Vince Young tops Matt Leinart and the Arizona Cardinals
Tennessee's Vince Young truly enjoys playing against Matt Leinart. He always wins and the script did not change on Monday night. The Titans were fired up to play in their pre-season home opener and defeated the Arizona Cardinals 24-10 Monday night. This was the first game at LP Field since a May flood covered the football field and parking lot with water causing $3 million worth of damage.
Young, the former Texas star, got off to a fast start, leading his team on two scoring drives in just four offensive series.
"He felt excited about playing," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said of Young who went 9 of 13 for 128 yards. "He was prepared, focused and made plays with his legs, made plays with his arm and was really good on the line of scrimmage as well."
Chris Johnson opened the scoring with an eight-yard touchdown run capping an 85-yard drive. Johnson watched the rest of the game after that run and finished the night with six carries for a total of 22 yards.
Young has no competition for his starting job, but continues to challenge himself and is not content with just one victory. “We've got to ... keep working," Young said. "Don't get happy with ourselves right now because we still have a long ways to go. But I feel the confidence in myself as well as the receivers is very good right now."
Although Young was very solid in his brief appearance, it was Titans wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins who stole the show and energized the crowd by leaping over an Arizona defender in the third quarter for a 22-yard run.
Young’s counterpart Leinart, went 4-of-6 for a measly 28 yards and produced no points for a second straight pre-season game with the team’s first offence. Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt’s patience may be wearing thin as his offence can’t seem to get in gear since veteran Kurt Warner retired last season.
Leinart keeps talking about the need to make plays for his team and is saying all the right words, but when it comes time to produce, he is a no show. "I'm trying to work to get better," Leinart said. "Guys are counting on me, and I'm confident that we're going to get the job done and I'm going to get the job done. And that's the bottom line."
The loss drops the Cardinals to 1-1 and with lots of questions surrounding the quarterback position heading into week three of the pre-season and weeks away from the start of the regular season.
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