Vince Young Talks New Netflix Documentary, Titans, Cam Ward and Arch Manning
It’s been many years since Vince Young played professional football, but two decades ago he was on top of the world.
The 43-year-old former quarterback was the talk of the football world back in 2006 after leading the Texas Longhorns to an upset over the Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush-led USC Trojans. The Trojans were favored in that game and featured the Heisman Trophy winner of that season in Bush and the Heisman Trophy winner of the previous season in Leinart.
The Trojans were the back-to-back defending national champs and were favored by a touchdown entering the game. Young had arguably the greatest performance in National Championship Game history, scoring the game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left and winning Offensive MVP honors after posting 200 rushing yards with three touchdowns.
While his NFL career ended by the time he was 28, he had early success, showing off the potential that made him college football’s biggest star. Young won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2006, went to the Pro Bowl twice in his first four seasons (2006 and 2009) and led the Tennessee Titans to the playoffs in his second season in 2007.
Young’s new documentary on Netflix — as part of their Untold series — will premiere on Aug. 25. The documentary covers all of Young’s ups and downs dating back to his Longhorns days and extending all the way to the end of his NFL career when he had offseason stints with the Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills before retiring.
Interview With Vince Young
Q: I watched the documentary today. It was really good, I thought it was pretty well balanced. Talk about how all this came together. Why did it interest you to tell your story?
Young: Thanks for having me, DJ. That’s a great question. I’ve been one of those guys who’s kind of been rebuilding my brand from all the stuff that I’ve been through in my life and just cleaning up a lot of mess. It just wasn’t time when everybody else wanted me to do it, so I kind of just prayed on it and kind of been waiting when it’s that time. My team reached out and tried to see how we can get this done and for Netflix to give us an opportunity. I thought it was pretty cool, and to give my testimony in my own words, it’s a great opportunity for not only for me and my family, but the next young man and young lady out there in the world that may be going through something that’s similar to what I went through in my career and where I’m at today.
Hopefully, the story is not only people looking at it as a sports part of it. I want them to understand the message. It’s just something that is what I’m all about is family and my accountability — taking accountability from my mistakes and things that I did wrong when I was a young man at the time. I’m grateful that Netflix is giving me the opportunity to tell my testimony.
Q: Like you said, this is the right time for you to tell your story. This is really the first time that you’ve gone in depth about your career and whatnot over the college years and the pro years and the struggles and whatnot. This is really the first in-depth look, right?
Young: Correct. It’s been a lot going on for my 43 years. I’m a dad now. One of those special things that happened to me in my life is being a father and not having my dad around. It’s very important to me to be in their lives. My team can tell you I shut down stuff that if I can’t do with my family first, I’m not doing it. I understand that because I didn’t have my dad around, and I didn’t know when I went in therapy and different things, that was a trigger point for me. For me to answer those questions and ask him to answer it, it did give me some kind of a closure in that situation, and as well as with me and (Jeff) Fisher.
I was young, very young. I made a lot of mistakes, but I take accountability, and I also wanted people to know what I did do when I was on that team for the Titans, when I was on the bench, I was focused. When my time came, I showed it. And I started off rough in the passing game, and as my career got better, I was elite in completion ratings, just getting better as a quarterback, but I also had a lot of stuff going on and off the field that kind of was a distraction for me. Losing Steve (McNair), just a lot of things that needed to be answered that everybody else was saying, but they weren’t telling it the right way.
I feel like with the Netflix piece, and with John, the producer, it was for me to get my story out and get what people don’t understand about me and what happened. Now you get to hear from my own mouth, and that’s the best thing ever when you get it from the person who’s going through it. I’m just really happy that I can give my story out to these next people out there and young men and young ladies, even adults out there that are probably going through some things in life to you know help them understand that when all the stuff that I went through, if I can come out of it better and stronger, you can too.
Q: I want to talk about the current Titans. Obviously they have Cam Ward there, the new head coach. What are your overall thoughts on the current Titans and Cam Ward as a quarterback?
Young: That young man is doing everything he’s supposed to do right now. I’m just happy they got some people around him. I really feel like he went through the situation Caleb (Williams) went through in Chicago. He didn’t have anybody to throw the ball to, and he was just running for his life. I really feel like the Titans organization has done that. Put some good receivers around him, good running backs, better offensive line. Now he gets to be more comfortable in the offense that he’s in. That’s always tough to do as well when you come into a situation and then your offensive coordinator leaves, and all that type of stuff.
And then you gotta learn the whole playbook over again. I really feel like that’s good for him moving forward, and then he’s winning over the team. The guys speak really highly of him, the organization as well, and even the city, Nashville. That’s all a plus. When you have that, now you can just go focus on being a quarterback. He has all the intangibles, he has the arm strength, he has it all to be successful. Now you got to just bring it all together with his teammates and get that chemistry and go on this little run because he definitely is a winner.
Q: Obviously the talent is there because he showed it at Miami. He was a Heisman Trophy candidate over there. When you watch him, does he remind you of any quarterback? And can you compare him to any quarterback, whether past or present?
Young: Nah, I gotta watch him a little bit more. I think he has his own swag right now, but I love his deep throws. It’s beautiful to watch, and I love his decision-making. A lot of the young guys that I’m very proud of have been more consistent in the passing game and are very talented to me. For me, there were some games I was consistent in the passing game, and some games it was ugly. But to see these young men being more consistent and making better plays, that’s what I see out of Shedeur Sanders and those guys. Even though they get talked a lot, but nobody talks about the consistency that they have in the passing game, delivering the ball down the field and being very accurate and making good decisions.
Q: I know you’re always going to be a Longhorns guy. What are your current thoughts on Arch Manning as a quarterback, and your expectations for this season?
Young: For Arch Manning, I think he’s going to have a really good year because of the way that I’m hearing from the coaching staff about how more mature he is; that’s just setting the tone for me. When I came in and I was more mature and comfortable with what’s going on, then I play better, and I didn’t have to worry about looking over my shoulders and things like that. To hear that he’s very confident and he’s taking the leadership role and wanting to be the leader of the team, that says a whole lot about him and his teammates and how they gravitate around him. I really feel like he’s gonna have a better year because he’s got weapons over there. He’s got a better O-Line. We lost one of our guys, that hurts. Pray that he comes back and be back before the Ohio State and some big games. But he has everything he needs. All he’s got to do is just keep working, keep his head down.
For the team overall, if we fix third down, if we fix red zone and special teams, the Texas Longhorns are going to be a team that you have to beat if they’re on the same page right there. So those three things are what I’m looking at. If they do better on third down in the red zone and cut down those penalties, they’re gonna be hard to beat.
Q: Have you spoken to Arch at all?
Young: Yeah, in the offseason. That’s one of the things I like about him. He talks to me and Colt McCoy, he came up and asked us questions. How do I build the chemistry? What do I do in the offseason? Go play, throw to your team, go bowling. Y’all got money now. Go do something together. That’s because it’s hard for you to build a team last year, and then a lot of those guys are gone. Now you got to build chemistry with some more guys. That’s tough.
You have to do that in the offseason. Get together, hang out together, be around each other, train together, work together, because without the chemistry, you can’t go out there if you don’t know who the guy is. I really feel like he did that in the off-season. And I really do appreciate him coming up and talking to me and Colt McCoy and asking this question: What should we do? That lets you know he wants to get better and he wants to win. He wants to win now too.