4 Quarters Radio: January 14 4th Quarter

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The fourth-quarter curriculum for January 14:
--4QR gets a rare listener call-in, and the discussion veers toward the Seagulls' lack of qualifications for the playoffs.
--Los Guys discuss the State of Their Teams, including the proper result of the Fisher-Young showdown, whether Skeletor needs to spend to keep Nnamdi Asomugha, and the comparisons between Bob Sanders and Kenny McCormick.
--The Ultimate Fighter coaches have been named, and the idea of Brock Lesnar weekly on Spike seems like a sure recipe for fun and disaster.
--Scott explains why the Knicks need to simply walk away from Melo.
--In the Epic Fails, Bobby calls out a clumsy corner, Logan gasses a Nazi ref, and Scott marvels at how people will pay multiple hundreds of dollars expressly to stand outside a stadium.

Excised music: "Always Something" by Cage the Elephant.

How Right are the Titans in Dumping Vince Young?

Let's do a small piece of blind taste-testing...er, except we're tasting quarterbacks. Eeeeew.

Anyway, grossness out of the way, here's the comparison:

Quarterback A: 21-12 (.636 winning percentage) as a starter over three seasons, 55.3 percent completions, 30 TD, 27 interceptions, 161 yards per game.

Quarterback B: 30-17 (.638) as starter over five seasons, 57.9 percent, 42 TD, 42 picks, 150 yards per game.

Neither set of numbers is exploding off the page, but one of these players still had local fans defending him to the death, while one was considered among the worst QB's of all time based off a hideous rookie season.

Given the fact that his 30-17 record as a starter has been trotted out ad nauseam as fans and analysts struggle to find good things to say about him, it should be no surprise that Vince Young is Quarterback B. As for Quarterback A?

This guy. Kyle Orton, one of my ex-Purdue amigos, and quite obviously a veteran party hound. The numbers above are from his three seasons in Chicago, where he grew as a quarterback while one of the decade's best defenses toiled opposite him in practice.

At least he's never been caught on video beating some fool in a strip club, but that's a whole other story.

As an interesting coincidence, Orton spent the past two seasons churning out numbers after being traded to Denver for Jay Cutler, the guy who was selected eight spots behind Vince Young in the 2006 draft.

Nashville sports radio, as recently as October, still occasionally turned out mouth-breathers who would still claim that Young was the best of the three 2006 signal-callers (Matt Leinart, of course, being the third). Strangely, out of the three, only one is likely to have a starting job in 2011, and it ain't VY.

Cutler's not quite the franchise guy yet. Did he whine his way out of Denver? Yep. Is he arrogant? You bet.

One thing Jay's never been accused of, however, is being lazy. Leinart always seemed more interested in hot-tubbing, and Vince always seemed to think he could just show up and dominate. If I have to choose one of those traits in my franchise QB, I'm taking arrogance over laziness every time.

For all the (entirely justifiable) flak that Cutler caught for crying his way out of Denver, his towel is nowhere near as tear-stained as Vince Young's. Tossing shoulder pads into stands, freely admitting that you're walking out on your coach, disappearing after a game to the point that your coach and family are contacting authorities out of fear that you've harmed yourself? These are not the actions of a leader of men.

The win-loss record defense continues to chap me, as I am far from a card-carrying member of the Cult of the Quarterback. A quarterback's win-loss record is one of the most meaningless stats in all of sports.

Vince Young did not go 30-17. The Tennessee Titans went 30-17 in games that he started. Of course, in 2008, they went 13-2 in games that he didn't start. Yet, very little clamor has been heard for Kerry Collins to maintain a starting job.

The point of comparing Vince to Orton was that absolutely no one was giving Orton any credit for the games that the Bears won during his tenure. Vince always seemed to get a huge share of the credit for every victory, even the ones that were part of Chris Johnson blazing his way into the history books last year.

The sad part is that Vince Young appears to have learned absolutely nothing.

Comments from an interview with Jim Wyatt of the Tennesseean:

"People say that's immature, but that's just me." Good to know that one can admit to being immature. Isn't the first step admitting that you have a problem?

"Wherever I go I will be committed like I am committed to everything." Commitment was the biggest question that most people had about you, Vince. 

Whatever Bud Adams heard in the postseason meetings that he's been having with Titans executives, there must have been some serious bombshells, creating shockwaves strong enough to remove Bud's head from VY's backside. It used to seem that it would take the Jaws of Life to get Bud out of there. Safe to say that a lot of people questioned Vince's maturity, commitment, and a lot of other things.

Now to kick back and listen to the mouthbreathers complain that it should have been Jeff Fisher getting canned. Calm down, fellas, who's to say that he won't?

Oh, and over/under on how long it takes Jemele Hill to write a column about how VY got canned because he's black: four days.

4 Quarters Radio: September 23 3rd Quarter

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The third-quarter curriculum for September 23:

--A belated Whodaman starts off the second half. Logan's selfish, giving love to his fantasy football stalwart, while Scott honors the triumph of upstanding players over field-crashing idiots.
--Scott's briefly solo, and takes the time to weigh in on the NFL teams changing quarterbacks after only two games. For the most part, they're the teams that one would expect to be flailing for answers.
--Scott sounds a death knell for Percy Harvin's NFL career, wondering how anyone can absorb that kind of physical abuse and work around migraines.
--Bobby arrives and immediately gets to weigh in on his teams, the Raiders and Eagles, with their new signal-callers.
--Bobby also pauses to ponder whether or not Jeff Fisher has a personal grudge against Vince Young. Scott, meanwhile, celebrates the first Kerry Collins sighting as the true beginning of fall.
--Scott spotlights which NFL team will be last to win...AND when it will happen. Write it down.

Excised music: "Take It Back" by The Qemists.

4 Quarters Radio June 14

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On a three-period edition of 4Q, Scott and Trent discuss the NBA Finals as the series heads back to LA, the crazed game of musical chairs in college sports, and Stephen Strasburg going Lawn-Boy on his first two opponents...because he mows them down, yaknow? Bobby calls up in the 3rd to offer Chuck Liddell some career advice and catch a little grief for his generalizations on hockey. In Epic Fails, the guys ponder the age old question: why be violent in a strip club? Excised music: "It Don't Come Easy" by Bettye LaVette, "In the Black" by Motorhead, and "Sour Girl" by Stone Temple Pilots.