On Monday, Titans quarterback Vince Young told WMAR-TV in Baltimore that he wants a chance to play or he wants out of Tennessee.
Young lost his starting job to Kerry Collins last year when he struggled horribly in new coordinator Mike Heimerdinger’s offense, then sprained his MCL in Week 1. “If them guys don’t want me to be in there, it’s time for me to make a career change,” he said. “I’m ready to play ball. If they’re not ready for me to play ball, then somebody is.” The Titans say V.Y. will compete in camp, but he’d have to outplay Collins by a huge margin to regain the position.
As a football fan, I can’t respect that. I can’t respect an athlete saying, ‘If my team doesn’t want me, then I’ll find someone else who will.’
How about competing for once? How about going out on the field and proving that you’re better than the guy you’re competing against?
See, that’s the trouble with athletes these days – they get everything handed to them. From the moment their talents are recognized as youths, everything is given to them and they rarely have to earn playing time. It’s no wonder we as a society like hearing about stories of players who were always told they weren’t good enough. It’s because those players had to work for everything they got and they never stop working, even when they’ve “made it.”
Young was a god at Texas, so when he got to the NFL he must have figured that everything would continue to be taken care of for him. And when shit hit the fan, what happened? He hid behind his fragile emotions instead of fighting to stay on the field.
The Titans want somebody who’ll fight for a win every week, which is why Kerry Collins will remain the starter. If Young wants his job back, he has to earn it and just based on his comments from the TV interview, I’m not sure he’s willing to work for it. He’d rather have the job handed back to him and be coddled for the rest of his career.
Granted, I didn’t see the interview so maybe I’m taking what he said out of context. But based on the quotes from him above, Young needs to grow a pair and challenge Collins for the right to play on Sundays instead of whining about how Tennessee might not want him. They gave him $58 million to be the starter – they want him to play. He just has to want it for himself.
