It’s not fair to start handing out “bust” statuses to draft picks from 2006 quite yet, what with the highest draft picks still being on their rookie contract and all, but it’s safe to say that Vince Young’s career has started out in a most unsatisfactory way. Despite being the third overall pick in 2006, it seems like the highlight of his career has been, um, a sausage party.

(Always the capitalist, Young made sure everyone could enjoy a Vince Young Sausage Party.)

Thus, after a horrendous 2008 season that saw him get injured, then get benched, then go off the deep end for a little bit, VY’s ready to turn this thing around, telling reporters “if they’re not ready for me to play ball, then somebody is.” That, and talk of a “career change” if he’s going to remain on Tennessee’s bench, seem to be clear indications that he wants to be traded. Seems reasonable and fair, nobody likes to sit on the bench with coaches they don’t get along with, right?

WAIT WE HAVE LATE BREAKING NEWS–According to the NASHVILLE CITY PAPER, Vince Young’s agent wants you to know that none of that is true, because it’s Opposite Day or something:   Read more…

Kerry Collins has beat down bad.  He’s been at the top and he’s been in the bottom of the bottle.  He’s had nights he can’t remember (thanks to the concussions) and days he’d just as soon forget.  Hell, he once had to work in Oakland.  He’s had a life darned near picture perfect for a country song.

That’s why Collins won’t be taking the real estate license exam in Tennessee any time soon.  (Well, that and the housing market.)  Instead, he’s hooking up with Nashville’s finest and aiming at a county songwriting career after he’s done receiving concussions through more violent means.

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The 2008 Ravens are starting to look an awful lot like the 2000-01 Ravens, and that’s just about the best compliment you could pay them.

(Matt Stover is relevant again. Must be playoff time.)

With a suffocating defense and a quarterback who didn’t make any major mistakes — which is more than could be said about his veteran counterpart, Kerry Collins — Baltimore slipped past Tennessee in Nashville, ruining a once-promising campaign for another top-seeded Titans team before it could even get started.

Still, while Ravens rookie passer Joe Flacco may end up being the same everyone eventually associates with this Baltimore win — after all, Matt Stover had the second-most significant hand in the team’s offensive success on Saturday — this was really a classic defensive struggle, an old-school football game that was all about hits, not about speed or flash, particularly after Tennessee lost rookie speedster back Chris Johnson to an ankle injury.

More than one player lost his helmet, and the first one to go hat-less was a bruising back with a double-thick chin strap; Titans fullback Ahmad Hall. Those hits set the tone for a brutal game that saw more injury breaks than TV timeouts. Or at least something close to parity.

Just check out the video from the supershot from Ray Lewis: Read more…

Eventually the Titans were bound to lose. They’re not the 1972 Miami Dolphins, they’re not the 2007 Patriots … they’re probably not even the 2005 Colts. Tennessee is good, it’s just not great.

(Not only did the Titans lose, they remembered they live in Tennessee.)

That finally became clear in a 34-13 whooping delivered by the Jets in Nashville. While the Titans fans were busy trying to remember what to do when their team isn’t pulling out a gutsy win, Brett Favre further embedded his personal stamp on this Jets team, tossing for two touchdowns and 224 yards, some 19 fewer than Kerry Collins, but each of them more effective than Collins’. The Titans quarterback didn’t complete the big throws that have helped pull Tennessee through in recent weeks, finally putting together two drives buoyed by his arm in the fourth quarter … when the game was already lost.

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Everyone wants to be associated with a winner, so it’s no surprise that when a team has the level of success the Tennessee Titans have had, men in suits begin to emerge with book deals, recording contracts and other forms of money-making memorabilia ventures, most of which are incredibly stupid. So it’s heartening to see at least one good idea come from the Titans’ 9-0 start: A Kerry Collins and Billy Ray Cyrus super-duo!

While the duo hasn’t been made “official”, TENNESSEAN.COM has news of a chance encounter between the Old Pro and the Old Mullet. Apparently, Mr. Hannah Montana has a new song called “Back to Tennessee” that he’s been trying to link to the Titans great start. Somehow, this led to Cyrus pitching the song to Collins, and the rest, as they say, will be history.

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Even if the Tennessee Titans manage to go 16-0 in the regular season, the hype machine is not going to be the same after the fervor about the New England Patriots last season. Partially, the Titans are not nearly as sexy as the Pats (Kerry Collins is no Tom Brady). And also, there would be an element of “win the Super Bowl and then let’s talk.” Plus, there’s the fact that no one in their right mind thinks that Tennessee is going undefeated.

However, there is a story brewing that is just as compelling, if not more so. It would be an incredibly difficult task to pull off - in fact, no team has ever done it - but it would be a story that would captivate the nation with each game as the team gets closer to it. I’m talking about the dream of an 0-16 team, aka The Imperfect Season. (The Bucs did it once in 1976, but that was with a 14-game season.)

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In a way, the Trix Rabbit is very much a metaphor for the American Dream. Every red-blooded American wants that shiny pot of gold, or cereal. And the Trix Rabbit, God bless him, never gets it.

Much like the New York Mets, who wanted those tickets to the postseason so badly last year, but never got it. And this year, plus Johan Santana, the same fate has been bestowed on Those Ovarachievin(?) Amazins.

(Bright Side: Mets owner launches comedy career on heels of team’s collapse)

One man who seems to be eating plenty of cereal, CC Sabathia, was mostly the reason the Mets’ loss sent them out of the Wild Card hunt. His complete game sent Milwaukee (Algonquin for “the playoff land”) to their first postseason series since 1982 (and set off a Prince Fielder postgame celebration that inspired Japanese porno aficionados long-suffering Brewers fans):

Meanwhile, I think the Detroit Tigers have had just about enough cereal. They’re full, but MLB is force feeding them breakfast foods as they have to travel to Chicago and make up their 162 game against the White Sox to determine the AL Central winner.

If the Soxo Blanco win, they force another bonus game, this time against Minnesota, with the victor earning a playoff spot against Tampa. If they lose — against former Sox pitcher Freddy Garcia, no less — then Minnesota wins outright, and hopefully we can stop talking about Detroit baseball altogether. (Although I surmise they’ll force them to keep playing meaningless baseball games against the Indians until November.)

Your playoff pairings, sans Tampa:
Red Sox-Angels, starts Wednesday at 10 p.m. (Josh Beckett)
Brewers-Phillies, starts Wednesday at 3 p.m.
Dodgers-Cubs, starts Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

But could playoffs be in the future of this man?

Yes, that’s Kerry Collins, of the Tennessee Collinses. At a robust 36 years old, he’s led the Titans to a win over the Minnesota Vikings and a 4-0 record. One other team has a perfect 4-0 record, and it’s the Buffalo Bills. So maybe it’s not so impressive if Buffalo can do it too.

Denver would have been 4-0, but the Hochulian karma finally caught up to them as they dropped a sulfurous egg in Kansas City, losing 33-19 to the Chiefs. Strangely, this puts Mike Shanahan — with ALL those career wins — at 3-11 in games at Arrowhead Stadium, notes KSNT/TOPEKA.

Dallas might also be 4-0 were it not for the fervent Washington Redskins, who never trailed past the second quarter, who prevailed 26-24 over their Cowboyish rivals. As the DALLAS MORNING NEWS points out, football genius/wide receiver Terrell Owens knows why his team lost: it’s because he didn’t get the ball enough. Never mind that of the team’s 60 plays, 20 of them were either touched by or thrown to him. Honestly, if it was just Romo, T.O., and nine linemen out there, nobody could beat them. Marion Barber had 26 yards on eight carries, which was 26 yards that Owens could have accumulated instead. What a selfish running back, always thinking about himself.

Also: Brett Favre never threw six touchdowns in a game before? Seriously? Next thing you’re going to tell me, Hank Aaron never knocked three dingers in a game.

We’ve always shared ten links in the SbB Speed Read, but don’t let that stop you from thinking this is our career high:

• THE SPORTS HERNIA finds out who Mets fans think are No. 1.
• In non-bird flipping news, Jeremy Cothran of the NEWARK STAR LEDGER recounts the final depressing day at Shea
• THE DUGOUT struggles with the NL Cy Young winner, finding out playoff berths won’t be a factor.
• Rob Parker of the DETROIT NEWS has no problem with Tigers pitching coach Chuck Hernandez standing behind Matt Millen in Michigan’s unemployment line.
• DEUCE OF DAVENPORT catches wind of San Francisco’s battle to remove Tommy Lasorda from their local Italian-American parade — because he’s not a local boy.
• Gary Shelton of the ST. PETE TIMES depicts Buccaneers kicker Matt Bryant’s extremely heartbreaking week.
• Who’s #1: Alabama or Oklahoma? The TUSCON CITIZEN’s Anthony Gimino is seeing Crimson in his eyes over the AP voter’s pick of the Sooners.
• Move over, Kevin Johnson. Former Pistons Hall-of-Famer Dave Bing has his eyes on a mayoral bid, in this case, Detroit. Hey, anyone has to be an improvement over Hizzonor, Kwame Kilpatrick.
• They may have finally won a game, but after a sloppy win over the Bengals and headed into a bye week, Bob Hunter of the COLUMBUS DISPATCH is calling for Brady Quinn to start their next game against the Giants.
• Day old news, but it really needs mentioning. The career-ending injury of Ball State’s Dante Love last week showed up in unrequited love, support and fundraising from Cardinals fans during their 41-20 win over Kent State, the MUNCIE STAR PRESS reports. As an aside: At 5-0, and given their weak schedule from here on out, you might look no further than Muncie, Indiana as the home of year’s undefeated team that will not make the BCS.

Darren Rovell reports on his SPORTS BIZ blog about research done by sports economist David Berri showing a correlation between an athlete’s attractiveness and their salaries. Which probably explains why Willie McGee never received the big money contract he deserved.

Berri wrote an article for the NEW YORK TIMES PLAY MAGAZINE detailing his research. Since “attractiveness” is a relative term, he used a program to analyze the symmetry of the faces of 121 NFL quarterback - research suggesting that humans perceive symmetrical faces as more attractive. The results were clear: the better looking you were, the better you were paid:

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Titans quarterback Vince Young has had a tough go of it recently. First, he played poorly in the season-opener against the Jags, got booed by the hometown crowd, and suffered a knee injury that will keep him out 2-4 weeks. And then things got weird: depending on who’s telling the story, after the game, Young left the stadium depressed, disappeared for a few hours (he didn’t have his cell phone with him, the horror!), and possibly talked of killing himself.

Head coach Jeff Fisher refuted many of the rumors but admitted that Young has to work through his off-field issues before he can resume throwing interceptions for the Titans. In the meantime, that chore belongs to Kerry Collins. But more than just getting mentally and physically healthy, Young will apparently have to earn the trust of his teammates who, according to SI.COM’s Peter King, aren’t convinced he’s much of a leader.

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Words like “winner” and “leader” that were up until very recently closely tied to Titans’ quarterback Vince Young have quickly been replaced by: “suicide,” “crazy,” “shrink” and “quitter.” What a difference a week makes.

Just when it seemed like there we had all the Vince-sanity we could handle, PRO FOOTBALL TALK informs us that the Tennessee signal caller “wanted to stop playing at halftime” of last season’s AFC Wild Card game against the San Diego Chargers.

In the biggest game of his professional career, Vince Young wanted to quit at halftime. Read more…