FanPost

This is getting out of hand

I think that WAAYY too many people are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill with this Vince Young thing.

Vince had a bad day.  In fact, it was one of his worst games I've watched.  His behavior is inexcusable, but the fact that people are calling for his head is ridiculous.  Others have mentioned this before, but with an athlete like Vince, he has always been the best player on the field.  Failure is unfamiliar territory.  So, in his third year as an NFL quarterback (which alone has it's own growing pains), there is a changing of the guard and he has to learn a completely new offense.  As evidenced in the preseason and this last game, it hasn't "clicked" yet. 

A string of events starts...Vince makes a terrible read and throws right to the safety in underneath coverage.  VY makes a couple of good throws that are either dropped, or not caught up to on go routes because the receivers slow down.  Last, he is picked off in a fluke interception by a defensive end.  That's the boiling point, and Vince loses it.  Danno hit the nail on the head when he said that we pay him enough money that he shouldn't pout.  That point is well taken, but let's also not forget that he is still human.  I'm sure many of you have had a bad day at the office, blown up at a coworker and regretted it.

I'd also point out that most are trying to draw conclusions without all the pertinent information.  The reality is that unless you know Keith Bullock personally, there is no way you can understand what his motivations were by saying the defense "[didn't] quit."  Similarly, we don't know what was said in the exchange between Haynesworth/Heimerdinger/Fisher and Vince.  Until we see how this all plays out, I'd encourage you all to hold off on judgements.

Now, at the end of the day/season, the reality of our quarterback situation is that we need more production.  Criticisms on that end area are clearly warranted and a serious concern.  In that vein, I think that a lot needs to be put on the shoulders of the coaching staff.  Chris Johnson is a start, but Vince Young needs weapons.  Did anyone else see Desean Jackson on Sunday?  I still think it was a mistake not to trade up for him in the second round.  Without some real weapons to stretch the field, an offense run by Vince Young will never really hum.  This leads me to my next point.

What I saw yesterday was more of the same, an offense not suited for Vince Young.  Many of the VY haters have the same criticisms abouy VYs accuracy and his inability to be a prototypical NFL QB.  In a lot of the cases they are right.  Fisher had to know what he was getting into when he drafted Vince Young.  He's not Cutler; he's not Leinart.  Vince is a once in a generation athlete that happens to play the quarterback position. 

Vince is a system quarterback.  There, I said it.  Unless you put him in a situation where the defense always has to account for his legs, he will be set to fail.  The bottom line is that a team has to be built around his strengths, not the other way around.  The problem here is that is a huge investment on the part of the Titans organization; a blind leap of faith.  The information they have thusfar shows a unpredictable, inconsistent quarterback.  But, that information isn't entirely accurate because the statistics are born from a system that isn't built around what makes Vince so dangerous.  So, they are in some sort of a gray area.  One one hand, it certainly isn't the same grind it out Fisher offense of yesteryear (though it looks that way on paper).  On the other hand, it isn't exactly a spread offense run out of the shotgun either.  Now, say what you want about spread offenses in the NFL, but I've seen no evidence that shows they can't work.  And, given that Vince was the greatest player to ever run that sort of offense in college, isn't he exactly the guy you'd want to run that litmus test?

Enough of the rambling, let me get to the point here.  The frustrations we saw on Sunday are not going away any time soon unless the Titans completely rework the offense.  Fisher would do good by have a long conversation with Mack Brown about this issue.  My fear is that Fisher/the Titans don't have it in them to put all their eggs in one basket with Vince.  And, I can't really blame them.  But, without that sort of commitment to build the future of the team around VY, I can't see him reaching his full potential.