Evenin' folks.  Hope everyone is fired up for a big weekend of football.  I know I am.  We've got the Bolts vs. the Broncos, OSU vs. USC, Fresno St. vs. Wisonsin, Michigan vs. Notre Dame, and SDSU vs. San Jose State....wait, nobody really cares about that last one, but I'm a San Diego sports fan, and we're always grasping for some sort of hope, so just about anything above a local AYSO soccer game is something for us to get excited about.  Anyway, big weekend of games.  I do  know one person that's not super duper excited about this weekend's action, though: Vince Young.

His mom pretty much, er, completely ruined his reputation in the league, at least as a player that has any ability to deal with life's ups and downs, but Vince's worries go so much deeper than his momma's loose mouth it's not even funny.

Seriously, Vince Young is in serious trouble, and his troubles, on and off the field, are dangling on a precipice.  There are essentially two options for him at this point: 1. He "sacks up", as it were, recovers from his knee injury, and comes back to lead the Titans to a decent season.  They don't necessarily need to make the playoffs, but it would help if he doesn't end the season with 9 touchdowns and 17 interceptions like he did last year, or anywhere near that ratio for that matter.  All he needs to do is show some moxy, and bounce back from a terrible start to the year and he'll probably have the Tennessee fans eating from his palms again.  At the very least, he'll have a little more leeway going into next season  2.  He continues to crumple like Play-Doh, and literally has to run out of Nashville, and back to Houston to a place where he has some support.  Ok, Ok.  He won't literally have to run out of Nashville, but the fans will certainly be happy to pay for his plane ticket back home.  

If option 2 happens, God be with the man, because the thing he's built his life around, football, will suddenly be ripped away from him, and it will happen as fast as if he'd sustained a career-ending knee injury on the field.  I can't see any team being tempted to sign him at that point either, at least not as a legitimate number 1.  There are quarterbacks that fail with team after team after team because they can't  cut it on the field, but nobody gets second chances when they can't cut it mentally, especially QBs (Ryan Leaf anyone?).  It just doesn't happen.  Maybe 10 years ago a QB with that much mental baggage would get 2-3 chances, but after the titanic failures of Todd Marinovich and Ryan Leaf, it seems that NFL general managers have learned that mental fortitude, otherwise known in pro sports as "thick skin", is pretty damn important.  And at this point, it seems as though Mr. Young's "skin" is as thin as my 98-year-old nana.

Apparently, all the years of being "the man" in Pop Warner, high school and college have robbed Vince of a pretty key piece of life experience: adversity.  You see, a man that plays the role of King of the Hill throughout his life may seem blessed, but it's really all a facade unless they get a chance to show their mettle.  Growing pains, however brutal, prepare people for the battle that is life.  If a person doesn't actually have any growing pains before they are on their own and deemed an adult, they're in deep trouble.  Which leads us to the situation Vince Young finds himself in right now.

Vince would be well advised to tell his mamma that although he loves her dearly and appreciates her help in raising him, it's time to keep her mouth shut and plead the 5th when the media asks her questions about her baby boy.  Otherwise, no matter how tough and serious he tries to play it, he's going to be a "mamma's boy" in the eyes of the league, it's fans, and most importantly, Jeff Fisher.  And I don't know if any of you have noticed, but Jeff Fisher, although somewhat known as a "player's coach", doesn't take well to weakness.  The guy played under Mike Ditka, with Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, Wilber Marshall and a bunch of other bad ass mofos.  He's not going to take much more of this, "he just needs love and support" bullshit.  It just ain't going to fly.

I honestly wish Vince well.  Even though I can't stand the Titans (yes, it's because they pysically kicked the shit out of the Chargers last year), I never want to see a player eaten alive by the beast that is the NFL.  It's tough enough playing against NFL players, but you're past the point of no return once you have the media against you.  At that point, you're not only on the ledge, but you are hanging by a thread that not many professional athletes have pulled themselves up from.  Unfortunately, it seems as though Vince is now hanging with more baggage than the thread can support.

TWF