Chow doesn't want Young?

Discussion in 'NFL Draft' started by TitanJeff, Feb 26, 2006.

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  1. GLinks

    GLinks Second Gear

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    Oh no he didn't!

    :ha:
     
  2. SEC 330 BIPOLAR

    SEC 330 BIPOLAR jive turkey

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    I don't know how significant this is but I look at it as if whoever is selected by the Titans with their first pick will be with the Titans longer than Norm Chow will be.
     
  3. Soxcat

    Soxcat Pro Bowler

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    True or not Young might not be a good fit for a Chow offense. Chow's offense is more in line for a guy like Leinart or Cutler, a QB who can go through the progressions and make good decisions and tough throws.
     
  4. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    I fully agree. Leinart may be the better match for the Chow offense, no doubt. But I don't think Chow would say he felt Young may not be able to run his offense.
     
  5. Soxcat

    Soxcat Pro Bowler

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    I agree but what if it is true, that Young may not be able to run Chow's offense? Are you ready to jump off the YOUNG bandwagon yet? Do we really want to draft a guy who might not be able to execute the offense?
     
  6. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    I'm no more on the Young bandwagon as I am on Leinart's. I think both will be successful in the NFL and I'll be pleased to get either.

    I think the question here is whether or not the player is more important in dictating the system than the system dictating the player. If it is a proven success, then I think you usually draft to fit the system. But Chow's offense is far from being proven successful and is a work in progress. So if the Titans felt Young was a playmaker, they would adapt the offense to suit his strengths and then build around that.

    If Chow is the offensive genius we've been made to believe, I don't see why he couldn't look at changes which play to Young's strengths.
     
  7. Soxcat

    Soxcat Pro Bowler

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    The difference in Young and Leinart is like night and day. They are completely different players and Chow's sytem could work wonderfully with a guy like Leinart (or Cutler) and have no chance in hades with a guy like Young. One of the reasons for Chow's offense not working now is possibly McNair isn't the type of QB Chow prefers. Taking a guy based on "hype" and ignoring how he fits into your offense is a kiss of death IMO. Young might have a decent YPC but if he can't make NFL reads and throws he is not going to win many games.
     
  8. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    It's a shame Fisher and Adams didn't think of this when hiring Chow.

    We now know a lack of a true #1 WR and little experience at WR wasn't what limited the Titans offense last year, it was forcing McNair to play Chow's offense.
     
  9. Soxcat

    Soxcat Pro Bowler

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    Certainly McNair missing a bunch of practices and possibly not catching the fine points of Chow's offense could have had alot to do with the limited success.

    Answer this. If we rated Leinart on a scale of 1-100 on how he fits Chow's offense we could possibly agree Leinart is going to be rated very high. He has run the offense for 3 years, does well in reading defenses and makes good decisions and accurate throws. Could it not also be possible using the same rational that Young would score much more poorly? His QB attributes simply do not fit the system as well and he doesn't have any (0) experience running that kind of system. Heck, Young doesn't even take snaps from center and setup after the snap is a big deal. Now rate Cutler on the same scale. Cutler might not be as familiar with the exact system but he did play a normal NFL QB type system, takes snaps from center and Cutler has the best arm of the three. Now, if Leinart is off the board who do you like if you are Chow? I have no problem pulling the trigger on Leinart if he is there but I have huge reservations about Young the more I read about him.
    By the way nfldraftcountdown will have Cutler going to the Jets at #4 and suspect Young could be falling.
     
  10. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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    The more I've read this stuff about the Texas offense being simplified, the more curious I was as to where the rumor started and whether or not it was true. Here's what I found out. It's a long one...

    Here's one of the many such quotes floating around the internet stating the Texas offense was simplified because Young could not grasp it. Here is Michael Bradley of Sportsline.com:

    "One long-time NFL scout told El Hombre that a Longhorns coach said Young just couldn't do it. That's why the Steers went with the offense they used in '06. Instead of asking Young to drop back and work through his available targets, they simplified things for him. He could hand off to the back standing next to him, run the ball himself or throw to one of two clearly delineated options. If either of them was covered, Young was to -- you guessed it -- run."

    Of course, Bradley protects his sources.

    So I looked for sources to back up this statement. I wasn't able to find any though I did find a lot of quotes from Mack Brown interviews on Young's solid decision-making abilities. After the Sooners game this season:

    "I thought he made really good decisions because there was twice when he hit the deep post to Billy Pittman that I screamed to run and I’m glad he didn’t hear me. When he hit Limas for the touchdown, I screamed Selvin is open, and I hoped nobody heard me. He is making great decisions right now and it is fun to watch him play. I thought it was an unbelievable play when he was sprinting towards our bench and then threw back to Billy. It just breaks teams' backs and those are things that he couldn’t do at midseason last year. He is a fun player to watch right now and our guys are feeding off of him. I thought this was as good as he looked since that second half against Oklahoma State."

    "I think it is a true credit to Vince that he is getting the ball to all of his receivers now and he is reading his reads and going from one to two to three receivers very quickly."

    Of course, I don't expect Mack Brown to admit that he had to "dumb down" his offense. But it does seem he praises Young often on his ability to make reads.

    I then looked to a Austin newspaper columnists who might be a little more insight on this subject having covered Young and the team.

    I found one quote from Young's first season as a starter by Suzanne Halliburton of the Austin American-Statesman on 10/21/03:

    "Similar to Iowa State, the primary goal will be to get even more experience for quarterback Vince Young, the redshirt freshman who supplanted Chance Mock as the starter last week for the Cyclones game.

    The Longhorns simplified their offense somewhat for Iowa State, throwing out the stuff that hadn't worked this season, using between 12 and 18 different plays throughout the game. The Longhorns had several basic running and pass plays that were called for both quarterbacks.

    Meanwhile, Young had a select number of plays specific to his excellent running skills, while Mock entered the game with passing plays to show off his throwing ability.

    'The biggest difference where we've seen the most progress in Vince is in the passing game,' Texas Coach Mack Brown said. 'He's scrambled some, but he's doing a much better job in the pocket. He's also doing a good job on his reads, and he's handling the huddle much better. He's just growing up.'"

    Here we see stuff was "thrown out" that didn't work. Not because Young could not grasp it but because it was ineffective. Again, Brown goes as far as to say he is doing a good job with his reads.

    Since Ms. Halliburton covers the Longhorns, I thought I'd ask her if the Longhorns "dumbed down" the offense for Young. I asked her in an e-mail. Her reply:

    "As for dumbing down the offense, not true. They started changing the offense in 03 to better suit the more athletic quarterbacks they had in Vince and Chance Mock. Early in his career, they did dump a lot of the passing plays. But that stuff was all added back in for this season. If you go back and look, Vince didn't have a ton of great running games like he did at this year's Rose Bowl. That was by design, He was a complete QB this season."

    I've asked her to do a full interview and she is asking for permission to do so. If we do this, please (this goes for anyone) feel free to ask questions I can ask her.
     
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