First Official Rusty vs. VY thread

54, this means you.

Rusty Smith is just one of MANY QBS with a good arm who gets brought into NFL training camps every year and generates a little buzz. But for every guy who becomes Tom Brady, Tony Romo or Kurt Warner, there are a dozen (or more) Tyler Thigpens. Rusty Smith went to FAU (instead of FSU, Florida, Miami, USF and even UCF) for a reason. He was a 6th round pick for a reason. Now in minicamp and early in training camp, you get to see the POSITIVES, why the team thought highly enough of him to draft him. But it is only when you put him behind center and ask him to consistently make good decisions and throws on 3rd and long when being blitzed that you can tell whether he is Aaron Rodgers or Patrick Ramsey. Vince Young has been through this already, and he is 26-13 as a starter despite mostly playing for a coach and offensive coordinator who didn’t want him (Jeff Fisher and Norm Chow) and with terrible players at WR and TE to throw the ball to. Young didn’t even have a weapon like Chris Johnson in the backfield until last season. Before then, he was handing off to Chris Brown, LenDale White and Chris Henry.

That’s why this “can Rusty Smith take Vince Young’s job” stuff is nonsense. 90% of the QBs drafted in the NFL never come anywhere near 26 victories as a starter, and usually they get into much better situations than what Young has faced in Tennessee, which is virtually no NFL caliber talent around him at WR, RB and TE plus a coach, offensive coordinator, local media and fan base who for various reasons (because he isn’t Peyton Manning, Jay Cutler or Matt Leinart) doesn’t want him to succeed.

Paul Kuharsky, who has seen all of the 6th round draft pick QBs for the Titans and everyone else come and go, knows this. Yet he was the one to get this “Rusty Smith fan club” going because he is adhering to the ridiculous position that ANY dropback QB would be better than Vince Young. It isn’t about Rusty Smith. It is about getting Tennessee fans to start booing the guy and rooting for somebody else at the first sign of trouble, and it doesn’t matter whether that somebody else is Jay Cutler, Kerry Collins, Chris Simms, Pat Ramsey or Rusty Smith. Kuharsky, Wyatt and his other promoters know that there is only a 5% chance of Smith ever being a successful starting NFL QB. But since he is here, they figure they can do the “why did the Titans draft him if they were sure that Vince Young was the guy” story line (never mind that the Chargers, Colts, Patriots, Saints etc. draft QBs all the time). It isn’t about Rusty Smith, it’s about getting Vince Young out the door.

The amazing thing is that all these guys want Vince Young to fall flat on his face. Well, first if that happens, the Titans won’t replace Young with Rusty Smith. Why? Because he is a 6th round pick from FAU for goodness sakes. You be the guy who goes to Bud Adams and Mike Reinfeldt and tell him how this 6th round pick that not even UCF offered a scholarship to is going to win a Super Bowl for you. No, if Vince Young is cut loose, the Titans will replace him with a first round pick like Jake Locker, Ryan Mallett or Jerrod Johnson. (Bud Adams said so himself.) Second, instead of rooting for Young to fail, if they had any sense, they’d want to trade Young and get something for him, like the Broncos got picks for Cutler, the Panthers got picks when they traded Kerry Collins, the Falcons got picks for Brett Favre, the Redskins got picks for Jason Campbell and the Eagles did also for Donovan McNabb. The fact that they aren’t shows that it is personal. They aren’t even thinking about the best interests for the Titans, about how getting a 2nd or 3rd round pick for Young could be used to get WRs and TEs that can actually get open and catch the ball for the QB that they want to replace Young with. Instead, they are primarily about seeing the guy fail and run out of town.

So end the Rusty Smith talk. He is just a guy that the media is using to run Young out of town. And by going along with it, you aren’t helping Smith’s future. Do you actually WANT Smith to get on the field this year or next year and be expected to play BETTER than Vince Young while throwing to THOSE wide receivers and TEs and with a defense that STILL has all these question marks? Smith isn’t going to cover up all these flaws by forcing defenses to respect his ability to take off and run for 25 yards if they leave a seam on 3rd and long. No, Smith would have to make plays the same way that Peyton Manning and Drew Brees does, and we all know that Tennessee doesn’t have anywhere near the pass catchers that those teams do.

Going along with Kuharsky and Wyatt’s “hate Vince Young” campaign is only setting Smith up to fail, whether it is being thrown in too early to try to lead a terrible team, or getting replaced by Jake Locker. Remember … if it were up to Kuharsky and Wyatt, Kerry Collins would have led Tennessee to an 0-16 season last year and Vince Young would have been released. Both guys were adamant that Young should never see the field in Tennessee again, and that he was allegedly performing far worse than not only Collins but also Pat Ramsey in practice, and also this nonsense about how his teammates didn’t support him and would never trust him again. (Only Gary Estwick reported that Young was actually doing pretty well in practice and that most of his teammates DID support him, which of course is why Estwick was fired.)

I repeat … no one should want a 6th round pick from FAU to lead that offense and be expected to do a better job of making it competitive unless they want that 6th round pick TO FAIL, because that is all he would do. Period. If you want to root for Smith to take over, let it be in a couple of years after the Titans have used some more first round picks at WR and TE so they will actually have the same type of talent at those positions that the other GOOD NFL teams do, and not guys like Nate Washington and Justin Gage (whom the Bears and Steelers didn’t even try to keep) or Lavelle Hawkins, who couldn’t even cut it in college at LSU so he had to transfer to Cal where he only put up decent numbers because DeSean Jackson was getting triple-teamed on the other side. Yes, the Titans’ WRs are just that bad, and the TEs are even worse. You have Bo Scaife and his shredded knees, Ben Troupe 2.0 in Jared Cook, and a couple of glorified offensive linemen in Craig Stevens (THIRD ROUND DRAFT PICK!) and the other guy that they picked up a couple of weeks ago off the street. Yeah, that’s a fine situation for Smith to step into alright. If you want the guy to fail.

Rusty is our backup QB IF VY goes down & once Collins decides to retire (please). Simms is a ? mark.

but also a huge Vince Young fan.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but does VY remind anyone else of Alex Smith? That is to say, he’s a bit of a tease… you know?

Talent-wise, they’re both quite different (with me giving the edge to VY if I’m called to pick someone to start and finish a season), but in terms of making you believe one moment, and then making you skeptical/cynical the next, I think they’re both the same. At least at this point in their careers, they both seem to have that habit of taking one step forward, and then either taking one or two steps back. When he takes one step back, as the head coach you become paralyzed and don’t quite know what to do with the guy. Should he start, or should he not? When he takes two steps back, you pull the plug, and bring in another guy (49ers: Shaun Hill, Titans: Kerry Collins), only to go right back to him due to some kind of showing of “re-dedication” and/or “improvement”.

Like Alice Smith, I hope Vince Young succeeds. I like his character (at least I think it’s good), and I love his game. Anyone who can run all over the field like that is always exciting to watch. If only Smith could win a game the way Young did against the Texans. Wow.

p.s. I don’t know who Rusty is and don’t really care. This was the only thread of Young I could find on the front page. Sorry if my response doesn’t belong.