Is Vince Young The New Brett Favre?

Though it’s unlikely at this point that Vince Young possesses the talent of “retired” quarterback Brett Favre, Young already seems to possess Favre’s temperament. At least when it comes to periodically considering retirement. Young recently acknowledged that he considered quitting after being booed by the home crowd during the first game of the 2008 regular season. “I was to the point where man, I didn’t really want to play no more because of the fact that I was that hurt,” Young recently told ESPN. “I was that hurt from the boos and all the different things that were going on. It was just so much for me. I didn’t want to play no more.” It’s not the first time Young has toyed with calling it quits. Lost in the bizarre events of September 2008 is the fact that, several months earlier, Young admitted that he considered packing it in after an initial season that resulted in Young being named offensive rookie of the year. “I really thought long and hard about it,” Young told Thomas George of NFL.com at the time. “There was so much going on with my family. It was crazy being an NFL quarterback. It wasn’t fun anymore. All of the fun was out of it. All of the excitement was gone. All I was doing was worrying about things.” He also said that he found a way to control the negative thoughts. “Now I can handle this kind of stuff without it making me want to give up football,” Young said. And, of course, after his very next football game that counted, he nearly gave up football. Then again, roughly a week after saying that he considered a one-and-done NFL career, Young refuted his own words. “I ain’t never said I was going to quit football,” Young said in May 2008. “There was a lot of stuff going on in my life, but football is not hard to me. Football is easy. All you have to do is be coachable and use your God-given talent. If it was a thought at all it was just a passing thought for a second.” If the pattern holds, Young might say in a few days that he didn’t say that he wanted to quit in the wake of that Week One debacle. Of course, it’ll be even harder this time around to get anyone to believe that he was misquoted, given that his comments were made to a camera and a microphone. So what’s going on here? It could be that Vince is standing before a high wall in a physical, mental, and emotional wall in his development as an NFL quarterback. And that Vince doesn’t know how to climb over it. Or that he doesn’t want to exert the energy to try. It’s the same problem that fellow 2006 top-ten draft pick Matt Leinart is facing. Though it remains to be seen whether Leinart’s decision to resort to MMA training will help the 2004 Heisman winner get over that wall, at least he’s trying. All that Vince seems to be doing is talking.