Mistakes Were Made: Vince Young

Have you started prepping for your draft yet? Have you started a free fantasy football league yet? If so, Mistakes Were Made is a series that looks at prior drafts in order to not repeat the sins of the past. Previously, we examined why Shaun Alexander was so misread before last season's draft. Today, it's Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young.

Before the 2007 season started, nobody in the league had been upgraded as much as Titans QB Vince Young. In his rookie season of 2006, Young had ended on a high note. From Week 12 on, he had one terrible game and the rest ranged to very solid to spectacular.

Going into drafts, Young was being seriously touted. Many pundits ranked him solidly as a QB1, especially in twelve team leagues. At least one major publication had him ranked as the #8 quarterback overall. Instead, Young was barely usable as a QB2 most weeks and finished the season barely in the top-20 overall.

Why did people miss so badly? The answer is surprisingly simple: rushing touchdowns.

In 2006, Young scored seven times on the ground, masking his mere 12 TD through the air. Rushing touchdowns are notoriously hard to predict, even for bonafide running backs. To be worthy in anything but a TD-only league, a player has to be at least a semblance of a complete player. Last season, Young not only declined his passing touchdowns from twelve to just 9, he scored just three rushing TD. That's the same amount that the virtual statue Peyton Manning scored.

Part of the blame was the woeful offense of the Titans – it's hard to throw touchdowns to guys who can't get open. But fantasy pundits and owners blew it because they overlooked how fragile his 2006 statistics were. Luck plays a big part in all of sport – it's just important to recognize it when it's there.

Take, for example, Greg Jennings of the Packers. In his second year, Jennings exploded off of his rookie year, getting into the end zone 12 times in what most assumed was Brett Favre's final season. (Cough.) Twelve scores is a LOT. Accordingly, Jennings is being taken at about the 41^st pick overall, and the 15^th WR. That's before other WR such as Roy Williams, Santonio Holmes, Marvin Harrison, Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson and Lee Evans. And it's way earlier than his teammate Donald Driver, who is going almost three full rounds later as the 24^th WR overall.

Forget for a moment – but just a moment – that Jennings is likely to be getting passes thrown to him by a guy who hasn't attempted 60 passes in the league yet. If you ignore the passing touchdowns, it's clear that Driver had a significantly better season. Jennings only played 13 games to Driver's 15, and they both essentially each averaged 70 yards per game – so Driver's added games played helped him in yardage. Driver did that with 29 extra catches, something that mattered a lot to points-per-catch leagues. The problem? He only scored twice.

But what if Jennings cuts his scores down from twelve to, say, seven? Jennings is fast, but it's unlikely that he'll be in the top five in Yards per Reception as he was last season at 17.4. It doesn't take a huge amount of luck to change for Jennings to miss the end zone at least a handful of times next year. If that happens, he's a gamble to start every week because his real value comes when he scores.

I'm not saying Jennings can't score a lot of TDs this season; I'm just saying that betting on it ignores the fact that he's unlikely to do much better. In fact, he's a whole lot more likely to do worse. Lost in the Randy Moss scorefest last year was the fact that Moss, Braylon Edwards and Terrell Owens had crazy TD scoring seasons, historically speaking. Many seasons, the leader has 12 touchdowns. Are you willing to be on Jennings leading the league this season? If not, it's a whole lot more likely that he'll recede this year than build upon it.

One of the true upsides of being a fantasy veteran is learning from the mistakes we and others make over the years. It's important to learn from these mistakes -- and capitalize by recognizing when your league mates haven't done likewise.