| Anthony Holds. 10th September, 2008 - 1:20 pm
 After Sunday’s hard-fought divisional win over Jacksonville, three areas are difficult to debate:
1) Chris Johnson looks like the real deal and is going to steal a lot of touches from Lendale White over the course of this season.
2) The Titans' defense looked fantastic, holding the Jags' vaunted running attack to 33 yards on the ground and limiting Jacksonville to only 189 yards overall, good for third in the league after Week One.
3) Vince Young has not significantly improved since his rookie year, and there can be a case made for the fact that he has regressed.
While the first two items are certainly great news for the Titan faithful, the last is particularly painful when you consider that Tennessee could be lining up right now, and probably legitimately moving into contention with Jay Cutler (a hometown collegian from Vanderbilt, no less) at the helm. Cutler, who has improved steadily the last two seasons, looked positively phenomenal in his first game of the season for the Denver Broncos Monday night while Vince Young slinked off the field, threw his helmet, and then sat alone on the bench Sunday in a shower of boos after throwing two picks. And then he injured his knee.
Word from Titans' Coach Jeff Fisher is that test results on the knee Tuesday revealed “good news” and that Young has a sprained MCL, will not be having surgery, but will still be out for a while. Two to four weeks has been floated by some as a notional time frame, but Fisher is only confirming right now that Young will be out for this coming week’s game against Cincinnati.
The primary question raised by Vince Young’s performance over the last season-plus-one-game, though, is this: Are the Titans potentially better off without him? Kerry Collins is no pillar of quarterbacking greatness, but the moments surrounding his entrance into the game Sunday almost seemed portentous. With 4:14 remaining in the fourth quarter, and the Titans' offense struggling to cling to a 10-7 lead, Young was suddenly down, holding his knee. Collins warmed up quickly, came into the game, and immediately hit tight end Bo Scaife on a screen pass that went for 44 yards in the face of an all-out blitz by the Jaguars. Four plays later, Lendale White went for the touchdown that ended up securing the victory for Tennessee.
Even more troubling than Young’s on-field performance Sunday was what went on off the field in the 48 hours that followed. Young’s physical gifts are undeniable. But once you get past those, you’re in very dicey territory. This was confirmed once again in a drama that played out in Nashville on Monday. First he missed (skipped?) his scheduled MRI, which had to be rescheduled for Tuesday. Then, according to various reports, Young left the company of family and friends that evening in such a state of mind that they were concerned for his safety. Jeff Fisher was contacted. He, in turn, called the Nashville police. Finally, four hours later, Young was located at a friend’s house where, according to his agent, he was munching chicken wings and watching football. After a late night meeting with police and Coach Fisher at the Titans’ facility, all was declared to be fine.
Now, consider the fact that teams are generally (and understandably) less than forthcoming with the more private details of events like these, and you are left wondering exactly how much more there was to this episode. Add in Young’s professed thoughts of retirement after his rookie season, and last season’s training camp fight and subsequent preseason suspension, and you start to feel as if this might be someone emotionally incapable of dealing with the stresses of his chosen occupation.
This was Week One. One bad performance and an injury, and Young is at the snapping point already? Week Twelve if his team has fallen to 2-9, maybe. But now? How do you go forward confident that this man can lead your team… anywhere? How many successful NFL quarterbacks exhibit behaviors like this? Names like Ryan Leaf come to mind, but he’s hardly good company. Clearly, the answer will ultimately become clear, but for now, Tennessee fans are left with nothing but questions – the foremost being, are we better off with this guy on the sideline? Or even in another uniform? |
