Vince Young

After getting cut by the Titans, Young agreed to a one-year deal to back up Michael Vick in Philadelphia. While it seems that the team is looking at Young purely as an insurance policy, it could be a good one for Young due to Vick's injury history and susceptibility to getting hit after he scrambles. There is no chance that Young will supplant Vick as the starter, but he could find himself on the field if Vick goes down.

Young started 10 games and threw 10 TD passes while kicking in an extra two on the ground. Perhaps there’s upside here, but there’s no denying the downside. Young’s inability to more quickly convince his coaches he could be a valuable starter at quarterback should be viewed as another limiting factor. Other drags are the Titans lack of weapons at receiver and the offense being built around running back Chris Johnson.

With Kerry Collins signing a contract extension in the offseason, Young will certainly begin 2009 as the back-up quarterback and it is not likely that he will return to the starting position unless something dramatic occurs with Collins. His value has dropped significantly since being 'NFL Offensive Rookie-of-the-Year' in 2006 after inconsistent play and some off the field issues arose. He has said publicly that he would like to be a starting quarterback somewhere, and in 2009 he even has competition for the second string position from newly acquired Patrick Ramsey.

Oh, Vince. What happened? Yeah, we didn't like Norm Chow as Young's offensive coordinator even when things were going well because Chow didn't believe in having Young work out of that Texas shotgun on first and second down. That's not his game. He's a multi-dimensional guy who is designed to make plays with his legs and put defenders into the no-man's land of trying to defend both the pass and run. And don't say it can't work because it sure worked at times during Young's rookie year. Young's quick success proved to be his undoing, as it gave the coaching staff the confidence that he could be fully transformed into a pocket passer. The concern with new coordinator Mike Heimerdinger is that he will try to turn Young into Steve McNair, who was always mostly a conventional QB, albeit one who could run well. Young has to be a true hybrid, a guy who can flip the switch and take off for big gains and who uses that threat to dictate coverages and create wide openings in NFL secondaries. Young is never going to be the kind of passer who can consistently find the tight spaces, as he’s not mechanically sound in repeating his delivery. That's no slight. Young is not a mechanical player. We all knew that. He's improvisational and instinctive. But those talents are lost under center, and it's not fair to Young to stick him in the shotgun mostly on passing downs when the defense is more geared to stop him. Young is not a lost cause. He can attack the intermediate areas of the field capably – 83 FAS QB rating. On first downs, he sported a nifty 8.04 YPA. And he did complete 62.3 percent of his passes on all downs, which is better than Eli Manning has ever done. But he's a big-play guy, and those big plays were lacking last year because the coaching staff took Young out of his comfort zone.

We expect Young, like most quarterbacks, to improve in his second year, and it’s likely the improvement will be significant. Young could also be his team’s primary running threat inside the five-yard-line. So, you have to say seven TD runs are the floor. Last year, in his 13 starts, he had 528 yards rushing and 2,066 yards passing. Rushing yards are worth roughly double in most leagues. That’s the equivalent of 3,815 passing yards over a 16-game season. With a 10-percent boost for experience in his second year as a pro, and, more important, second year in the same system, he’s a lock to be Top 5 in yardage points. With TD runs also counting for more than TD passes in most leagues, those eight rushing TDs become 12-16 TD passes. And he threw for just about a TD per start last year. The receivers are nothing special now, but weren’t last year, either. So, you have to give a healthy Young at least 16 TD passes. That adds up to the equivalent of 28-32 TD passes for the non-running QB, which is enough to beat most everyone at the position. We wouldn’t be shocked if Young ran for 10 TDs and threw for 20. Then, you’re really into the stratosphere. We hope the Titans realize that Young ran and threw most effectively out of that Texas-styled shotgun last year. His YPA out of that formation was higher than in the other formation, and his QB rating was 77 versus just 63 when he took snaps from behind center in the I. Young averaged 8.3 yards as a runner out of the shotgun (53 rushes) and just 3.4 on 14 carries out of the I. Young surprised us last year with his 94 QB rating on 86 attempts 11-to-20 yards from scrimmage. That’s about 25 percent of his attempts, too (average is 19 percent). So, the Titans are aggressive with that bread-and-butter, intermediate passing game. There’s a significant injury risk for any running QB, no matter how indestructible Young might seem. So, you must take a backup QB more quickly than with other top QBs. But Young has an instinctive ability to stay on his feet and continue gaining yards while avoiding big shots from opposing defenders with very subtle movements.

Shortly after Young was drafted by the Titans, Trent Dilfer said the following on the NFL Network: “Most people, most traditionalists, don’t believe that Vince Young can become a drop-back, in-the-pocket, NFL passer in this league. I tend to disagree. But I disagree on this notion: he has to be coached the right way. I’m really interested to see how Norm Chow, a guy who has incredible success on the college level developing quarterbacks, teaching him the fundamentals. Teach him every aspect of being a drop-back quarterback. How that transitions into the NFL, taking this incredible athlete, a guy who has been incredibly successful in college football and see if he can mold him and shape him and discipline him into being a drop-back quarterback in the National Football League.” It’s scary to think that Chow, who is known for developing statues like Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, is going to be in charge of transitioning Young into the NFL. If the Titans thinking reflects conventional NFL wisdom as exemplified by Dilfer’s comments, there’s a very good chance that Tennessee will throw the baby out with the bathwater. As the Patriots have proven over recent years, you do not change players to fit your system, rather your system to fit your players.