One young quarterback is trying to lift the NFL's sorriest franchise into the realm of the respectable. The other spent his rookie campaign salvaging a lost season and nearly crashing a playoff party he had no reasonable right to attend.
As second-year starters trying to master QB 2.0 while skipping the tutorial, the Arizona Cardinals' Matt Leinart and the Tennessee Titans' Vince Young aren't shy about aiming exceptionally high. Now check out what these two precocious passers are trying to pull off.
"They want to be the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird of the NFL," says Chuck Price, one of Leinart's agents. "In terms of young guys who excel individually and have a very friendly rivalry and can carry the torch for sportsmanship and race relations, they have a chance to do something similar."
Right, like battling one another in an epic clash for a national collegiate championship (check), becoming instant stars in the pros (working on it), winning three MVPs apiece and a combined eight professional championships (gulp) and ushering in the golden age of a league in need of yin-and-yang saviors (never mind).
You may think Young and Leinart have no business comparing themselves to the Magic Man and Larry Legend, but on at least one level, you would be mistaken. The linkage of the two as a business enterprise is already in motion, with plans for them to co-host a golf tournament in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a Lake Tahoe, Nevada-based father-son fantasy camp next offseason. Price, who previously worked as a marketing agent for a company owned by Johnson, envisions a humorous TV commercial featuring all four men.
