Former Titans QB Young hopes to repair his image with Eagles

STEVE McNAIR, his mentor, is dead.

Mack Brown, his father figure, is fading, as fathers do.

Vince Young is out of Nashville. He is in Philadelphia now.

Finally, it seems, he is ready to grow up.

Young spent the last five seasons in Tennessee eroding the profile he created as a national champion at Texas. There were Internet pictures of him half-naked swilling liquor; there was a fight in a strip club; there was petulance and insubordination.

It created a 28-year-old as toxic as he is talented. He hopes to be the Eagles' next Superfund project.

"That's one of the reasons I came here. To change the perspective everybody has on me. It's always good to clear things up," Young said this weekend, after his fifth full-bore practice as the Eagles' latest marquee backup. "A lot of people across the world, a lot of teams, don't understand me. They go off what they hear."

They hear about his pouting episode in 2008. They hear about his undignified exit after being pulled from a game last season with a thumb injury, and his resultant locker-room argument with Titans coach Jeff Fisher.

They see his unorthodox throwing motion and flawed footwork. They infer that poor numbers - a 75.7 passer rating - mean that he does not work, that he cannot think.

Eagles coach Andy Reid would not spend $5.5 million on such a creature. Would he? Not without talking to Fisher.

"Jeff is a positive guy. We talked about the pluses for Vince. He cares about the kid and what his future holds," Reid said.

Young insists that he is not in Philadelphia because Reid last year remade Michael Vick in Brett Favre's image. He signed his 1-year deal here, with a sexy club he called the "Dream Team," to get educated, and to get a recommendation.

"If I have an opportunity to play somewhere next year, Andy will do a great job of getting the information out as to the type of player I am," Young said. "And how much work I put in to be an elite quarterback in the league."

The elite ones put in ridiculous amounts of work. The elite ones don't get benched. The elite ones win playoff games.

Young is a genial type, generous with his time, sure to make the little man in the room feel big. He seldom loses his cool, but, as he sat in the shade on Saturday, he seethed at the implication that he is unprofessional.

"This question keeps coming up, like I don't pay attention or something. I want to be like a Peyton Manning or Drew Brees," Young said. "I have this perception over my head that I don't study, or I don't work. That's what upsets me."

Maybe, after this season, that perception will change.

No one is certain that it will.

Said Reid: "He has been very open with his work. He has laid it all out at the table. He's busting his tail right now. It's important he maintains that."

Reid said that, unlike Vick, who ran a version of Reid's attack in Atlanta, Young is totally unfamiliar with the Eagles' offense: philosophy, mechanics, footwork, terminology.

It is not going quickly. Young spent the weekend's practice sessions rebooting, resetting, throwing high and low and behind receivers. He handed off late, or early, or not at all. He called timeouts like Donovan McNabb in the regular season.

"He's attacking it," Reid said. "We're in that washing machine, going around and around. We'll see what happens."

Considering Young's recent past, that's as much of an endorsement as Reid can afford.

Young left UT after his junior season and is three credits shy of his degree . . . at which time he can run for governor of that would-be republic.

"He's like an icon here," Texas coach Mack Brown said.

That's because no college quarterback ever did what Young did, as a Texan, for Texas.

In 2005, he beat a superior Michigan team in the Rose Bowl, rushing for four touchdowns and passing for another.

"We had a good team. They had a good person," said former Michigan receiver Jason Avant, now the Eagles' No. 3 receiver. "The receivers didn't do it. The running game was maybe minus-2 yards. And he had like 500 yards of offense."

That was just the appetizer.

In the next Rose Bowl, Young shoved 467 yards of offense and three rushing touchdowns down the throats of a USC team that featured Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart and would have become legend. But Young's legend dwarfed that entire team.

That victory gave Texas its fourth national championship, its first in 35 humiliating years. It made Young a Longhorn god. A few months later, it made him the third overall pick in the 2006 draft.

Now, when he plays, Young wears University of Texas energy bands on each wrist. Texas will always be of him, and he of it.

Young grew up in Houston without a father, with a mother addicted to crack, with a grandmother who worked without rest, essentially raising himself and his two sisters amid poverty and drug use and casual violent crime.

That made him a man without a male compass to influence him. When Young landed with Tennessee he adopted Steve McNair as a big brother. Young supplanted McNair as the Titans' franchise quarterback in 2006, after the Titans traded the fading McNair to Baltimore, where he lasted two more seasons.

Like Young, McNair was the third overall pick, a decade earlier. His big body, his unusual delivery and his leadership abilities seemed to presage the Young era. McNair maintained a residence in Nashville, even after he retired. He served as counsel for Young.

"I used to always look up to him. All these things he taught me. I still live every day by his words, making better choices," Young said.

McNair was murdered by his mistress in July 2009.

When he arrived in Philadelphia, Young switched from No. 10, worn by DeSean Jackson, to No. 9.

McNair wore No. 9.

Now, more than ever, UT is Vince Young's family. He owns a steak house that sports his name in Austin. He spent part of the lockout working out at Texas with 50 other NFL players who are UT alums.

Mack Brown, more than ever, is his rock.

"I have all of his contact numbers," Young bragged. "Even when he's in the mountains, where his cellphone doesn't work."

"He trusts me," Brown acknowledged. "In young people's lives, especially superstars, there are so few people they can trust."

So, Young taps Brown for investment advice. He asks him what he should do about his family life. And, yes, he talked with Brown about which places would best fit him as a 28-year-old NFL enigma.

"Philadelphia is a team he talked about," Brown said. "Vince is passionate about winning. He loves a big city. He loves people.

"He is a great leader. He is very smart. He is very driven. Some of the things he's been connected with . . . people have just not understood him."

If that sounds like a proud and defensive father explaining a troubled, if well-meaning, son, it is not a stretch at all.

"A lot of people don't understand, I come from a background that's all women," Young said, and laughed.

"No father figure around. A lot of people don't understand that about me . . . and why certain things happened to me. That I sometimes don't handle things too well, I guess. When you do have a father figure in the house, who is a disciplinarian, you can strive to be a little better young man. I didn't have that in my house."

Often, he didn't have anyone in the house.

"My mom was always out in the streets. My granny was at work. It was just us three, half of the time, in the house. There wasn't anyone in the house telling me, 'No.' "

Young refused to allow access to his mother for this story.

He had no problem with Brown speaking for him.

These days, Brown lets Young know it will be OK.

Brown comforted Young after the 2006 season, when Young, overwhelmed as a rookie, told a reporter that retirement might be an option.

Brown calmed him again, in May 2008, after photos of Young, shirtless and swigging liquor, surfaced on the Internet.

That September, Young seemed unwilling to re-enter a game that was going so badly he was being booed. He injured his knee later in that game. Later that week, the team, concerned that he might be dangerously depressed, sent a psychiatrist to his home; Young denied being depressed.

Young then watched backup Kerry Collins lead the Titans to the playoffs. Brown helped Young get through it all.

Brown kept Young cool in 2009, after Collins was named the team's starter until he went 0-6. Brown celebrated with Young when Young reclaimed the job and won eight of the last 10 games.

And there was Brown, last season, after Young received an assault citation following a fight in a Dallas strip club in the offseason.

"I think I've been making better choices. Places I can be at, places I can't be at," Young said. "Getting out early, then getting yourself out of there."

Where many see wanton irresponsibility, Brown sees youthful indiscretion.

And where many see insubordination, Brown sees overdeveloped competitive instinct.

After the strip-club incident faded, Young was in the midst of a decent season. Then he tore a tendon in his right thumb in Game 10. He prepared to re-enter the game. Fisher would not let him. Young grew furious. Infamously, Young threw his shoulder pads into the stands as he left the field after the game. He then walked out of the locker room as Fisher addressed the team, spitting ire at his coach as he left.

"I apologized to him," Young said.

He did not play in another game for Fisher. The Titans announced in early January that they would soon trade or cut Young.

Stunningly, after that announcement, Fisher was fired. Not stunningly, Fisher did not respond to interview requests for this story.

At that point, Philadelphia appeared to be the only logical place for Young.

Other suitors - Washington and Minnesota, in particular - badly mismanaged delicate quarterback situations last season. Mike Shanahan hardly could have been less supportive of sensitive Redskins newcomer Donovan McNabb. Prickly Vikings czar Brad Childress sped Brett Favre's decision to retire for good . . . and got himself fired in the process.

In Philadelphia, there is Reid, and Marty Mornhinweg, and, now, Reid protégé Doug Pederson, the new quarterbacks coach. Together, over two seasons, they performed alchemy: They turned Vick from a scrambling ex-con into the Second Coming and made Kevin Kolb the most valuable trade commodity in football.

Next, lead into gold.

Or, better yet, Vince Young into Steve Young.

Young often speaks of his faith. He has the requisite Bible verse tattoo on his arm. He chose Philippians 4:13, about how he draws his strength to do all things through Christ.

What has he been? Impetuous? Fine. Insubordinate? Sure. Inaccurate? Without question; Young is a 57.9 percent passer. But, at 6-5 and 230 pounds, the high school 400-meter man shreds defenses with his deceptively fast lope.

He has not been convicted of anything except personality conflicts. He hasn't failed a drug test or a steroid test; in fact, the only test he failed is the predraft Wunderlic, and that only allegedly, and he got to retake it.

This test, with the Eagles, will be his biggest of all.

Can he learn the offense?

Can he retrain his feet and his arm?

Can he polish his tarnished image?

With the aplomb of the young and the rich, Young smiles at questions that seem so urgent.

"Even though I've got this big old cloud over my head to everybody else, to me, it's not so bad," Young said. "I've been through worse times than this. Things that you say about me don't hurt me."

The scuttlebutt in the league clearly lends credence to the criticisms.

"Where he's at now . . . it's good," said Eagles end Jason Babin, a teammate of Young's last season. "I tell you what I do see: his appreciation for the game . . . You really think about how fragile your time is here. You can tell he's spent some time thinking about that. Now, it's up to Vince."

Like Vick, Avant said, "Vince is humbled to be in the situation he's in here. You can teach people who are willing to learn. You have to be pliable. Some of the circumstances [Vick] has been through, going to prison, I thought it put him in a meeker, humbler mind-set. Quarterbacks are used to being the man. You can't tell them anything.

"I thought coming here would be good for him."

Maybe it will be.

Vick, who was eager to have Young come aboard, said that Young is picking things up fast.

Mornhinweg likes what he sees.

"He is coming, and he's coming fast. He's got outstanding tools. Uncommon ability. When he does the whole thing right, good things will happen," Mornhinweg said. "We'll see. To date, he's been outstanding with his work habits, both on and off the field."

Reid said his reluctance to put Young into the preseason opener Thursday clearly was unwarranted. Young went 3-for-5 for 45 yards, his signature play a broken one where he ran through two tacklers and drilled a completion 32 yards. It is the sort of play that made the careers of Randall Cunningham, of McNair and McNabb and Vick; the sort of play Young was drafted to make.

Despite two trips to the Pro Bowl, it is the sort of play Young seldom made in Tennessee.

Asked if he needed another huge contract to supplement the $45 million he earned from the Titans, Young said he had invested wisely, then hedged.

"I'd love a long-term contract with a team. To win the Super Bowl, for whoever," he said. "But this is a learning process for me. Learning everything I can learn from Andy and Marty so I can take my game to the next level, so I can get an opportunity to get on a team - maybe this team - and showcase my talent."

Such talent.

"People snicker," Brown said. "I tell them all the time: Vince Young is going to win a Super Bowl. He is going to be in the Hall of Fame."

This time last year, people snickered at similar assertions about the Eagles' backup quarterback.

That quarterback was Michael Vick.