Titans By the Numbers: #10

A quick announcement; Titans By The Numbers will now include just one player per week. Hope this isn't too much of a disappointment, I just feel like the overall quality would improve if I could narrow my focus.

Enough about that, let's continue with number ten.

Some of you have been dreading it, a few of you have been eagerly anticipating it, it's the new politics and religion, welcome to the Vince Young post.

Career Achievements: Rose Bowl MVP: 2005, 2006. Davey O'Brien Award, 2005. NFL Rookie of the Year: 2006. Pro Bowl: 2006, 2009.

Maybe it’s not a popular choice, but I have to go with Vince as the best Titan to wear number ten. Despite the meltdowns, toughness questions, and all of the times he confused the hell out of us, Vince produced and endeared himself to a number of fans. Who am I to overlook any of that? 

Most of us know the story, but it can be summed up pretty well in a pretty simple sentence: in college, Vince Young was a demi-god. Maybe one of the top-ten college football players of all time. That National Championship game against USC was the greatest game I've ever watched. I'm sure there were some folks out there who thought that Vince was the wrong pick on draft day, but not too many. Bud Adams considered the fact that he'd dropped all the way to three overall was a minor miracle and just couldn't resist taking his hometown hero despite the fact that there were some concerns with his ability to throw coming out of Texas.

He came in and made a pretty quick impact, starting 13 games for the Titans and taking home Rookie of the Year honors and making the Pro-Bowl in 2006. Things kind of went downhill from here. Young threw nearly twice as many interceptions as he did touchdowns in 2007 and in 2008 he was lost for most of the year with an injury. 09 was a year for redemption as Young turned around the Titans who had entered their bye-week coming off of a 59-0 loss at New England and riding a six game losing streak. Ultimately, the year ended in disappointment for those with playoff aspirations, but it gave us a lot of hope coming into the 2010 season. Young's final, and probably most dramatic, season came this year as the team came storming out of the gate, but ultimately hit a major rough patch against the Redskins and lost Young for the season.

Young never really got a chance to display his fancy new throwing ability this year and that's kind of disappointing for me. His QB rating, TD% and yards per attempt have all gone up in the last three years while his INT% has gone down. He still looked pretty much the same; his deep ball had improved, but the intermediate/short stuff just wasn't there all of the time. Despite his occasional shortcomings as a passer, Vince orchestrated the greatest drive in the history of the regular season against the Arizona Cardinals back in 2010. What a day that was; The touchdown strike to Kenny Britt with no time remaining on the clock to stomp on Matt Leinart's heart yet again. In the end, it will probably the the image that sticks with me the most.

Look, I have a confession to make, I can't hold grudges, I really, really hope Vince finds his way somewhere, just so long as it isn't Jacksonville.