If you're a Titans fan, and you watch any amount of ESPN's football coverage, you've probably made note of the enormous hate-on that Merrill Hoge has for Vince Young. At the time Young was drafted, Hoge was convinced that Vince Young would be an NFL failure, and that's fine. It's Hoge's job to predict who will be good and who won't, and if he predicted that Young would fail, his worst possible crime would be being wrong, and there's nothing wrong with that. No one alive can predict NFL success with 100% (or even 75%, really) accuracy, so, hey, no big deal if Hoge was wrong about Vince Young.
As time has passed, though, and Young has made play after play in the NFL, Hoge seems hellbent on continuing his Vince Young hatred. It's one thing to say, "Hey, anyone can succeed for a few games, but I'm still not sold on Young as a great future quarterback," but that's not Hoge's style here. Hoge is outright aggressive in his criticism of Young; almost as if he's trying to cause Young to fail with his words. It's somewhat disturbing to watch.
Every analyst is wrong about something, in fact, wrong about a lot of things, on a regular basis ... and because of that, I feel like they generally take too much criticism from the public. But Hoge, this time, has earned it every bit of it. Not because he's wrong, but because he seems so mean-spirited about it.
And here's the full version of Jaws and Hoge's conversation on NFL matchup. Major props to Ron Jaworski for noting how personal it seems to be with Hoge ... and I think Jaws is right about that. It has become personal with Hoge. He was so adamant in his criticism of Young before the draft, that he now feels like his own reputation is at stake, and he resents Vince Young for threatening it.
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