Many of us sat in anguish as we watched Vince Young’s not so stellar 4-of-13 passing performance last night. During some instances, the passes were incomplete due to Young’s poor footwork. On other passing attempts, Titan receivers failed to gain the separation that makes the quaterback’s job of throwing the football a whole lot easier.
It’s easy to sit back and put all of the blame on Young: he’s the QB; the position that’s often credited for a team’s success or chastised as a result of a team’s failures.
However, for most quarterbacks, their success is often a reflection of the caliber of wide receivers they have at their disposal.
The best Titan receiver thus far in two preseason games has been rookie Lavelle Hawkins, a fourth round draft pick trying to earn playing time during his first year in the league.
The fact that Hawkins is outplaying the veterans at WR is a blessing but unfortunately, a curse as well. It’s good for a young player such as Hawk to step up but the fact that he is playing perhaps the best football at the position is also an indictment of the rest of the Titan wide receiver group.
By no means am I suggesting that Vince should escape the blame for the Titans’ woes the same way he eludes opposing defenders when he’s running in the open field.
Despite Dinger’s tutelage, Vince is making some of the same mistakes that permeated his frustrating sophomore season in the league when his interception to touchdown ratio was nearly 2:1.
Unlike many of the rest of us, Jeff Fisher sees improvement in Young’s performance, stating:
“The incomplete passes, if you look at the numbers, you’d say he struggled…Well, there are reasons for things that happened each play…He did misfire on a couple of them but he made some good throws.”
Vince is learning a new offense and as a young QB, he is going to experience his share of growing pains. However, last night was a step backwards for Vince as he tries to become acclimated with Dinger’s system.
Of course, Vince’s efforts of mastering the new offense aren’t helped when veterans such as Brandon Jones drop passes on 3rd and 10, or youngsters such as Paul Williams consistently make mistakes.
Vince deserves his share of the blame, but the poor performance of most of the receiving group isn’t helping our young QB, to say the least.
So what do you guys think? Is it Vince holding the passing offense back, or the receivers?
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