How the Tennesse Titans Can Win a Super Bowl with Vince Young at Quarterback

Vince Young offers an NFL team what appears to be a classic conundrum on its face, but as a matter of fact is an opportunity.

Vince Young will never be a pure passer like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Drew Brees. Why? Because he lacks their athletic ability.

Before you scoff and guffaw, please realize that athletic talent is not simply speed, quickness, elusiveness, or strength. Those are STEREOTYPES. Instead, natural, God-given athletic traits help a QB reach a level of excellence in accuracy, field vision, footwork, mechanics, and quick release.

The idea that those things are attributed to INTELLIGENCE and WORK ETHIC instead of NATURAL TALENT is, again, STEREOTYPING. The evidence of this is not that Donovan McNabb will never be Peyton Manning or Drew Brees no matter how smart he is or hard he works.

But that means JOEY HARRINGTON, MARC BULGER, JAY CUTLER, JAKE DELHOMME, BEN ROETHLISBERGER, ELI MANNING etc. won't be either.

Now I defy anyone to tell me how Eli Manning is dumber or lazier than Peyton Manning. He isn't. Instead, Eli Manning simply lacks Peyton Manning's field vision, accuracy, and mechanics just like Peyton Manning lacks Eli Manning's arm strength.

It is the natural ability that makes one a rare, next level passer. It's what separates a Drew Brees or Kurt Warner from a Marc Bulger. It isn't just the running QB's who lack it, but it is the overwhelming majority of dropback QB's too.

Of course, if you have a QB like that or can get one, do so. But good luck! The truth is that most NFL teams don't have one now, and the draft is far more likely to produce a J.P. Losman or Rick Mirer than pro bowlers (and Kerry Collins, Jeff Blake and Trent Dilfer are examples of "Pro Bowl QBs").

So, a running QB who is a good but not great passer gives you a better chance to win than does a dropback QB who is a good but not great passer.

The media, coaches, and scouts know this to be true. They simply refuse to admit it because they are so biased towards dropback QBs.

A team with a running QB is naturally going to run the football more, not because of the QB's limitations in throwing the ball, but because it gives opposing teams one more thing to put in their game plan.

So, these media types, coaches, and scouts would prefer NFL teams keep drafting passing QBs year after year knowing that most of them will fail rather than giving running QBs a shot.

If you don't have a QB at all then fine, draft one. But if you have a QB that has proved that he can win games, as Vince Young has, then a team is obligated to try to win with him by building an offense that suits his skills.

It is amazing that New Orleans had no problem building around Drew Brees, just as Bill Walsh did for Ken Anderson and Joe Montana.

No one has even been willing to build around a running QB except Dan Reeves (who was fired by the Atlanta Falcons before he was able to finish putting in his offense for Michael Vick, and was replaced by a legacy hire, Jim Mora Jr., who tried to run the West Coast offense with Vick, and with a bad OL, RBs, and WRs to boot).

The Tennessee Titans can be the first to build around a running QB with Young. In doing so, they could win a Super Bowl or two before the rest of the NFL catches up.

How so?

It is simple, really: adopt a two TE offense. With two big TE's in the passing game, Young's deficiencies in accuracy, vision, and mechanics would no longer be a problem in limiting him in certain routes (just as Drew Brees' lack of height and arm strength isn't a problem in the New Orleans Saints' offense).

Instead, Young would make a living throwing quick, high-percentage passes that are difficult to defend, and do not require the accuracy of the west coast or spread offenses.

Unless a team has a Hall of Famer like Shannon Sharpe or Antonio Gates, tight ends can't consistently make plays in the vertical game like a WR can. But an above average TE can pick up 15-20 yards over the middle and withstand the DB's who try to intimidate WR's from working that region of the field. So, instead of going 70 yards with one big play or eight short passes to the WRs, you do the same with two or three passes to a TE.

It has an added advantage: the running game. Even though you are playing an extra TE instead of an extra WR, the defense still has to cover him. It has the same effect of spreading the field and taking defenders out of the box that playing three WRs does, creating tons of running lanes.

Also, because these are TE's and not WR's, they should be able to block bigger defenders on the edges, allowing the RB to run outside. This threat is practically nonexistent when you spread the field with WRs. And can you think of a better threat to exploit gaps up the middle or get to the corner on the outside than the Titans' Chris Johnson?

Granted, two TE offenses do have flaws, which is why more teams don't run them. But here is the beauty: Just as a two TE offense addresses Young's limitations as a passer,  Young's running ability compensates for the flaws of a two TE offense.

Young would benefit from having two TE's on the field as much as Chris Johnson would. The strategy to stopping a running QB also capable of throwing the football is either using a spy (usually a MLB or safety) or playing the edge defenders (DEs and OLBs) wide to keep the QB in the pocket.

Often, teams mix and match between the two methods, and it is really effective if the dual threat QB being defended doesn't have a Pro Bowl WR that requires a double team (and no, Vince Young has never had that in Tennessee).

However, playing two TE's makes that strategy more difficult. The would-be spy defender is going to have to cover the extra TE. This obviously would give Young more room to run.

Now, playing the edge defenders wide to keep the QB in the pocket can be negated by keeping one TE in to block one of the edges. This allows the QB to roll away from the pressure on the other side and throw the ball to the other TE or to a WR following him over the middle. The other option is allowing the QB to sit in the pocket and complete high percentage passes to the opposite TE all day.

Of course, in order for that to work, you need two Pro Bowl caliber TEs—one of them a more traditional TE that can catch and the other more of an H-back receiving threat. On one hand, good TEs are harder to find in the draft than WRs. On the other, good TE's are generally much cheaper in free agency than WR's are.

The Titans can pick up the Broncos' Tony Scheffler AND the Texans' Owen Daniels for less money than Anquan Boldin would cost.

What about the WRs? The Titans actually have decent ones for this offense. Justin Gage, Kenny Britt, and Nate Washington can:

A) Make plays downfield in the passing game, stretching the field vertically

B) Block for Chris Johnson in the running game

Ask them to do anything more and they will struggle, but by going with a two TE offense, the Titans can put these guys, who are not to be confused with Wes Welker or Steve Largent, in roles they can succeed in.

Best of all, this is a no gimmick scheme, or reinvention of football. Instead, it is rather similar to the Jerry Rhome offenses. The Titans know this, because Jerry Rhome was Jeff Fisher's first offensive coordinator in Nashville.

Fisher fired Rhome because Rhome wanted to upgrade the talent at WR, and Fisher wanted to concentrate on defense. However, the Titans retained Rhome's basic philosophy, and it was with a two TE offense featuring Frank Wycheck and Jackie Harris that the Titans went to the 1999 Super Bowl.

Unfortunately, Jeff Fisher ruined a good thing. He allowed the coordinator of that offense, Les Steckel, to make a lateral move to another team, and he also allowed TE Jackie Harris to leave in free agency (because Fisher wanted the cap room to sign defensive players).

Furthermore, when Fisher replaced Steckel, it was with a guy who had absolutely no experience calling plays on the NFL level. That allowed Fisher to impose the "Eddie George up the middle for three yards" strategy.

Later, when Fisher was forced to open up the offense to save his job, there weren't any good TE's left on the roster (even Wycheck was old and injured) and the Titans went to a three WR look.

Later, when that coordinator (Mark Heimerdinger) left Tennessee, Fisher hired Norm Chow and tried to go back to the three yards and a cloud of dust offense with various RBs, before being forced to fire Chow and bring Heimerdinger back.

Heimerdinger still seems partial to his three WR offense, and will certainly go back to it as soon as the Titans demonstrate that they have three viable wide receivers.

But if he would abandon what is essentially a Mike Shanahan offense designed for John Elway and adopt an offense that best suits Vince Young's ability, the Titans would have their best shot at winning a Super Bowl for the first time since falling one yard short in 1999.