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June 27, 2010

A TV Guide Collectors Edition cover from the 1997 season hangs in my office. It shows Steve McNair and Eddie George preparing for the team’s arrival in the mid south. People pause when they see the photo and often the words, “I cannot believe he is gone” are uttered.  

Indeed. Here we are: a year since McNair lost his life in downtown Nashville on a sad Fourth of July. It still seems like a bad dream. But of course, it is not.

So many stories of McNair’s days with Tennessee came to the forefront during the days surrounding his death. One, in particular, has stuck with me during the last year. It involves the start to the 2000 season as the Titans fell to Buffalo in the opener, a game in which McNair struggled. He completed just 54 percent of his passes, threw a pick and was sacked four times.

The team returned home the following week to face Kansas City and again McNair did not seem like himself: just 11 completions, just 93 yards passing, two touchdowns, two sacks, and a lost fumble. A wicked hit late in the game sent McNair to the sidelines and Neil O’Donnell trotted on to the field. In the days after McNair’s death, head coach Jeff Fisher remembered the cheers O’Donnell received as he came on to the field, cheers that McNair heard as he headed to the lockerroom with a sternum injury. It was one of the more severe injuries McNair suffered during his career, sending him to an overnight hospital stay with breathing issues.

O’Donnell led the Titans to a win over the Chiefs and Fisher remembered visiting a distraught McNair at the hospital after the game. McNair told Fisher he simply could not play any more – the pressure of trying to live up to expectations had become too much for him, especially in the wake of the Titans’ magical Super Bowl run the previous season. Fisher said last July that he felt as though he had failed McNair because he had not prepared him for how his life would change after that Super Bowl appearance. McNair’s star had arrived at sports’ highest level and he was not ready.

That part of the story came as news to me. You no doubt remember the “rest of the story” as McNair healed up but still sat out the next game at Pittsburgh. Sat out, that is, until the final moments when a wicked hit sent O’Donnell to the sidelines and McNair, the truest example I’ve seen in 14 NFL seasons of “emergency quarterback” had to play. His touchdown pass to Erron Kinney won the game for the Titans and another chapter of Steve McNair heroics had been written.

Fisher said last July that he attempted to talk with McNair about his hospital confession in the aftermath of that win. “Steve just winked and pointed to the sky,” Fisher remembered. McNair had found peace.

For his part, McNair told Mike Keith in an interview two years ago that the Pittsburgh game stood out to him because he finally realized his teammates believed in him to make the play, to win the game, to lead them through good and bad moments. It was a revealing moment from a man who rarely showed his true feelings and emotions beyond the huddle and lockerroom, but it provides amazing insights into the fragility of an athlete, who on the surface seemed to play with such reckless confidence.

McNair told Keith he finally understood what it meant to be an NFL quarterback during the final moments of that game – and from that point forward, he was a different quarterback.

The stats bare that out. Having thrown three interceptions in the first two game games, McNair would throw just three in the next seven games. After the Pittsburgh game, he registered four 100+ passer ratings in the next seven outings, throwing ten touchdowns. Injuries would derail his 2001 season, but he came back in 2002 with the best back-to-back campaigns of his NFL career.

Did it all begin with the Pittsburgh game in 2000? If we take McNair at his word, the answer is yes.

Steve McNair’s adopted son, Vince Young, seems to be at a similar crossroad in his life. On the field, Young did something many of us thought he could not last year when he rebounded from the personal embarrassment of the 2008 season. Like the man he called “Pops,” Young lie on the LP Field surface writhing in pain while fans roared for his backup. Like the man who befriended him during his high school days, Young asked questions about his future as an NFL quarterback following that Jacksonville game– a much more public, but eerily similar emotional meltdown as McNair suffered after the Kansas City game. Like Steve McNair, Young answered the doubters, the critics, his teammates, maybe even himself when he stayed focused and came back last year with a 8-2 record when even the most die-hard Titan fan thought the season could sink to new lows.

The question now: how does Vince Young follow it up? Does he take off? Does he learn from Mike Heimerdinger what it takes to be a more complete quarterback, just as McNair did in the early part of the last decade? Does he put the work in necessary? Does he become a leader on the football team, not with his heroics but with his heart and his soul – the important stuff that becomes so readily apparent to members of a team? Does Vince Young do the things that leaders need to do – a laugh at a crucial moment to take the edge off, a harsh word when a receiver needs it, a pat on the butt for the guy struggling in a game?

And off the field, does Young learn from “Pops”? Steve McNair’s best statistical season came just months after a very public arrest for DUI in May, 2003. An embarrassed McNair answered the criticism publicly, dealt with the issue in an upfront matter, and channeled the disappointment over the situation he put himself in – toward football.

Facing a similar type situation after his Dallas strip club incident, Vince Young also stood up and admitted his mistakes in recent weeks. Now, can he channel that negativity in a positive fashion? It is certainly fair to wonder about Young’s mindset.

Those close to Young know McNair’s passing affected the former Texas Longhorns quarterback. The extent to which, probably will not be known for a long time – maybe a sit down after his career will reveal Young’s inner thinking and feelings. Even more than McNair, Young has a shield around his feelings and thoughts – no doubt born in the protection that such a high profile celebrity must build to keep out those wanting nothing more than to be a hanger-on. While McNair made headlines in college, he did so outside the media glare of the Big 12 and in a time, that even 15 years ago, is much different than today’s media landscape.

But as we pause to think about Steve McNair and his family during this difficult time, we cannot help but reflect on one of the lessons McNair learned during his NFL career and whether that same lesson applies to his friend as a very important year in the business life of Vince Young approaches.