Young's erratic passes endanger Eagles wideouts

THIS WIDOWMAKER typified who Vince Young is, was and always will be.

Young slung a lazy pass, late, to crossing slot receiver Jason Avant, the toughest man in Eagles green.

Avant hardly had touched the ball when Patriots cornerback Kyle Arrington's right shoulder collapsed Avant's solar plexus.

The ball spurted out. Avant collapsed, his rib cage rattled, his groin searing with pain.

"I almost threw up," Avant said.

He was not alone.

Anyone with an appreciation for good football who watched the Vince Young Project yesterday had good reason for nausea.

Young completed 26 of 48 passes for 400 yards and a touchdown. About 210 of those 400 yards did not matter. Neither did the touchdown.

Young had 190 passing yards by the time the Patriots sank into a prevent defense with a 31-13 lead early in the third quarter.

The TD came with 32 seconds left.

He made a 38-13 embarrassment a 38-20 laugher.

If anything, he dimmed his hopes of starting again for an NFL team.

Even his coach, Andy Reid, who so deftly remade Michael Vick, refused to commit to Young if Vick's broken ribs make him a scratch for the third straight game Thursday at Seattle.

"We'll see," said Reid, whose other choice is second-year man Mike Kafka. "I'm not going to make any decisions right this minute."

Reid sounded like Young thinking to himself in the pocket.

Young was a free agent in the offseason, but virtually nobody wanted him because of his history of petulance; because of some publicized off-field episodes; and because he hangs his receivers out like tenement laundry.

The Titans found all of those things out after they selected him third overall in 2006.

The Eagles scoffed at all of the reports, glanced congratulatory at the Michael Vick Project and figured they could replicate it. They signed Young to a 1-year, $5.5 million contract. They gave him the team last week when broken ribs from the previous game sidelined Vick.

Young had the team again yesterday. Afterward, he knew what he had wrought, baffled after the Patriots switched from zone to man-to-man.

"I played OK," Young said. "Could have been better. I left a lot of throws . . . on the field."

It took the Titans a couple of years to realize it. Yesterday, the Eagles found out firsthand just how limited Young is.

He underthrew with remarkable frequency. He chucked an interception on a pass intended for DeSean Jackson early in the second quarter, when an Eagles drive would have braked the momentum of the Patriots' second straight touchdown. The interception almost mirrored one of Young's three in the miraculous win at the Giants a week before.

He overthrew, too; Brent Celek, out of the end zone, on fourth down near the goal line midway through the third quarter.

Almost sidearmed, often bad-footed, Young is what he is: a bad passer. He has thrown 47 career interceptions and 45 touchdowns.

Last week, he earned career win No. 32, but only because the Eagles' defense played its best game of the year. Young needed only to direct one efficient drive, late in the fourth quarter, to beat a Giants team so unimpressed at his presence it barely showed up for the game.

Yesterday, Young and Co. managed just 20 points against the 32nd-ranked overall defense in the NFL. Young struggled against the 32nd-ranked pass defense.

Meanwhile, the Patriots' run defense ranked a respectable 13th. The offense was No. 2.

You beat the Patriots by outscoring them. You outscore them by outpassing them.

So, on a day when the defense desperately needed Young to be effective, he was embarrassing.

Not with every pass, or on every drive. But juxtaposed against Tom Brady and his dominance - 24-for-34, 361 yards, three touchdows, a 134.6 passer rating - Young generally looked lousy.

He delivered nice balls to Celek and Riley Cooper for 80 yards on his first and third passes . . . then seemed to lose focus.

He hit Jackson for 44 yards to start the next drive . . . but that ball was underthrown, too. A better pass and Jackson scores an 80-yard touchdown; the Eagles eventually kicked a field goal.

(Young later put Jackson, a slight chap with a concussion history, in extreme peril twice - peril for which Jackson had no appetite.)

Then came the three straight fruitless possessions that heartened the Pats' defense.

The Birds, later in the half, used a no-huddle offense and moved the ball nicely.

Fewer options plus less thinking equaled better quarterbacking from Young. But, given multiple choices and ample time to throw . . .

You get Avant, lying on the field early in the third quarter, empty lungs in a panicked battle with spasm-wracked abdominal muscles for supremacy, head swimming. After 2 minutes, lungs filled, head cleared and manhood intact, Avant rose. He went to the sideline and missed only one play.

The game resumed; on the next play, Young dropped back . . . and floated a suicide ball down the middle to Clay Harbor.

Sterling Moore destroyed Harbor.

Harbor sprung to his feet.

Harbor was lucky.