The expectations on one Vincent Young were extremely high when he walked off the field at the Rose Bowl in January of 2006. The Junior QB of Texas had just single handedly beat what some believed to be one of the best college football teams of all time. As soon as the game was over the specualtion began, "Will VY enter the NFL draft?"
His stock would never be higher than it was after that game. No matter what he did in his senior season, if he chose to go back, would come close to topping that game. It was an easy choice for him to make, right?
One would think but there were a lot of so called experts that had a lot of questions about VY's ability to play QB at the next level. What about his delivery? Is he smart enough to read NFL defenses? Isn't he just another Michael Vick?
Those of us who watched the 2006 Tennessee Titans know the answer to all of these questions. As Titans fans we didn't really know what we were getting when VY was the teams #3 overall selection in the 2006 NFL draft, but boy do we now.
I can throw out his stats,
Passing
184 of 357 (51.5%) for 2,199 yards with 12 TDs and 13 INTs
Rushing
552* yards on 83 rushes (6.7 ypc) with 7 TDs
*all time record for rookie QBs
AP Offensive Rookie of the Year
but stats don't nearly tell the story. Plenty of people are quick to point out the low completion percentage and the TD to INT ratio but wins are all that matter and he just knows how to win games. If you watched the games against the Giants, Texans and Bills you know exactly what I am talking about. He has the ability to raise his level of performance when the game is on the line.
His poise for a rookie was unbelievable. You can tell just by watching him that he expects to win everytime he takes the field and he is never rattled.
Does he have some things to improve on? Of course. Sometimes we forget he was just a rookie this year. He needs to improve his accuracy. The big knock on him coming out was he wouldn't be able to read defenses. I think he did a great job reading defenses this year. Most of his INTs came from passes simply being off the mark.
He needs to make quicker decisions when he is going to tuck the ball and run. You saw him get a lot better at this as the year went on but there is still some room for improvement. If he can see that hole right when it opens up and take off instead of hesitating for even just a split second he will get even more yards on his runs.
They say QBs make their most improvement between season #1 and season #2. That gets me fired up. I can't wait to see how much better he plays next year and how many more wins it translates into for the Titans. The Titans absolutely made the right pick at #3 and I can't wait to watch him lead this franchise to multiple Super Bowl Championships.