The VY Roller Coaster Of Love

It's late November which means wives and girlfriends are out elbowing each other in an attempt to spend all of their (or someone else's) money on coutures and ornamental crap while the guys stay home and watch the NFL playoff picture come into focus while ignoring most Christmas shopping duties.

Usually by now, the NFL is separated into groups of have and have nots. Vikings? Good. Browns? Bad. The haves jockey for playoff position while the have nots jokey (yes, I meant to mispell that) for draft slots. Then right there in NFL purgatory sit the Tennessee Titans just a game below .500. The record isn't exciting, but how Tennessee got there is.

The Titans have become the first team ever to win five straight games after losing their first six. The common denominator in the turnaround is one Vincent Young. He just keeps winning football games. Yesterday, he proved he could actually pass as he threw for 387 yards including a game winning touchdown against the Matt Leinart led Cardinals.

Now we'll see all sorts of comparisons to Young's drive to beat the Leinart led USC Trojans in the 2006 Rose Bowl. It's cute. You get to see Leinart relive his college nightmare in the pros. And that's about it.

It's the NFL. If you play quarterback long enough, you will have a chance to win a game. How many game winning drives does Tom Brady or Peyton Manning have? That's nothing new.

Yet here goes everyone jumping back on the VY bandwagon. These are the same people that were falling all over each other to label Young a bust over the past year. So is Young the future in Tennessee? It was only two months ago when people were assuming Young would be gone from the Titans and possibly the NFL before long.

Did Young really become that much better of a quarterback on the bench? He's definitely matured. But he was leading the Titans to the playoffs before his benching too. So why did everyone suddenly label him a colossal bust and why have they suddenly reversed course after only five regular season games?

Vince will lose at some point, he's not going undefeated. He'll also have some bad games. It will be interesting to see the reaction when Young proves he's human again because right now it's like his fans are manic depressives. When he wins, he's in the Pro-Bowl, when he loses, he's in the toilet bowl.

Young has rejuvenated his career, but is this the norm or just a peak in his crazy NFL life?