Our Long, Regional Nightmare Is Over

Vince Young will never wear these colors again.

It's official. Vince Young is no longer a Titan.

Final line on VY:

689-1190 (57.9%)
8098 yards
(6.8 yds/pass; 150 yds/game)
42 TD, 42 INT
QB Rating: 75.7
264 rushes
1380 rush yds
(5.2 yds/carry; 25.6 yds/game)
12 rush TD
30 wins, 17 losses as starting QB.
1 replica jersey that will now hang in my closet until I decide to give it to Goodwill.

So, aside from that win-loss record, it turns out that Vince was painfully average as a quarterback. Winning is everything, but that's a team statistic, first and foremost. No one can say Vince single-handedly won those games, and that's the bottom line.

But thanks, Vince, for giving us plenty to talk about. From your amazing 4th Quarter performances against Arizona in 2009 and the Giants in 2006, to the many times you took yourself out of the game and sulked on the sidelines, and lest we forget the meltdown in the Washington game in 2010, you were a constant source of jubilation or angst. But alas, it's time to move on. Good luck in the future. I have a feeling you're going to need it.

A Growing Optimism

I've been very pessimistic about the coming Titans season to this point, but that's beginning to change, because just the other day, I realized something: Jeff Fisher is gone.

How did I miss this news, you ask? I didn't. I just don't think it really hit me until yesterday when I finally accepted the fact that the lockout is over, and I saw the dynamic changes coming to the philosophy at Baptist Sports Park.

I'm not convinced that Mike Munchak is going to adopt "Fisherball" (i.e. run, run, screen, run, run, screen, run, screen, run, punt/FG) in full. I expect the offense to be a little more exciting this year. All offseason, the coaches have been working on schemes for Matthew Hasselbeck, knowing that he was their prime target, and they got him yesterday. And don't think they haven't been talking to him all offseason. Despite the lockout, those deals were going down and everybody knows it. Knowing now that Hasselbeck will be playing quarterback (for at least the first part of the year) is giving me optimism. He's not an elite QB, but he's serviceable for his age, and he knows his role. Don't expect him to just be the mentor, though. He's going to be motivated to, y'know, not suck, because as soon as he does, they'll hand the keys over to Jake Locker.

On that note, I wonder how quickly Bud Adams will intervene if that happens, though. In 2006, it took three straight losses to open the season before Bud laid down the law and ordered Jeff Fisher to put Vince Young in the lineup, but Bud had an attachment to Vince that he doesn't have with Jake. However, a different dynamic comes into play here: Would Bud demand a change from the Owner's Suite to remind Mike Munchak who is the boss? I don't think so. I fully expect Bud to be hands-off this year, and whatever happens happens without his direct input. Bud has a soft spot for Mike Munchak, who anchored the Oilers' offensive line through the 80s and 90s, and I have a feeling that he's willing to give him a little more leeway as a result.

With Hasselbeck, and even possibly Locker, under center this year, I expect to see a more balanced passing attack than we saw under Collins and Young. More deep passes. Kenny Britt (if he's not suspended) will get to shine this season, but the team needs to invest in one more wide receiver, in my opinion. Chris Johnson (if he's not holding out) will still get the ball handed off to him a lot, but the other facets of the game will hopefully be improved, such as the defensive backfield, which (thankfully) has another year of experience under its belt, but will be seeing a new system put in place by Jerry Gray.

I still don't see the Titans making the playoffs this year, but I also don't expect we'll be getting the first draft pick in 2012. Hopefully, though, we'll see some improvement over the debacle that was the last half of last season. It might take some time for everything to jell simply due to the fact that the new coaches didn't get to work with the players in OTAs, but with the new attitude & new QBs, I think that by the second half of the season, we will.

==
BONUS BLOG POST: I think we should wait until late July to start the Free Agency & Trading Period every year. Yesterday was incredibly exciting, as the rest of the week is sure to be as well. It's taken my mind off the fact that the Predators are still 71 days away from dropping the puck. :-)

PISSED

Julio Lugo was called safe on this play. Ridiculous.

I am pissed that my favorite team won. Or, at least that they won it that way. I invested almost 7 hours into the Braves/Pirates game. It was full of drama, and it ended on the worst call I have ever seen in any sport.

The Braves defeated the Pirates 4-3 in 19 innings on a call that was so bad, it can't even be called questionable. Julio Lugo was out at home by almost 3 feet, and was tagged twice (and called safe) before he ever touched home plate. As ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted: "[Home Plate Umpire] Jerry Meals is going to be in for a very long day Wednesday."

The umpiring was terrible all night. It was worst at the end. If there were ever a case for expanded replay in baseball, the screenshot above is it.

If the Braves win the Wild Card or East Division by 1 game, we'll remember this night and the gift the Braves were given.

The Titans Logo Looks Nothing Like the Letter A

As part of the NFL's public relations campaign to get its fans excited about the upcoming season now that the lockout is over, the league is returning to its "Back to Football" campaign used in recent years around the start of the season. As such, the league customizes the campaign for each of its 32 franchises, inserting the team logo into the wordmark in place of the league shield.

What is Footboll? Or is it Footbtll?

In the case of the Titans, however, the placement is curious. Why replace the letter A with the Titans "flaming thumbtack" logo? It looks nothing at all like an A. It more resembles the letter O, and, for goodness' sake, there's a T inside the logo. Of course, both O and T appear in the word "football".

The Jets got it right. Why can't we? I know this is a league creation, but someone here in Nashville had to sign off on it. Maybe Titans management was too busy perusing Kenny Britt's arrest record. Or, you know, not doing anything football-related for the last 5 months.

And, I know, the majority all of my Titans-related posts on this blog have been negative so far. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here. I am a huge Titans fan, and I want them to win a Super Bowl more than anyone. They're just so darn easy to pick on right now.

The Road to the #1 Pick In the 2012 Draft begins!

Unlocked & Ready for Action

The NFL Lockout is officially over.

Nashville, it's time to get pumped up for the Titans' 2011 season, which I'm calling "The Road to the #1 Pick In The 2012 NFL Draft".

These are my people. This is where I come from.

After an fun weekend in Cincinnati, where I saw my beloved Braves get beaten down by the Reds, then went to the Louisville Slugger Factory & Museum on the way back (which was very fun, educational, and amusing, by the way—I highly recommend to any baseball fan)... I return home to find this posted to my Facebook wall...



Yes, that's the pre-race prayer at the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Nashville Gladeville Superspeedway, and that's a preacher from Lebanon. Being a Wilson County native, I can't quite decide whether to be proud or ashamed. It depends on whether the Internets judge it to be hilarious or inappropriate, I guess. Either way, it is amusing.

Could Nashville Support the MLS?

Major League Soccer in Nashville?

Is Nashville ripe ground for a Major League Soccer team? We've certainly seen good crowds come to LP Field for the Team USA friendlies in recent years. Some 20,000 attended the most recent one at the same time the Predators played to a sold-out crowd at Bridgestone Arena.

While you may say, "Soccer?!?", I say that Nashville has an increasingly diverse population and a large (and rapidly growing) percentage of immigrants from countries where fútbol is king. And, of course, there's the old standby reasoning: kids play soccer and it's on the cusp of being the next big thing (which people have been saying since the 70s).

Overhead for an MLS team is rather low. Currently only 6 players in the league command a salary of $1 million or more, but 3 of those (Thierry Henry, David Beckham, and Rafael Marquez) are over $4 million, and the market for Henry and Marquez was no doubt driven up by Beckham's exorbitant contract with the LA Galaxy a few years ago. The average player salary is around $140,000, and that's including those players above the million-dollar mark. You could stock an entire team for less than the Predators are paying Sergei Kostitsyn this year.

The big question is: Who would own the team and where would they play? The answer that would come to everyone's mind immediately is LP Field. Not gonna happen. The only way Nashville will get a MLS team in the immediate future would be if Bud Adams ponies up for the franchise. His old buddy, the late Lamar Hunt, was a charter MLS owner, but the old bird-flipping curmudgeon from Houston is pushing 90 years old now, and I don't see launching a new soccer franchise in Nashville as a high priority for him. And if Bud doesn't own the team, it's not going to play at LP Field. The owner would have to pay rent, no control over any off-field signage, and the Titans would keep the concession & parking money. Good luck with that.

(Ed.Note: J.R. Lind tweets me this: "Also worth noting: MLS would have to waive soccer-specific stadium req to play at LP Field. They've only done that once, for SEA [Seattle]. And Seattle pre-sold like 37K season tix")

It would take someone who would be willing to finance a privately-owned stadium (capacity 18,000-25,000), on land possibly donated by Metro for the cause. I wouldn't ask Metro for any cash right now...with the Music City Center stretching the town thin and Mayor Dean barely interested in getting a new stadium for the Sounds, the city probably wouldn't be willing to take the risk on soccer. But, if the Sounds end up getting a new ballpark downtown, Greer Stadium's current location (with a new building, of course) might be the perfect place to land. With the Predators having a rather large ownership group of local business leaders, I don't know if someone here in town would be available or willing to start such a venture. It might take somebody from the outside (let's hope it's not Craig Leipold) to make it happen.

Even with all that said and a lot of questions left to be answered, I believe within the next 5-10 years, Nashville will be home to a Major League Soccer franchise. Not quite yet...but soon.