SI’s Stewart Mandel is one of the few national media members who doesn’t at least occasionally write or say something that makes me want to hunt him down and punch him in the face. I often think he’s completely wrong, but he manages to avoid saying completely incompetent things on a regular basis. His latest article on Vince Young’s Wonderlic test and subsequent uproar is right on the money…
You’ll have to pardon my confusion. It’s just that I recently emerged from a seven-week hibernation that began the day after the Rose Bowl, and I can’t figure out how, in that time, Vince Young went from being the nation’s reigning football hero to a plummeting draft prospect who supposedly can’t run, can’t throw, can’t catch, can’t dress himself, can’t sing, doesn’t know the Dewey decimal system and, based on last weekend’s combine Wonderlic bombshell, can’t read or write, either.
Our society in general has an obsession with tearing down those at the top, but the great Vince Young dismantling of 2006 is on its way to setting a new land-speed record. They’d barely had time to clean up the confetti in Pasadena before the first whispers began — about his unconventional throwing motion (with which he must have accidentally completed 65 percent of his passes last season), about his inability to throw the deep ball (I must have imagined that 75-yard touchdown I saw him throw at last year’s Texas Tech game), how he’ll be lost when he doesn’t get to line up in the shotgun every snap like he did in college (Drew Brees must not be having the same problem). By the time word spread of his so-so showing at a college all-star skills competition in late January, the pundits had officially ruled out any chance of the Texans taking him No. 1. By the time Young, who went 30-2 as a starter at Texas, showed up at the White House without a suit two weeks ago, he’d been passed up in most mock drafts by Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler — a guy who went 11-34.
…
To the scouting departments of the Texans and Titans, however, I’d recommend using any or all of these three alternative measuring tools before making up your mind:
1) Talk to him
2) Talk to some of the USC (or Oklahoma, or Ohio State) defenders in the draft who played against him, and ask whether they think he gets easily confused.
Or …
3) Watch some tape.
You mean what you did on the field and ability to play football actually matters? I could have sworn onfield performance wasn’t important.
The people bashing Vince now are the same ones who were bashing him for other stuff before this weekend. I actually heard one ESPN “expert” claim NFL GM’s were scared off by the fact Young “never took more than 6 snaps from under center in any season.” Not in a game. Total. In a season. Wow. The amount of misinformation and flat out lies floating around about Vince right now is ridiculous.
reply to #1
dog
March 4th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
So Young is a dumb mofo who needed a sport to get where he is in life. Hook em.