QUOTE: “Great men generally more anxious to have their reputation of talents which they do not possess than to be extolled for those on which their greatness is founded.” -- Washington Irving
Where have you gone, Vince Young?
I was a Vince Young fan when he came out of college, but after watching his work in the NFL the past two years, I no longer feel the same. When veteran quarterbacks do not look great, or even good, in the first preseason game, there are problems. Now, as Young enters his fourth season, I can look back at my missed evaluations and my unwillingness to view the facts, until this past weekend.
APVince Young
Where did it all go wrong for Vince? He was a Pro Bowl player as a rookie, led his team to the playoffs in just his second season, then was injured in the first game of 2008, lost his starting job and now is a complete mess.
After the ‘07 season, the Titans made a move with their offensive coordinator, replacing Norm Chow with Mike Heimerdinger. They subscribed to the theory that it’s either the players or the coaching, so if we change the coach, the results might change. As we’ve learned, the Titans did improve on offense with Dinger, but Young’s progress stalled.
First, a little background. Heimerdinger came to Tennessee to be the new offensive coordinator last season and help Young take the next step as an NFL quarterback, but so far those steps have been backward. This is not to imply that Dinger hasn’t helped. Clearly, he has helped current quarterback Kerry Collins and the rest of the offense. Dinger is a fine football coach, a man deserving of a head coaching job in the NFL because all he does is move the ball and make big plays in the run game. However, Sunday night, in front of a national TV audience at the Hall of Fame game, Young looked rusty and tentative, and he looked like a rookie, not a Pro Bowler.
In 2006, his Pro Bowl season, Young had a 51-percent completion rate, with 13 interceptions and 12 touchdowns. His team won eight games, and his quarterback rating was a 66. These are hardly Pro Bowl numbers, but one could sense that he was a budding star with room to grow. After that season, the optimistic glass was half full. Now, two years later and without any progress, the glass is empty.
In 2007, Young and the Titans reached the playoffs, but they did it more with their defense and a field goal kicker who missed only four kicks all season. They won four games by a combined total of 13 points, so their margin for error was small. Young had 17 interceptions in ‘07 and only nine touchdowns. He completed 62 percent of his passes, but he only managed to throw for slightly more than five yards per attempt (great passers have to be over seven per attempt). Another bad year in terms of passing, but his team won, and there were moments where he looked like he was coming out of his passing shell. The Denver game, for one, seemed to show a glimmer of hope that something good might be coming down the road.
So maybe it was just a false hope with Young. Maybe he was never very good, despite being in the Pro Bowl and despite being the third overall pick in the draft. Maybe he’s been bad for three seasons, but we just continued to ignore the bad. Or maybe we just believed that he was young and would turn it around at some point. But now, I don’t see that point ever coming.
Sometimes we keep thinking that a player is going to turn it around with a change of coaches, or a change of scheme. But the reality with Young is that there have never been great moments. There may have been glimpses of quality play, but the sum of his play has never added up to a quality NFL starter.
That was the first preseason game, and many of you might be saying, “Calm down, Lombardi. It’s early.” But that’s exactly my argument: He should look good. It was a vanilla defense he faced; it was all Cover 2 or Cover 3, maybe a little man to man. It was an all-star game defense, in which veterans with or without talent should look good. When they don’t, they just don’t have it.
I missed on Vince Young -- badly.
APTony Sparano
Miami Quitters?
Fullback Matt Quillen became the third player to quit the Miami Dolphins' training camp. Tackle SirVincent Rogers and safety Ethan Kilmer left camp earlier. What does this all mean? It means they had no chance to make the team and decided to get on with their lives. Oftentimes, players who quit camp believe that the NFL is a wonderful dream, but the reality of playing in it is difficult.
I always felt that when a player came to my office to quit, I could tell if his heart was not in the game. Once you lose your heart and your passion, you’re better off removing yourself from the game. There’s no sense trying to talk a player out of quitting once he’s made up his mind because the NFL requires great skill and a great commitment. If you’re lacking in one area, you will hurt yourself and the team.
Interesting article. How the mighty have fallen.
As an aside, can you please get rid of the red bottom bar on the website. It is really annoying that I have to click it closed every time I come to the website if I want to see the full screen. Really annoying.
The mighty did not fall as Vince Young was never mighty. : )
I'd have more hope for the guy if he wasn't such an oddball headcase. I am a believer that as long as a QB moves the ball (with his legs or arm) he can be considered to be doing his job, however the gap in running or throwing effectiveness is too wide for VY. I believe that Vick passed the test because his yards gained by running was so superior to anyone else's that he could get away with being inaccurate (in other words his y/run made up for his y/p and his turnover's evened out). VY, not so much. There is the issue of leadership and VY seems (I'm not in the huddles and can't really say) to be lacking in that department especially.
Lombardi,
it's sad to see Young's regression but perhaps he never really was that good if we're to honestly evaluate his statistics. As for the Dolphins, those players, judging by their attitudes, wouldn't have made the team better anyway. I just don't see how Miami regresses this season. Sparano and Parcells are a dynamic duo and Chad Pennington never makes mistakes (unless he's playing Baltimore in the playoffs, of course) so even if they don't significantly improve, they're still a playoff team. When Henne steps in, Miami could be legitimate contenders should my assessments be accurate. Thanks again!
That is a good sign for the Phins, the camp is so good that chaff is seperated to save the GM time and money doing the same.
Lombardi --
Were you high on VY before or after the Rose Bowl win? I'm not an avid college fan, but I catch a few of the marque games each season. It surprises me after watching pro games how slow and chaotic the college game is. But if you watch you can spot the kids who will play on Sunday. They look like men playing with boys. Although I thought VY was athletic I never saw a pro-quality QB there. The way he threw the ball was horrible. Not very accurate in college will kill you in the NFL. I always thought that Young's great play in the Rose was the reason he vaulted over Leinhert and Cutler that year. Kind of crazy if you ask me.
BTW, I have the same feeling about Tebow although I think he's a little bit better in the passing game and seems to be smarter also. But some idiotic team will take him way too next year if Florida repeats.
VY's time in Tennessee is winding down big time. It is amazing how this guy's career has spiraled downward. I don't think he has the overall emotional makeup to be a starting QB in the league for an extended period of time. I watched the Bills-Titans game on Sunday. He did look tentative. I am a Bills fan. Their defense isn't that good, at all. They can't rush the passer to save their life. The Bills' depth on defense is less than impressive. I know it is preseason. I know there is a feeling that no team truly goes all out in preseason games. He was going against second-string scrubs on defense for the Bills. He looked like he didn't even belong on the field in a preseason game. Young's hopes as a starting QB look less and less like they will be realized with the Titans. I don't envision him ever being the Titans' starting QB again unless Collins gets injured.
I would love to know what Young's offseasons have been like. Has he worked hard on his release, his drop-backs, timing with receivers etc? I felt he had a chance to leverage his unique skill set but only with a lot of work.
When you watch Vince Young play he passes the talent portion of the show,.... check.
When you hear VY speak you realize he's a fairly intelligent guy,... check.
So that leaves Heart and Vince Young as the Tin Man.
Perhaps Tenn could trade him to Miami and he could just quit,.... like he did on the field last year on his team.
Agree on Vince. I was high on him because I thought he would sit a year or so behind McNair. Since they had the same styles and were buddies, I thought it was ideal. Then "The Trade" happened... so it just didn't work out. After coming back to beat the Giants after being 21 pts down in the fourth quarter.... I still had hope for Vince. Then it was the quad injury against Tampa in 2007. Whatever. That became the excuse for the entire 2007 season. Then the loss to SD in the playoffs. You can't win playoff games kicking field goals, and Vince couldn't get the damn ball in the endzone. Then... well.... we all know what happened last year. Another "injury" and another whiney-baby year.
I've come to the conclusion that Vince Young is another faux injury away from throwing his career down the tubes. I look for a tweaked ankle, a hammy, or a shoulder injury to become the excuse when Patrick Ramsey becomes the #2 in Tennessee.
Honestly.... with that quirked-up throwing motion of his, he's never going to get any arch on his throws. If there is a defender cutting off the passing lane, Vince has to look right or left to even have a chance at completing the pass. Then... the angle of the pass is only going to net him about 4 yards. He's playing on a flat plane. X and Y. There is no Z or third dimension when Vince makes a pass. He's still playing "Pong" in a world where everyone else is playing "XBox" and "Wii". (Although, I do remember that Denver game, Mike. Great game. But.... he incurred/aggravated an injury in that game trying to get into the endzone....).
So... in short.... we have an overpaid, injury-prone, excuse-making crybaby who hasn't improved in three years, going on the fourth year. When I was in third grade, I had to learn to write in cursive and name the planets before they promoted me to fourth grade. It's the way the world works. You improve, you move. If you (not you, Mike) still think Vince Young deserves yet another chance or "just needs some time" to improve... you have your head up Uranus.
I also watched the Titans - Bills game. I came away wondering if VY can even beat out Patrick Ramsey for the 2nd string job. I honestly don't believe he will. I expect he will be looking for work by the end of training camp unless a light comes on in the next couple preseason games.
I always thought Vince was a great athlete but an average QB. His release is just too long and because of that, I think that effects his accuracy. Accuracy is the 1st or 2nd most valuable thing if you're gonna be a QB, imo, after height, weight. I think many of us compare him to ex-QB/Randell Cunningham and just by looking at his stats, he wasn't consistantly hitting 58% or more of his passes each year. ( Maybe that's not a fair argument since so many years have passed since then. Maybe a lot more offenses show many more short passes these days. )
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CunnRa00.htm
Sorry Michael, but this article shows either some terrible fact-checking or extreme bias. You wrote: "He completed 62 percent of his passes, but he only managed to throw for slightly more than five yards per attempt (great passers have to be over seven per attempt)."
In the 2007 season, Vince Young did complete 62.3 percent of his 382 pass attempts (238 completions) for 2,546 yards. That equates to 6.665 YPA, not what I'd consider "slightly more than five YPA," and certainly closer to the seven YPA number that you say great passers should have. That's a higher YPA than Kerry Collins had in 2008 (6.4).
I don't disagree with the overall opinion of the article, but as a Titans fan that line stuck out to me as I immediately recognized it to be incorrect.
The Vince Young story is over? A contract might be in the way of it ending now.
The man might need to be the person who talks with Coach Dungy(ret.) about more than just playing football.
Blah Blah blah stats stats stats Do you actually watch the games or do you just look at the stats and write from there. Saying Vince never showed signs of greatness is ignorance. Do you remember the game against the texans in Houston. 50 yard TD run in OT for the win. That is what great players do, win games. And that is what VY would do if he wasnt handcuffed by our coaching staff. Also, I am so sick and tired of hearing about his td/int ratio in his first two years. He didn't have any receiving options, Brady or Manning wouldn't have had much better numbers. VY for president, or at least give him his starting job back. -peace
I wonder if the problem with Young - and with other super-mobile quarterbacks in the NFL - isn't so much a lack of talent as it is a lack of imagination on the part of NFL coaches. We already know it's a league beset by a punishing lack of creativity - hence the "it's a copycat league" refrain. Vince Young was able to dominate - not merely get by, but dominate - every level of football that he played before he got to the NFL, and yet he's been a train-wreck as an NFL player. Why? It's clear that he's a great natural football player - pure, old-fashioned pocket passer or not - and if NFL coaches are truly as knowledgeable, passionate, and imaginative about the game of football as their stature (and salaries) seem to suggest, it should never be the case that a great natural football player like Vince Young is somehow magically immune to succeeding at the NFL level. He's a square peg, and coaches keep trying to ram him into a round hole, and then the story-line is that he's a failure for not fitting. The guy made a celebrity out of himself by winning football games with his feet, his toughness, and his competitive spirit, and the Titans (and, presumably, other NFL teams that would have drafted him) though the logical response to that was to design an offense for him that required him to stand stock-still in a pocket and make accurate passes. That's not who he is, and the failure of coaching at the NFL level is as much to blame for his flame-out as anything. If the Miami Dolphins could win a division title running a Wildcat offense with a stiff like Chad Pennington at QB, certainly the Titans ought to have been capable of finding a way of making a pure football player like Vince Young into an effective player, whether he aced the Wonderlic tests or not.
For the record, you would expect a player's progress to stall when benched for an entire season, especially considering he is now only entering his fourth season in the NFL. Statistically, Vince Young is not the best quarterback, nor will he ever be. The only stat that I consider important is wins, and Young went 18-11 in his first two seasons on a team that had previously gone 4-12. Also remember Tennessee's playoff game against the Ravens, which showed how ineffective and pitiful our offense is without Chris Johnson. One thing Young can do is create plays, and given the potent rushing attack and stalwart defense we had last year, he could have thrived as well. Before you throw him under the bus, remember that he took a team without any offensive weapons to the playoffs in only his second season.
Umm TitansMatt - name the receivers Tom Brady had during his three Super Bowl wins.
To be sure when I saw him play at Texas I thought he was a great player - a man among boys. But he's been forgettable in the NFL, completely forgettable. The earlier comment about the comparison with Alex Smith is very enlightening though.
Umm TitansMatt - name the receivers Tom Brady had during his three Super Bowl wins.
To be sure when I saw him play at Texas I thought he was a great player - a man among boys. But he's been forgettable in the NFL, completely forgettable. The earlier comment about the comparison with Alex Smith is very enlightening though.
For the record, you would expect a player's progress to stall when benched for an entire season, especially considering he is now only entering his fourth season in the NFL. Statistically, Vince Young is not the best quarterback, nor will he ever be. The only stat that I consider important is wins, and Young went 18-11 in his first two seasons on a team that had previously gone 4-12. Also remember Tennessee's playoff game against the Ravens, which showed how ineffective and pitiful our offense is without Chris Johnson. One thing Young can do is create plays, and given the potent rushing attack and stalwart defense we had last year, he could have thrived as well. Before you throw him under the bus, remember that he took a team without any offensive weapons to the playoffs in only his second season.
Vince Young is just a winner. He throws up horrible numbers, but when it is crunch time he would pull it together. It was like that for the first two years, but now he has lost his mental toughness. If he can put all of his past behind him and go into the season with a more mature and confident attitude he may could turn his career around.
Why does everyone harp on Vince Young? Have Leinart, or Bush done a darn thing? And they WON THE HEISMAN. In their first year in the league Young almost had more rushing yards than Bush, but no one ever mentions that because people LOVE USC, and hate everyone and anything out-of-the state of Texas. Media bias. Yes. Just pay attention. Jeff Fisher is the worst coach VY could ever hope to play for. Why? Fisher's style of winning isn't condusive to Young's strengths. Fisher wants to win games 10-9. In essence just hand the ball off, and win with your defense and kicker. You saw just how vunerable the Titans were in the playoffs whenever Chris Johnson got hurt. Kerry Collins WILL NOT win you games. He's a bus driver as Bill Parcells would say. I hope the Titans let Vince go. Fisher (just like the rest of his USC alums) have never, ever put past them that VY single handily beat the beloved Trojans. He's not even getting a fair shake. You don't do what he did at Texas, and in the first year with Tennessee, and NOT have talent. The Titan's are NOT using him properly. I hope all the Texas players leave once their contracts are up. A VERY, VERY poorly coached team with a less than mediocre front office.
LOVE YOUR ARTICLES , VINCE YOUNG I THOUGHT WAS THE NEXT MICHAEL VICK NOT TOO SAY VINCE YOUNG WAS NOT EXCITING ON SUNDAY THE KEY WORD " WAS"
BUT TO QUOTE A LINE FROM THE MOVIE MOONSTRUCK "SNAP OUT OF IT" MAYBE A MOVE FROM THE TITANS MIGHT HELP BUT UNLESS HE PICKS UP FROM O7 HE MIGHT BE A BACK UP FOR LIFE . AND THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF QUATERBACKS IN THE LEAUGUE.
AND WITH MIKE VICK LOOKING FOR EMPLOYMENT VINCE NEEDS A REALITY CHECK!!!!
Michael, your timing was spot on with this pronouncement. In the Titan's very next game, against Tampa Bay, Young sunk to his lowest point ever. Even though Fisher left him in for well over a quarter, he only led two scoring drives, and he only had one 38 yard touchdown pass, a 64% completion percentage, and a 118 QB rating. And, he couldn't even manage to muster a single INT or lost fumble. After a performance like that, the Titan's are sure to release him on Monday morning, and we can all quit talking about this guy for good. THE END!! You're a genius!!
If Vince Young is such a bad QB, how did he get to the playoffs? How did he lead the Titans to 10 wins in '07? How did he make the pro bowl?
The guy had ONE incident. One. He was upset about being booed by his hometown fans.
But of course, once a black athlete is considered "troubled," it's all over. Jay Cutler can be as much of a jerk as he wants to, but VY gets upset ONCe and its all over.
The Titans should cut him if they think he can't play. Let another team pick him up. Watch how bad he is.
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Aug 11, 2009
11:53 AM
Wow, I forgot that VY made the Pro Bowl in 2006. Was the AFC that bad or were people just blind? Take a look at his 2006 when everyone was aglow with his play, versus Alex Smith that year when people were still calling him a disappointment:
VY: 184 -357, 51.5%. 2199 yds, 12 TD, 13 INTs. QB rating of 66.7
Smith: 257-442, 58.1%. 2890 yds, 16 TD, 16 INTs. QB rating of 74.8.
That was the last year Smith was healthy (thanks Mike Nolan) and he was clearly making serious progress under the tutelage of Norv Turner. People forget that he was developing nicely until Nolan threw him to the wolves. Don't count out Alex Smith this year.