Vince Young Versus Tony Romo

With Michael Vick going to prison and Donovan McNabb feeling like he is closer to forty than thirty, the debate for the NFL's most electric quarterback is back. While Vick and McNabb have held the stage for the last five seasons with both out of the conversation, the game's newest quarterback stars have made their presence felt in a major way during the early part of the 2007 football season.

While Michael Vick could never have held a candle to Vince Young in the leadership department the reality is that Vick had the ability to put on a show during a football game. By show, I do not mean a tirade or TO inspired dance. Being electric is about improvisation and taking the game to another level that requires not only the ability to throw the ball but the ability to scramble and make difficult plays look simple. No jibe to Peyton Manning and Tom Brady here. Those guys are quarterbacks in their heads first and that eliminates them from the electric competition.

In Vince Young you have a second year player who entered the league having led the University of Texas Longhorns to a national championship over the University of Southern California in a game that will go down as the most dynamic college football game in recent memory. And it was possible because of the athletic skills of the Houston native, Vince Young. With the game in the balance and only seconds remaining, Vince Young took the snap from center and after being unable to find a receiver sprinted to the pylon near the right goal line and scored, giving Texas the unbelievable victory. This after the Longhorns were down almost twenty points in the early goings of the second half.

Tony Romo on the other hand did not enter the league with a national championship or even first round draft status. In fact, before a preseason game last season, I had never heard of Tony Romo. And I am a Dallas Cowboys fanatic. Having played his college football at Eastern Illinois, a Division 1-AA school, Tony Romo starred, winning the Ohio Valley Conference's MVP three times. That stardom led Romo to go undrafted in the 2003 NFL draft even though both the Cowboys and Denver Broncos showed significant interest in the elusive quarterback.

With both quarterbacks under center basically from the middle of last season through this, they have exceeded expectations and placed themselves amongst the game's elite. In the 90s, Brett Favre was the one quarterback you watched even when he was having a bad game because you believed he was always just one play away from turning a game around. In today's game a quarterback is many things, and when your name is not Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, your ability to scramble and make plays is critical to your team's success.

And that is what Vince Young and Tony Romo are so good at. While they have strong arms and are able to make difficult throws, it is their ability to make plays with their legs that has separated them from other quarterbacks in the game. Unlike Michael Vick who looked like a wide receiver playing quarterback, Young and Romo look like quarterbacks with bit of dazzle to their games.

Football is a game measured by inches. When it is fourth down and one yard is needed to get a first down, most quarterbacks can do a quarterback sneak. But when it is fourth and six, and the offensive coordinator calls a quarterback draw he does so knowing he has a quarterback that can make a play. Intangibles aside, being an electric quarterback is about those three or four plays that make a game. Whether it is escaping the grasp of Brian Urlacher from the Chicago Bears like Tony Romo did on Sunday night or escaping the entire New Orleans Saints defense like Vince Young did on Monday night, having a game-changing quarterback is priceless in today's NFL.

Beyond the aforementioned, what makes Young and Romo distinct is the potential to get outside the grasp of a defender and not only scamper for a first down but make a serious run for the end zone. Every time these two have the ball in their hands, positive things happen. And beyond the positive, wow moments happen with regularity. Whether it is Romo putting a pass to Terrell Owens where no defender can get it after scrambling; or it's Vince Young outrunning the entire defense on the way to a seventy yard touchdown.

That is what makes them special and worth watching every week.