The Intangibles Of Vince Young

As a stat guy, I normally HATE "intangibles". Why look at things like "heart" and "grindiness" when you look at the things that ACTUALLY prove why players and teams are good- like statistics. However, I think I have found the one scenario that has met my match- Vince Young.

If you saw Vince Young's numbers without his name, you would think that this guy sucks. Outside of his win/loss record, he has only completed 58.1% of his passes (although to his credit he has never thrown under 61% after his rookie year), only has a little under 6,000 yards in 40 games/ 29 started (to put this into perspective, guys like Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady can get 6,000 yards easily in only 30 games, less than two seasons), and has thrown more INTs (34) than TDs (26) with a measly 6.6 YPA. In his career, Vince Young has only averaged 149.4 yards per game. Most quarterbacks can get that in a half. Young also has a career 71.9 passer rating. These numbers are sup bar at best. But yet the Titans keep winning and winning with him. The Titans are 5-6 and have won their past five games- the only games Vince Young has started this season. The Titans started off 0-6 with Kerry Collins. The only real change the Titans have between their losing record and their winning record this year is Vince Young.

Young is 23-11 (68%) in his career when he starts. That's damn fine. And as a football fan, or as a player on the team, all you really care about is the "W"s right? Normally, in these type of situations, you would credit wins to the team as a whole and not to the crappy QB. But I don't think you can do that with Young, which startles and upsets me as a stat guy.

I think the reason the reason the Titans keep winning games despite the seemingly crappy play of Vince Young, is because Young is able to do great things with his feet as well as be decent to mediocre with his arm. The things that I like about Vince Young and criticized Mike Vick for, is that Young tries to look for an open receiver and when he inevitably doesn't find one, he runs. As opposed to Vick who just instinctively runs because he can. This keeps defenses "honest" (ugh, I hate to use cliches) and helps keeps drives alive. Young only has 907 passing attempts in 40 games and never has hit above 382 in a single season, even when playing 13 and 15 games in his first two years. So while Young may be crappy, he doesn't throw THAT much at all to make his crappiness hurt the team as much as say a Jay Cutler is doing this year.

Young's ability to run and seemingly get first downs helps keep his offense on the field and only helps his team by making easier for his offense to get points, run time off the clock, and keep that amazing Titans D well rested.

It kind of upsets me that I can't explain Vince Young by his numbers and that despite his sub par numbers, Bud Adams and the team made a good decision drafting and starting Young and I think he has deserved to be on the playing field. Maybe respecting his "intangibles" is too strong of a sentiment, but the fact that Young deserves to play by using qualitative instead of quantitative analysis, really says something about this unique situation.