as a starter after stepping in for struggling Tony Banks in Week 9.

“The lessons I’ve learned from this experience have been invaluable,” Dilfer said in a conference call Thursday, opening up for the first time about his situation. “I’ve learned you can’t control a lot of things, good guys don’t always have things go their way, and hard work doesn’t always pay off the way people expect it to.”

Dilfer, 29, isn’t biting his nails and waiting by the phone. A scratch golfer, he will be one of the favorites this weekend in the American Century Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe. He has made close to $25 million during his seven-year NFL career, so he isn’t in dire need of a paycheck.

Still, he yearns to play, and he has turned down offers to back up Brett Favre with the Green Bay Packers and Peyton Manning with the Indianapolis Colts, instead angling for a starting job he has a chance to win. And he doesn’t want just any starting job. He has no interest in playing for the Dallas Cowboys or Cincinnati Bengals, teams that figure to be terrible next season.

The Washington Redskins showed interest in signing Dilfer to back up Jeff George, who has started every game in only four of his 11 seasons, but that deal fell through. So did Dilfer’s bid to play for the Kansas City Chiefs, who eventually traded for Trent Green.

“The Kansas City thing was probably the only thing I wanted to happen,” Dilfer said. “But [Coach Dick] Vermeil was very honest with me that Trent Green was their first choice, and they wanted to make that trade.”

Dilfer understands he can’t be too choosy. Assuming he lands somewhere, he probably will earn no more than $477,000, the minimum salary for veterans. And, with training camps two weeks away, every team has a starting quarterback in place.

So Dilfer waits.

“As a football player, I’ve done what I’ve been asked to do,” he said. “I haven’t been as explosive as I would like to be the last couple of years. But I’ve also been in a situation where that wouldn’t be the smartest way to play.”

Baltimore’s offense was little more than a sideshow--often a bad one--to its defense. The Raven defense gave up only one touchdown in four playoff games and was generally considered among the best units in league history.

The Ravens brought home a Super Bowl trophy despite having scored only 29 touchdowns, tying them with the 1965 Buffalo Bills for fewest touchdowns by a championship team--and the Bills played 14 games that season in the old American Football League.

Dilfer’s directive was to minimize the mistakes and get out of the way. His 12 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions did little to raise eyebrows, nor did his ho-hum passer rating of 76.6.

Baltimore won, but Dilfer hinted broadly that the Ravens had not won in the fashion Coach Brian Billick would have preferred. Billick is known as an offensive innovator, after all, and his team was below average in just about every offensive category.

Enter Grbac, who passed for 4,169 yards and 28 touchdowns last season at Kansas City. Eighteen of those touchdown passes were made inside the 20-yard line, seven more than the combined total of Dilfer and Banks.

“We felt we needed an increased offensive presence,” Billick said. “There were a couple of athletes available in the way of Elvis Grbac and Brad Johnson that we felt had the potential to give us that offensive presence.

“[Releasing Dilfer] is a part of the business. I hate using that term because it dehumanizes things, but, for right or wrong, we made a business decision. When you win a world championship with a guy, that’s a very difficult thing to do.”

The move baffled Jim Sweeney, Dilfer’s coach at Fresno State, where Dilfer had led the nation in 1993 with a 173.1 passer rating, third highest in NCAA history at the time. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted him sixth in 1994, and Dilfer played the next six seasons for the Buccaneers.

“It amazes me that Baltimore let him go,” Sweeney said. “I can’t see how you can be that effective, then not even be considered. There have got to be people missing the boat someplace.”

There are plenty of big-name free agents in similar predicaments, among them defensive linemen Cortez Kennedy and Alonzo Spellman, defensive backs Eric Davis and Keith Lyle, kickers Morten Andersen and Al Del Greco and receiver Andre Rison.

Dilfer, who lives in the Fresno area, still stops by his alma mater to work out and practice his passing by throwing footballs at fixed targets. He is roughly eight pounds heavier than normal, something he figures will help his 6-foot-4, 240-pound frame endure the rigors of a season.

“Eight doesn’t sound like a lot,” he said. “But I’ve started the majority of my career. I took quite a pounding in Tampa, especially in the early years, and I really wanted to focus on getting my body stronger.”

So he’s sturdier now. Faster too, he said.

And, alas, better rested than he ever hoped to be.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

They Did Not Return

Starting quarterbacks in the NFL-AFL championship game or Super Bowl who did not return to their teams the next season (player, team, final season with that team):

Norm Van Brocklin Eagles, 1960

Jack Kemp Chargers, 1961

Tobin Rote Chargers, 1964

Joe Kapp Vikings, 1969

Neil O’Donnell Steelers, 1995

John Elway Broncos, 1998

Trent Dilfer Ravens, 2000