Countdown to Kickoff: 93 Days

Recalling the 2007 season, when Vince Young was at his dual-threat best.

The countdown to kickoff continues.

The Tennessee Titans will open the 2020 regular season Sept. 14 at Denver. That is 93 days away. So, today we look at one way the number 93 figures into the team’s history.

Vince Young had NFL defenses on the run early in his career.

Never was that truer than in 2007. The most productive season of the former Tennessee Titans quarterback’s career included a career-high 93 rushing attempts.

Young averaged 4.2 yards per carry, which amounted to 395 rushing yards, also a career-high and the most by an NFL quarterback that year. Overall, he finished 50th in the in the league individually at a time when the read option and related concepts had not made their way into professional playbooks.

He also helped make Tennessee’s one of the NFL’s best rushing offenses.

The Titans finished fifth in the league with 2,109 rushing yards in 2007. LenDale White led the way with 1,110 rushing yards, and Chris Brown chipped in 462. It was the second of four straight seasons in which they topped 2,000 yards as a team.

Young started 15 games that fall, and Tennessee won nine, which led to the only playoff appearance of the quarterback’s career. Twice he had more than 10 carries in a game, three other times he had eight and in three more he had seven. The Titans won six of those eight contests.

Two of his three rushing touchdowns gave his team the lead in eventual victories.

In subsequent seasons, Young and his coaches worked to make him more of a traditional pocket passer. In 24 games for the Titans over the next three years, he amassed just 98 carries and two touchdowns as he traded off the starting job almost annually with Kerry Collins.

It is easy to think Young’s NFL career would have turned out much differently had he been in the NFL a decade or so later than he was. Last season, three quarterbacks had at least 93 rushes and more than 500 yards rushing, led by Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, who ran for 1,206 yards on 176 attempts.

At the time, though, Young’s reliance on the run was considered a bit too much.