Vince Young isn’t at peace in revealing Netflix documentary

Those are some of the first words spoken by Vince Young in a new Netflix documentary that premiered Tuesday and profiles the former dynamic college and NFL quarterback.

Throughout the swift 78-minute film "UNTOLD: The Testimony of Vince Young," directed by John Henion, Young takes accountability for his mistakes, but it’s an opportunity to see that the last image of someone doesn’t necessarily have to be the final chapter of a long, complicated story. 

"I've been a man with a lot of people. I know I've been working my butt off behind the scenes, clearing up so much mess that I've been through, from financial stuff to just me, myself personally. Just been trying to be a better person, period. And at the time, a lot of people were like, man, you should get your story out," Young told USA Todasy Sports.

“And I feel like God has blessed me to do it now. And it's the right time for my kids, as they’re a little bit older. They can understand now, instead of somebody coming and bothering them, now they know how to handle different things."

For anyone who follows college football, even on a novice basis, with Young’s storied University of Texas career, the film isn’t going to present anything new, as Henion treats that portion of the film like a defensive coordinator studying tape and having nightmares about how to stop Young.

What some might not know is that Young wanted to attend Florida State after his high school career at Madison High School in Houston (he pivoted to the Longhorns after finding out they wanted to make him a wide receiver), or that he almost quit the team after a highly publicized tantrum and transferred before his junior season at Texas, frustrated by playing time and lack of progress as a quarterback.

Young offers more than a series of apologies for the mistakes that punctuated his college and professional careers.

Interviews with former Texas coach Mack Brown, some of Young’s former Tennessee Titans teammates, Bo Scaife and LenDale White, and former Southern Cal quarterback Matt Leinart, against whom Young dueled in the 2006 Rose Bowl, give Young’s story some interesting context. They show another side of Young, introducing him as more of a lost soul than a talented troublemaker who had problems with authority.

Young says the absence of a father figure affected him well beyond childhood. He was raised primarily by his mother, Felicia, and his grandmother while his father spent time in prison, and he later found a mentor in Steve McNair. But less than two months after Tennessee selected Young third overall in the 2006 NFL Draft, the Titans traded McNair to the Baltimore Ravens, separating Young from an important source of guidance just as he began his professional career.

"It's very important to me when I was playing ball. A lot of my teammates had a dad there. Um, it was just me and my mother and sisters. So I was the baby boy. So I wasn't the big brother, but a little brother," Young said.

But when the film delves into Young’s NFL career, that is where the film shines. After winning the 2006 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, the film begins tracing the public unraveling of Young’s NFL career through a revealing 2007 interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," where the confident Young was front and center about his aspirations of making the Hall of Fame, and punctuated the interview by saying, "Can't nobody tell me nothing."

By far the most interesting part of the film is the interview with former NFL coach Jeff Fisher. Fisher, throughout, is as monotone as he is not interesting, but his words will ring in the viewer’s ears.

With sentences like, "He showed weakness" and detailing his feelings concerning Young being late for a team meeting, among other things, Fisher tells his story with a point of view that shows no contrition or a thought that he might shoulder some of the blame for what went wrong in Tennessee.

As previously stated, Young has done his best to right the wrongs in his life: going to therapy, getting his finances in order and reaching out to those he felt he had wronged — including Fisher.

Young sent Fisher an apology letter in 2013, an attempt at reconciliation that was reported publicly at the time. In the documentary, Fisher acknowledges receiving it and explains why he never responded.

The reason Fisher gives for why he did not write back is beyond absurd, and that is par for the course given how he, whether intentional or not, is viewed in NFL circles even a decade after his last stint as a coach, when he was dismissed during his fifth season coaching the Rams in 2016, the franchise’s first season back in Los Angeles.

But overall, "The Testimony of Vince Young" isn’t anything groundbreaking. It's just a solidly paced, familiar story of struggle and redemption from a man who realized his story isn’t complete until he does things his way and controls his narrative as he sees fit.

It certainly seems that Young, at least at age 43, is finally on the way to achieving that long-sought-after peace.