Don't you mean "all intensive purposes"? :-)

On VY: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm as glad as anybody we're winning, and I take no sadness in Vince Young's awesomeness all of a sudden. :-) But I still suspect he's not the future.
But again, I'll be glad if I'm wrong. I just want to win.
But we've had good scrambling quarterbacks in the past, and I think it's clear across the NFL, those aren't the types of QB's that both win championships and create legacies.

4 in a row is awesome. I'm banking on a 10-6 season. :-)
But let's get a couple more games under his belt before we start saying he's the Titans resurrection.

Again: I hope he is.

Also, last night's game was, for Houstonians, an absolute must win game. At this point, I'm wondering if the air's so out of the balloon that an 8-8 season will look good.

I think Kubiak's gone.

Don't you mean "all intensive purposes"?

Ha ha. I was hoping someone would notice my (for the first time ever) correct usage there :-)

It seems like Vince Young is the one who gave Titans' fans the impression that he wasn't a leader and didn't have the dedication it would take to be an NFL quarterback. It just seemed like being a good NFL QB wasn't very high on his list of priorities. He seemed to be suffering a case of Ricky Williams-itis, perhaps minus the herbs and smoke. It looks like he may have rekindled the competitive fire though, and I do think that if he WANTS to, and is willing to work at it, he could be a pretty good NFL QB. Like you said Bill, he's a winner. As long as his legs hold out (I don't see him transitioning well to just being a pocket QB) he could be a tough challenge for opposing D's week in and week out. But his game will have to continue to evolve in order to become really great.

I didn't like the Mario Williams decision at the time it was made, but I think it was the right one as of now. To date, he has done significantly more in the NFL than either Reggie Bush or VY. Even if his productivity ended now, those two have quite a ways to catch up before I'd even consider them his equal in terms of NFL achievement. If he keeps his fire and stays healthy, he should be a top flight, pro bowl or near pro bowl-level DE for another 5-10 seasons, and those don't grow on trees. If VY becomes dominant in the NFL the way he was in college then maybe I'd reconsider. But as of right now I think the Texans made a very brave, very good move in taking Mario.

Quaid, who never gave up on Vince Young in conversations in this space, should be feeling a satisfying sense of vindication this morning. :-)

I think I'm vindicated to an extent. I agree with Jared that there's still a ways to go before we know exactly what we're looking at. While I hope he does well, I think his next two games might be a little rough.

Having said that, what I've felt all along is not that VY is going to be a great NFL QB, although I think there's plenty of potential. My analysis all along has been that he is a strong, qualified NFL starter who has what it takes to win games consistently. He is good enough to be starting week in and week out in the NFL. The Titans have been foolish to not play him, imho.

The loose feeling you describe on the Titans sideline emanates from VY. That's what he did at Texas and it's a legacy that has continued with Colt McCoy there (hopefully, along with winning champsionships). Credit Jeff Fisher for allowing that "vibe" to be realized this season. This ease is another thing that has no stat attached to it.

I would argue against the comparison with Ricky Williams (who has experienced quite the resurrection, himself). Ricky completely checked out. He started doing so his Senior year at Texas (yeah - that one where he broke the all-time record). VY never checked out - he just got rattled. I think Fisher left him out to dry - to a small extent.

IMHO, VY should not only have been starting games at the beginning of this season, but at the end of last season, too. Fisher left him on the bench for too long. There is benefit, however, in that a strong, healthy young QB was effectively given a paid year off to heal and regain any mental and physical fitness lost from decades of being knocked around.

The Texans should have picked VY. Mario Williams is a great player, but the Texans needed a winning QB more than they needed a star Defensive Lineman - last time I checked, star D-Linemen don't win championships, either. Not to mention the fact that you can see QBs of less stature than VY with championships under their belts.

Mario Williams was getting compared to Bruce Smith when he was drafted. Smith was arguably one the greatest defensive ends in the history of the NFL. There are no Superbowl rings on his fingers.

Mario's stats may look better because he was actually playing in games last year, but if VY stays healthy, I think he will prove out to be the greatest player from the 2006 NFL draft (this includes Cutler). And we can't forget what Bill mentioned in the post - if you look at stats alone, you will have missed almost everything that's great about VY.

Oh, and Bill, how is your pessimism regarding the Texans' chances from here on out like the Texans pessimism about their chances as evidenced from the sidelines last night? Discuss.

It means I'm a bad fan, I guess.

Another comment regarding pessimism, though: If I was a Texan or one of their coaches I would have been exhorting the team. We can do this! We can beat these guys!

What I saw in their eyes was fear, and "here we go again". The franchise has been somewhat jaded during 7 (8?) seasons of futility.

Quaid, you've obviously followed VY's career more closely than I have. But the impression I got wasn't just that VY was rattled, but that he was (and the organization was) questioning his commitment level and desire to even play in the NFL. QB's are supposed to be "first in, last out" of the practice facility and film study day after day, if they really want to be great. I thought the early buzz on VY was that while he may not have been totally checked out like Ricky Williams, he wasn't dedicated 24/7 the way a QB who really wants to become great needs to be (P. Manning on one extreme, J. Russell on the other, VY somewhere in between but not really on the Manning end of the spectrum).

As far as Mario Williams, I think he's already played DE at a pro bowl level and shows signs of staying there. VY hasn't played QB at a pro bowl level yet and it's not clear if he ever will, even if he becomes a reliable starter. Early in your post you say that you aren't claiming VY is going to be great, but rather that he can be a solid NFL starter. I'd argue that an all-pro DE is worth more than a merely solid QB. I agree with you that a great QB is worth more than a great DE and if VY ever does become a great QB for an extended period of time then I'd agree that the Texans should have drafted him.

The observation that Bruce Smith was an all-time great DE but doesn't have a super bowl ring can also be made of perhaps the best QB of all time (or at least he's on the short list), Dan Marino. So I don't think it gets us anywhere.

stroke, good catch there. I forgot VY had gone to the pro bowl and that shows I haven't followed his career like people from Texas and TN - and that I have a bad NFL memory to boot (I follow college football much more closely). I just don't think of him as a pro bowl QB.

I do agree that he's good enough to be given the reins of a team, and that he's a winner with intangibles that go beyond the stat sheet. I could even see him developing into a very good to maybe even great QB. He's a handful for a defense. But when I think of current NFL QB's who are "pro bowl level QB's" I don't put VY's name on the list - yet. If he keeps doing what he's been doing so far this year that may change.

Still, thus far in their careers I think Mario Williams has played much closer to the level you'd expect from a high first round draft pick, than VY has. If their careers ended today I'd say the Texans made the right pick. If Mario Williams continues at a consistent pro bowl level and VY tops out as a pretty decent starter who occasionally makes a pro bowl, I'd still say the Texans made the right pick. Assuming Mario Williams remains a high quality DE, I'd only say the Texans should have picked VY if VY becomes an upper echelon NFL QB who is a perennial candidate for the pro bowl and he's just not there yet, IMO.

I'm glad the Texans lost. There was a good chance that I would have lost one of my fantasy league games had they won (my opponent had 3 Texans playing, and I was finished).
Vince is still over-rated.

Sha, in the kicker's defense, they were game tying field goals, not game winning field goals. 42 yards and 49 yards, respectively. Would have sent the games to overtime, so we still might have lost.

The hard part about discussing VY right now is that no one is definitively right.

True. Very true.

But ... if I could trade QBs with the Titans right now, I wouldn't. If I could trade 2006 draft picks, I wouldn't.

And, most importantly, if I could trade current records, I wouldn't. :-)

[fact check]

Ignore this comment - I posted a stat that I heard on the NFL Network that didn't check out when looking at the stat sheets. So I deleted it. :)

Let's see if you're saying the same thing at the end of the season.

Based on their current trajectories, I may not be saying much at the end of the season. But, of course, a trajectories can be deceptive (just look at the Titan's 0-6 start).

Quaid - a somewhat related but not uber-important question. Just wondering.

Where are your loyalties these days? You live in Dallas, so the Cowboys? Houston roots, so the Texans? VY-admiration, so the Titans? Or is it situational?

OK - I'm seriously thinking about upgrading my prediction to "great" and may move to "hall-of-famer" if he continues to pump out wins like the one from today.

While he wasn't down 17-0, throwing a TD with no time left on the clock means one thing: icewater. That man has it. He is a winner. Through and through.

So I guess the question is - Do the Titans make the playoffs???

I posted this in another thread, but I guess it really belongs here:

Vince Young looked great. If he keeps playing like that, he'll have to be considered in the top 1/3 of QB's in the league.

But at this point I still think we'll have to wait and see if he becomes a great one, or if he tops out where Michael Vick did (pre dogfighting) - as a dangerous but incomplete QB who can at times can do absolute magic and whose contributions to W's go well beyond the typical QB stat sheet, but who also has enough holes in his game that NFL D's will be able to thwart him from becoming great. Either way, he's sure fun to watch.