Vince Young is destitute

DALLAS - Six years after entering the NFL as the third player drafted, Vince Young finds himself without a team and with a fraction of the money he received from a contract that guaranteed him $26 million.

In an increasingly caustic war of words, attorneys have been arguing for months over whether Young is an out-of-control spender who put himself deeply in the hole or simply a victim of inexperienced advisers, one of whom was his own uncle.

Either way, the quarterback whose future seemed unlimited after he led Texas to a Rose Bowl victory in 2006 is now back home in Houston and in a tenuous financial condition.

"I would just say that Vince needs a job," said Trey Dolezal, Young's attorney, when asked to give a general assessment of his client's finances.

Young was cut by Buffalo, his third NFL team, in August. He was trying to make the Bills as a backup, the same role he filled with the Eagles in 2011. The fall has been a dizzying one for the player who twice made the Pro Bowl with Tennessee.

Young, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is suing his former agent, Major Adams, and a North Carolina financial planner, Ronnie Peoples, alleging that they misappropriated $5.5 million. In some instances, the pair forged his signature or impersonated him on the phone or in emails, according to the lawsuit, filed in Houston in June.

The suit was filed 5 days after a New York lender notified Young that a loan of nearly $1.9 million obtained in his name during the NFL lockout in 2011 was in default. Young is now seeking to stop the lender, Pro Player Funding LLC, from enforcing a judgment of nearly $1.7 million, claiming he wasn't involved in obtaining the loan and that the proceeds went to Adams and Peoples.

Attorneys for Adams and Peoples say Young has nobody to blame but himself.

"This is a person scrambling helplessly and pointing in all directions to blame others to get out of debt," said Charles Peckham, Adams' attorney.