What’s wrong with Vince Young?
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=ap-young-obrienaward&prov=ap&type=lgns
He’s going to the combine, but not running or throwing?
What the heck? His throwing is already suspect, this is his chance to prove himself. If he does well, then fine, he’s worth a top pick. If not, then a team doesn’t have to waste as much resources (like Ryan Leaf). <b>What does he have to hide?</b>
it seems that’s the exact answer. he doesn’t want to do anything to endanger his status…or…he’s working on something and it’s not going so good so far.
i think i suscribe to the first theory. he stands to make a TRUCKLOAD of cash as one of the top three picks. jay cutler had a good senior bowl with espn’s chris mortensen calling him the best quarterback prospect in the draft. with his stock moving up, leinart’s status pretty much fixed, the only one that can move is vince young. by not doing anything, it seems like he’s ensuring his place is fixed as well.
If Young does well at the combine, I suppose the best he could do is move from #4 to #3. And even then, it might not happen. It’s possible that he knows Tennessee isn’t interested, for example. All the draft people are saying that Cutler is now their guy. I guess it’s not worth the risk from Young’s standpoint.
There have been plenty of “workout wonders” who caused teams to waste resources precisely because they DID do well at a combine. Mike Mamula is the poster boy of this phenomenon.
I can’t state with any certainty what Vince Young and his handlers are thinking, but it’s probably something like this:
“After the Rose Bowl, everyone KNOWS how good I am. Everyone KNOWS I’m one hell of an athlete, and that I can do some phenomenal things on a football field. And I want what I did at Pasadena to be the freshest thing on people’s minds when they think about me. If people remember the Rose Bowl, I’ll be drafted high. But if I go to the combines, my stock can only fall. They CAN’T possibly find out anything that makes me look better. They can only discover something that makes me look worse.”
Is Vince making a mistake? Very likely. He’s already made several big mistakes, starting with his choice of agents. Matt Leinart was smart enough to sign with a powerful, respected agent like Leigh Steinberg. Young’s agent is probably in over his head, and may not be giving the best possible advice.
Lemme get on record as saying that vince young is going to find himself in an elite group of wolrd-class busts.
By working out at the combine he’ll expose his poor mechanics and average throwing ability. The combine is where “experts” over-emphasize minute details of a player delivery and mechanics. Vince has done everything by being more athletic than everyone else, that doesn’t help when talking about QBs. Vick’s mediocre success is going to make teams doubly cautious about a guy like him.
By avoiding the combine people will have no choice by to study a game in which he lit up the field against 2 of the top draft picks on the other team. There’s simply no way he can improve on that with the tools he has at his disposal.
He’s certainly doing the right thing for himself. A team will make the gamble within the top 4 picks. If he worked out he’d probably slide to the middle fo the first round.
It’s not uncommon for projected first round draft picks to refuse to do things at the combine - running the 40, their position drills, etc. Often they will run and work out at their school’s pro day. The setting is more controlled, they can throw to familiar receivers, they can run on familiar and perhaps faster tracks. This may be the case with Vince.
Again, this may be meaningless pre-draft stuff - I think that disclaimer has to stay in your mind whenever you’re reading about these things - but Sports Illustrated is reporting that Young scored a 6 out of 50 on the league’s intelligence test. And it sounds like Cutler really won some people over. If that’s so, and Young drops to fourth or below, I’m sure the second-guessing will get louder. No way will it happen to Young, but I remember the way Aaron Rodgers dropped from a supposed top five pick to #24 last year.
Young is an amazing athlete but you’d have to be crazy to pass on Bush or Leinart to pick him. After watching a few years of Mike Vick I don’t think the NFL has a place for a permanent Slash-style QB. The defenses are just too good and no one wants to focus their entire offense around a mobile QB. He won’t be nearly as successful as Leinart.
When Vick is healthy, Atlanta wins a lot of games. I don’t get the knock (other than “Vick can’t stay healthy.”)
As for Young, the NFL is denying that he really scored a 6. Apparently someone used the wrong grading key on his test.
I’ll go on the record right now and say that Young will do just fine in the NFL. I wouldn’t compare him to Vick, because he’s much bigger than Vick. I think he is more like Culpepper, except even more of a threat to run.
I still don’t understand why so many people question his throwing ability. A few lousy commentators suggest that his motion isn’t the best, and all of the sudden he is a terrible passer? The guy completed something like 70% of his passes last year. I don’t care what your motion is if you are getting those results.
Heart, competitive nature, and decision making on the field can’t be measured at the combine–and these are all traits Young seems to have. During a game, he is incredible, and that is all that matters.
Michael Vick is probably the worst thing to happen to Young’s draft status.
do you mean that it’s somehow pulled it down, made for weird comparisons, or that it’s inflated it, or something completely different?
I can’t speak for SenorBeef’s, but I take this to mean that they have been compared in many ways coming into the draft and share many of the same skill sets. Since Vick has been a moderate bust so far, struggling to stay healthy and adapt to NFL style offenses, that if Young takes the same career path he’ll not be worth a top 5 pick.
I’m inclined to agree. Had there never been a Mike Vick, I think Young would be a no doubt #1 overall pick. In Vick’s draft there was LaDanian Tomlinson (comparable to Reggie Bush) and there was virtually no one saying he’d be prefered over Vick. Young shares Vicks running ability and both lead his team to the championship game, Young has significantly better passing numbers than Vick too. By all rights, were it not for Vick’s so-so career so far Young would definately be a #1 overall pick.
Isn’t Leinart skipping the throwing drills, and Bush the 40? Why are we only discussing Young?
I guess only the OP can answer that since he framed the question, but if I had to guess it’d be because Young is the only one of the three with question marks going into the draft. He’s got the ugly, long delivery and QBs moreso than any other position can affect thier draft position at the combine drastically in either direction. Leinart and Bush aren’t liable to be hurt by their not competing at the combine, Young probably will be. Though, IMHO, he’d be hurt even more by showing up.
As far as I know, nobody is wondering about Leinart’s arm or Bush’s speed (I’m sure there are doubts about both, especially Bush’s ability to be an every-down back), and maybe unless there’s a weird trade, they’re definitely going one and two. Young might be the one with the most questions to answer, and his draft spot could still change. Or maybe the OP didn’t know Young wasn’t the only one skipping these things, I don’t know.
i’m not completely sold on bush…i think he’ll be pretty damned good…but he’s been VERY hyped up…
he’s definitely not a “mini-barry sanders”…there’s never been anyone like him and it’s not even close comparing the two. i want to see how bush can take the beatings of the nfl. i hope he can, for his sake.
by the way, i think his biggest strength is the ability to find blockers, even when they seemingly didn’t exist…he picks up blockers and gets behind them better than any back i’ve seen in a while. although, it’a hard to imagine that with his head always on a swivel like that, he won’t get demolished by ray lewis or something like that.
Kyle Boller – somewhere around the combines (probably at a Cal pro workout) he demonstrated that he can kneel on the 50 yard line and throw the ball between the uprights. I think that trick alone got him into the first round.
Vince Young almost reminds me of some of the guys in Moneyball – someone like Scott Hatteberg(*), where all the scouts with their baseball knowledge and intuition looked at him and said, “this guy isn’t a ball player. He’s too heavy, can’t run, etc. etc.”
But the Moneyball guys were looking at his fielding percentage, on base average, power, etc.
People look at Young and they see an undisciplined guy, funny throwing motion. They say his receivers were always open, that defenses in the NFL are too fast. Basically, they seem to find ways to let their perceptions override the only solid information they have: he won a lot of games, made a lot of people miss, and completed a lot of passes.
I’m not saying he’s going to be great. There are so many confounding factors when looking at college football players, but I really think the people guaranteeing he’s going to be a bust are a little too sure of themselves.
(*) Mighta been someone other than Hatteberg, like that catcher from Alabama, but the point remains.