VINCE YOUNG IS RESTLESS

“I definitely want to get back out there playing ball and picking up where I left off, winning games and having a good time with my teammates and with the fans, at the same time, if them guys don’t want me to be in there, it’s time for me to make a career change for myself. Because the fact is I’m ready to play ball. If they’re not ready for me to play ball, then somebody is.”
(I do apologize for the incorrect use of the word them in the opening quote, but it is a quote, and that is exactly what he said. He was a star football player at Texas, do you really think he was forced to pay attention in all of his English classes? )

This is a statement that Vince Young made to a Baltimore media outlet concerning his current position on the Titans quarterback depth chart. Kerry Collins is currently the starter. He led the Titans to a 13 – 3 record and the AFC South Championship. Vince Young is currently the backup quarterback, and it looks like his only hope of starting for the Titans is if Collins gets injured or retires.

There were many people in the media who took shots at Young for making these comments. They made it seem as though he was whining or sulking and basically being a BRETT FAVRE (my new official term for DIVA), by saying that he must be given the starting job or he will take his ball and go home. In my opinion, these guys have it all wrong. Personally, I don’t have a problem with Young’s comments at all. What he was saying was that he has been working hard and really wants a chance to win back his old job (that he should have never had). I gather that he wants to play, and he feels that he is good enough to be someone’s starting quarterback, whether it is in Tennessee or elsewhere.

I applaud Young’s comments, because it shows that he is not content being a backup. Let’s be honest, does anyone want a player on their team who is content to be a backup. I want a team full of guys that will work their hardest to always get better and be on the field as much as possible. What do you think those same critics of Young would be saying if he instead said, “Man, I have the best job in the world. They just paid me over $7 million last season to wear a baseball cap and hold a clipboard. I can’t wait until next season starts so that I can watch Kerry do his thing, while I do my best Peerless Price impersonation and continue to rob them blind.” If that was his comment, everyone would be saying that we need a guy on our team that has more competitive fire and that is not content to be a backup. Truth be told, the best thing that Vince could have done was say nothing, because he was definitely in a no-win situation. He was going to be criticized no matter what he said.

Now, I must be honest. Although I applaud Young’s competitive fire and his desire to get back on the field, I must say that if he or anyone else believes that he can be a starting quarterback on a good team in this league, they are out of their minds. If you look at Vince Young’s history in the NFL, it is easy to see how he has a distorted view of his abilities. First of all, he was drafted waaaayyyy to high (He was drafted third overall in the 2006 draft, but that was also the year that Vernon Davis was drafted sixth overall by San Francisco. Let’s just say that the talent evaluators had an off year). That must have really had him thinking that he was the man. Then things got even more distorted when he was named Rookie of the Year (this was really because he turned out to be a better rookie running back than Reggie Bush and Maurice Jones-Drew). To make matters worse, he even made the Pro Bowl (actually he was an injury replacement’s, injury replacement). So basically, Young got a lot of undeserved accolades very early in his career, which gave him a supreme sense of entitlement.

The truth of the matter is, Vince Young has a loooonnnnng way to go before I would feel comfortable with him as my starting quarterback. There are those that would look at the fact that Young led the Titans to 8 wins as a rookie and 10 wins in second season, and say that he is a winner no matter what his statistics say. I strongly disagree. As a matter of fact, I can honestly say that the Titans had that moderate level of success IN SPITE OF Vince Young’s play at quarterback. His career statistics are simply terrible (for a lack of a better word). First of all, he has thrown for less than 5,000 yards in his entire career (33 games played). To put that in perspective, Peyton Manning threw for over 4,500 in 2004 alone. Tom Brady threw for over 4,800 in 2007. As a matter of fact, Brady’s 2007 total is only 158 yards less than Young’s career total. Drew Brees threw for 5,069 yards last season (105 more than Young’s career total), and even fellow 2006 draftee Jay Cutler topped 4,500 yards last season. I know that you are thinking that all of these players played with good to great wide receivers. That is true, but Donovan McNabb didn’t have a proven receiver going into last season and he still threw for almost 4,000 yards. Further proof that the Titans were winning in spite of Young’s play at quarterback can be seen in his 0.69 to 1 career touchdown to interception ratio (22 touchdowns to 32 interceptions). This means that he throws far less than one touchdown for every interception that he throws. Michael Vick (who is routinely criticized for his passing skills) even has a touchdown to interception ratio of 1.39 to 1, which is double that of Young. Basically he is half the passer that Michael Vick is/was (which is not saying much at all). Ideally, you would want this number to be 2 to 1 or higher, which Young’s is not even close to accomplishing. As a matter of fact, he has never thrown more touchdowns than interceptions in any NFL season.

Vince Young is a great athlete, but a terrible quarterback. I love his desire and competitive fire, but I hate his work ethic. While I have never attended a Titans practice, I am fairly comfortable saying that he doesn’t work hard because he is one player that I can honestly say has not gotten any better since he left college. There has been absolutely NO IMPROVEMENT IN HIS GAME. He is the same player that he was when he entered the league, and that player is not ready to be anyone’s starter.

My advice to Vince is to learn as much as you can from Collins, study film like there is no tomorrow and throw, throw, throw. Practice makes perfect. I sincerely hope that you are putting the work in, and will be ready when you get another opportunity to start. I wouldn’t give you that opportunity, but I am sure that someone definitely will.

AND NOW FOR MY BALLER & SCRUB OF THE WEEK

BALLER: Chad Ochocinco (Wide Receiver Cincinnati Bengals) - You earn this honor because you finally realized that the Bengals WILL NOT TRADE YOU, no matter what you do. That being said, all signs point to you working hard this off-season to return to the beast of a receiver that you truly are. No matter what the haters say, the game needs you. Football is at its best when Chad Ochocinco is at his best. Now go ball out and lead the Bengals to the playoffs. Carson is healthy, so THERE ARE NO EXCUSES!

SCRUB: Chad Ochocinco (Wide Receiver Cincinnati Bengals) - You get this dubious distinction for not being prepared at all for last season. I heard you say in a recent interview that you didn't lift one weight, run one route, or excercise in preparation for last season. Even if you were focused on getting out of Cincy, you should have prepared and played your hardest. I mean, you did cash thier checks, didn't you? The fans still bought expensive tickets in a recession to see you play, didn't they? I appreciate your honesty, but you should be ashamed of yourself. I EXPECT AN ALL-PRO SEASON THIS YEAR! Now go ball out and lead the Bengals to the playoffs. Carson is healthy, so THERE ARE NO EXCUSES!

DEATH OF THE QUARTERBACK

Without a doubt, the most important position on the football field is the quarterback. If you don’t believe me, just take a look around the NFL. The teams that get good consistent play from their quarterbacks (i.e. the Colts, Patriots, Chargers, Eagles, and Steelers) are regular post-season participants, while the teams that are inconsistent at that position struggle to make the playoffs with any regularity (i.e. the 49er’s, Chiefs, Raiders, Bills, and the infamous Lions). Of course, as with anything else there are some exceptions. For instance, Baltimore’s defense has traditionally been good enough to overcome the lack of a consistent quarterback. On the other end of the spectrum, there are players like Drew Brees and Jay Cutler who aren’t annually competing for a playoff spot simply because their teams have terrible defenses. Whatever the case may be, it is fair to say that in the NFL the quarterback is usually the difference between a winning team and a losing team. Even in Baltimore’s case, the quarterback has to be good enough to stay out of the way of the defense.

With this thought in mind, I am sad to announce that in the coming years the quality of quarterback play in the NFL will decline tremendously. I am placing the blame for this on one group of people, COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACHES! Gimmick offenses are the new flavor of the month in college football. You have the “Spread (running) Option” of West Virginia, the “Spread (passing & running) Option” of Florida, and the glorified “Run – and – Shoot” of Texas Tech, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Add to that the “Triple Option” of Georgia Tech, the “Snap it to Pryor and Get Out of the Way” of Ohio State, and you have a host of teams that put quarterbacks on the field who never truly learn to read a defense and go through progressions. The list goes on, because I didn’t even bother to mention the host of teams who run some copycat form of one of these offenses (with no success at all).

Obviously, there are several reasons why these gimmick offenses have become so popular in college football. For example, the reason that West Virginia and Florida run their versions of the “Spread Option” is to simply keep the ball in the hands of their best players as much as possible. In the case of both teams, that player is the quarterback. As far as the “Run – and – Shoot” offense, teams simply have more good receivers than the opposition has defensive backs. The triple option on the other hand is a fairly safe offense and is hard for opponents to prepare for, because there aren’t many teams at the highest level of college football who run such an offense. As for Ohio State, they run the “Snap it to Pryor and Get Out of the Way” for two reasons. The first of which is that Terrell Pryor is a great athlete and the second is that Coach Sweater-vest (Jim Tressel) doesn’t have any offensive imagination.

All of these offenses are fine and well in the college game, and I don’t fault the coaches for doing what they feel will give their teams the best chance to win. However, they are doing kids who dream of playing quarterback in the NFL a huge disservice and all but ensuring that NFL teams will have to spend extra time teaching new quarterbacks the basics of playing the position.

One would think that at the professional level, coaches would not have to spend time teaching quarterbacks how to do such basic things as take a snap from under center, go through progressions, or identify a defensive formation. However, the under-development of these skills in college football will dictate that NFL quarterback coaches spend a lot of time working with the quarterback on these things. A lot of college quarterbacks go their entire college career without taking a single snap from under center. Taking a snap from center is a mandatory requirement in the NFL because your footwork has to be on point in order for the timing of routes to work and because being in shotgun all the time severely limits the amount of running plays at your disposal. The other problem with the gimmick offenses is that the majority of them are one-read offenses. This basically means that the quarterback has a predetermined receiver that he is supposed to pass the ball to, and if that receiver is not open he should keep the ball and run it himself. That is another philosophy that simply won’t work in the NFL, because good NFL defensive coordinators usually scheme to take away your first option on most pass plays. Therefore it is very important that the quarterback learns to go through his progressions and get to his second, third, or even fourth receiver. Oh, by the way he needs to be able to do this is about four seconds. If you are an NFL quarterback and you don’t have the speed of Michael Vick; running is not an option, it is only to be done as a last resort. Teams really don’t like their quarterbacks running around because they make too much money to risk injury taking open field hits and because defensive ends in the NFL run like college running backs, so the chances of them catching you are very high. In short, if an NFL team tried to run Florida’s, West Virginia’s, or Georgia Tech’s offense, they would have to change its name. It wouldn’t be called an “option”, it would be called INJURED RESERVE!!!! NFL defensive players and coaches would LOVE to play against these offenses, and the shelf life of quarterbacks would be greatly reduced.

Most of the college football fans that I know enjoy the college game because of the excitement associated with seeing so many completely different offensive styles. I on the other hand, enjoy the precision of NFL offenses. Moderately skilled college quarterbacks can have a great deal of success in that game because receivers are allowed to routinely get wide open in their routes. A college receiver is open when he has the defender beat by five yards or so. Therefore it isn’t hard to get him the ball. On the other hand, a receiver in the NFL is open if he is running even with the defender, but has inside position. The NFL quarterback is expected to be able to not only get him the ball, but get him the ball IN STRIDE! At the rate that the college game is going, there will be very few quarterbacks entering the league in the coming years who are talented enough to even attempt such a throw. The Tennessee Titans are already realizing that they wasted the third overall draft pick in the 2006 draft on a quarterback who can’t throw the football (in my opinion his passing has not improved one bit since he arrived at the University of Texas). Trust me, other teams learned from their mistake, which is why Tim Tebow or Pat White won’t be drafted early to play quarterback. Ohio State’s Terrell Pryor is very similar to what Young was at Texas, which means he has a lot of work to do if he plans on ever being an NFL quarterback. He has plenty of time, and I hope he is successful.

I am not saying that every NFL quarterback has to be a classic drop-back passer in the mold of Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, and Carson Palmer. In fact I would love to have a duel threat lead my team (i.e. Donovan McNabb, Steve Young, Michael Vick, and even David Garrard), as long as they are truly a duel threat and not a player that couldn’t throw a football in an ocean like Young and (currently) Pryor.

I believe that two of these “gimmick” quarterbacks have bright NFL futures at the position. The two players that I am a referring to are Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy. They are in the minority of those who seem to actually be able to go through progressions and are also very accurate with their passes. The simply have to learn to take snaps from under center and get their footwork together.

Year in and year out, the best rookie NFL quarterbacks come from colleges that play a “Pro-Style” offense. Look at Matt Ryan and Joe Flaco. That was also the case with Phillip Rivers, Ben Rothlisberger, and Eli Manning, all of whom were in the 2004 draft and were still alive in the playoffs this past weekend. Jay Cutler belongs in this group as well. This will also be the case with this year’s draft, where Matthew Stafford (from Georgia) is likely to be the first quarterback taken. He comes from a “Pro-Style” offense and has proto-type NFL size and a rocket arm. He already knows how to take a snap from under-center and read a defense. Although there have been some busts who came from traditional offenses, there have been very few that have been successful from “gimmick offenses”.


AND NOW FOR MY BALLER & SCRUB OF THE WEEK!

BALLER: Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona Cardinals) - Fitzgerald had 8 catches for 166 yards and 1 touchdown while leading the Cardinals to the NFC Championship game by crushing the Carolina Panthers 33-13.

SCRUB: Jake Delhomme (Carolina Panthers) - Delhomme helped lead the Arizona Cardinals to the NFC Championship game by completing a very Favre like 5 passes to thier defensive backs. Just for good measure he also lost a fumble.