What's Eating Vince Young?

Is there a better physical specimen in professional sports than Vince Young? You could argue that Terrell Owens and Dwight Howard are up there (actually, I'd put them above Young). But still, when you're tops in the country, with all of the sports talent the United States produces, that's saying something.

So why does it seem that Young is so mentally fragile? Before I answer this question, I'll state a few things for the record.

I believe that the hullaballoo with Young 'disappearing' was overblown. I don't think he was any danger to himself or anybody, which is what the news reports implied.

I do believe that he 'quit' on his team, by almost taking himself out of the game last week.

Now, back to the question at hand.

Why is he taking adversity so hard? After all, if more athletes thought like him, Joey Harrington would have put a bullet in his brain. Alex Smith would be picking people off from a clock tower somewhere and Danny Wuerffel would have started a religious cult that would have ended with oh-so-many cups of cyanide-laced Kool-Aid soaking the ground.

But they dealt with the fact that success in college doesn't guarantee success in the NFL, as countless Heisman winners can attest to.

It does mean that you are under higher pressure to perform well, something that can't be easy to deal with.

And it probably wasn't easy for Young to go from having the single greatest individual performance in college football history to the cold reality that there are a lot of better, faster people trying to catch him in the NFL.

But guess what? Young chose to forego his senior year and enter the draft. It was a smart move, because his stock would have never been higher, but it was his choice.

He could have come back (a la Matt Leinart) and played an amazing season, maybe the best college season ever for a QB. Barring injury, he would have been a shoo-in for the Heisman.

So is it his lack of adversity on the playing field that has created his soft mentality?

Tom Brady faced nothing but adversity. He was benched in college, even went so far as to see a psychologist to assuage his fears over not playing.

And he was barely an afterthought at the draft. Now he is a cold-blooded assassin, owner of three Super Bowl rings, and the most terrifying sight a secondary could ever see in the waning minutes of a close game.

Why doesn't Young have that in him?

He thought about retiring after one year because the pressure was so great. And it's not like he hasn't faced adversity in his personal life. From what I know of his story, he beat some long odds to even go to college.

There are players that would kill for his skill set. Yet he seems devastated by his "failures."

I put that last word in quotation marks because I don't consider him to be a bad QB at all. Tennessee fans can boo all they want, but they haven't seen someone with his skills.

Let's take a look at some other highly touted draft picks from his draft, and see how Young compares:

Matt Leinart? More of a staple on TMZ than in the end zone.

Reggie Bush? Promising first season, bad injury last year, but he still has a lot to prove to show that he can be the force he was in college.

Jay Cutler? Doing okay, but he's got a lot of room for improvement, and still hasn't made the playoffs.

Young brought the Titans to a Wild Card berth on the last game of the season.

I would like to blame part of his mental state on the fans, but that seems to be a cop-out. After all, Eli Manning has been booed roundly, and look what he has done.

Sure, they shouldn't cheer when their QB (or any player, regardless of team) goes down, but he's got to be thick-skinned. As an athlete, the better you get, the more people are going to hate you; especially when you're playing their team.

So chin up, Vince. You've got an incredible game, and you're only going to get better. Injuries happen—especially to mobile QBs—but don't give up.

If Young were to carry through on his "threat" to retire, it would be a great loss to his team, the NFL, and sports in general.