What's Eating Vince Young?

Friday afternoon: the Titans' practice facility. Three-quarters of the way into the locker room, in the small clearing of cheap carpet not occupied by oak stalls, stand the sportswriters. Men, and one woman, clicking Morse on their ballpoints, flipping through notebooks absentmindedly, trying to avoid locking eyes with the enormous, barely toweled men plodding past them. The writers are, as one embittered ex-member of their ranks coined them, foot soldiers in the Department of Hero Maintenance and Disposal.

Today's hero strides by in a white skullcap. His is a noble walk: unhurried, chin high, feet cushioned by the electric-blue-piping Reeboks ordered custom-made by trainers. He breezes past the scribes, Caesar among plebes, as they pretend not to notice that the most compelling storyline in professional sports—the elephant in the locker room—has just been allowed safe exit by a handler. The handler who, earlier in the day, crossed his arms like a referee signaling an incomplete pass while mouthing, "No V-Y."

Empty-handed, the writers mine the outer edges. One approaches locker mates Alge Crumpler and Bo Scaife, and the two tight ends take a momentary break from their conversation.

"He's just gonna ask you a bunch of questions about Vince," teases Crumpler.

Scaife doesn't bother to look up. He sounds weary as he thumbs a text into his phone's keypad.

"They always do," he says.

Anyone who thinks this is unfair lacks an understanding of the word. Besides risking their short- and long-term health—besides being targets of physical abuse from opponents, not to mention verbal abuse from coaches, fans and columnists—not much is asked of professional football players. They are grown men making a relative fortune at a kid's game. Fielding dumb questions about the team's fearless leader should be the mildest of occupational hazards.

Only these days, the questions hit like a 350-pound lineman.

The Titans are the only undefeated team in the National Football League. Their hero of the moment is a 35-year-old recovered alcoholic. They have arguably the league's most physical defense. Narrative angles should be as abundant as flaming-T helmets during a gang tackle.

But for all intents and purposes, all anyone wants to discuss is Vince Young.

The quarterback is the most highly scrutinized athlete in all sports, not just the NFL. He is the general, the executioner, the battlefield coordinator. When struggling to describe the importance of a position, no matter what the sport, announcers typically invoke the signal-caller—as in, "the catcher is the quarterback on the field," or, "the point guard is the quarterback on the court." But even before he was taken third in the 2006 draft, Vince Young was already a special case.

Young's entrance into the professional ranks was preceded by high school superstardom, followed by one of the greatest individual performances in college football. With 11 guys on either side, football at any level is undoubtedly a team sport. And yet never have so many analysts, nor so many casual fans, dubbed a victory "single-handed" as they did Texas' 41-38 win over the University of Southern California in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

The game is legend. Facing a team considered the most talented in the country—no fewer than two Heisman Trophy winners anchored its backfield—the Longhorns piled up 500-plus yards of offense. Of those, golden-boy Young accounted for all but 89. He rushed for three touchdowns, including the game winner with nineteen seconds left. Ex-Trojan and Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott called Young the greatest quarterback to ever play the sport.

At 22 years old, Vince Young wasn't just a hero. In Texas, where the fervor of sports devotion takes on a cult-like cast, he was a near-deity—a superhero.

Three years later, though, he's looking more like Hancock than Superman. Young is currently mired in the worst stretch of his professional career. Booed after refusing to come off the sidelines during the fourth quarter of the Titans season opener, Young eventually relented, only to sprain his knee a couple plays later. Then things got weird.

The Monday after the game, Metro police got a call from someone at Young's house. He'd gone AWOL without his cell phone. An all points bulletin was issued and negotiators were put on hold. The Titans' team therapist told police Young had mentioned suicidal thoughts. His family said he kept a gun in the glove compartment. The bizarre saga ended at midnight when Young met with Titans' coach Jeff Fisher and declared the whole incident a misunderstanding: Depending on who you believe, Young or the local media, he was either watching Monday Night Football at a friend's house or bartering autographs for hot wings at an East Nashville barbecue joint. Either way, if Young wanted heat, he got it.

Was he mentally ill? Depressed? Or was it less a matter of chemistry and more a matter of character? Was he, as ESPN's most vociferous Young-critic Merril Hoge suggested, just a "crybaby?" Despite the subsequent spin, speculation about Young still dominates the airwaves. And his few recent interactions with the press have done little to quiet the chatter. In a press conference last week, he was still blaming the bad ol' media for his current woes—the kind of lame cop-out nobody buys from Paris Hilton, let alone a leader of men.