Titus Young was sent home from the Detroit Lions’ facility on Monday for his selfish behavior, and he will not play in the team’s Thanksgiving day game, MLive.com reports.
On Sunday, Lions wide receiver coach Shawn Jefferson could be seen yelling at offensive coordinator Scott Linehan on the sidelines toward the end of Detroit’s loss to Green Bay. He reportedly was yelling at Linehan over Young. Now we have a better understanding of why he was so upset.
Young lined up in the wrong position on the field for a second-and-10 play during the Lions’ second-to-last drive of the game. He refused to move from the slot even when told he was in the wrong spot, and the extra time he took led to a false start by lineman Gosder Cherilus. Lions coach Jim Schwartz said that incident led to his benching for Thursday’s game.
“I never like to get 100 percent into the things, but that was one of the issues,” Schwartz said, per MLive.com. “Titus was lined up in the wrong spot in that case, and it caused a lot of confusion on offense. Really, I don’t like to excuse any behavior from any player, but with Gosder, he was sitting in the block for way too long.”
This is the second time in six months that Young was sent home from the team’s facility. You may recall that in May Young was kept out of OTAs for punching teammate Louis Delmas. A second-round pick last year, Young was also benched earlier this season for headbutting Rams DB Janoris Jenkins.
Young only had one catch for 24 yards on six targets against the Packers. He has 33 catches for 386 yards and four touchdowns this season, which doesn’t represent the breakout season many anticipated for him. He did have 9 catches for 100 yards and two touchdowns in a Week 8 win over Seattle. Schwartz says Young has been a problem since that game.
“It’s been recent weeks, and unfortunately, the other thing is it’s been after the most success he’s had, which is the Seattle game. How we go in the future is going to depend on Titus and his behavior,” Schwartz said. “How it goes it goes in the future is going to depend on his reaction, and it’s disappointing because this is ground that we’ve already covered, and I thought we would be past this, but we haven’t been.
“His behavior on Sunday was unacceptable. It hurt the team, particularly on offense, and it was a distraction. We’re going to eliminate the distraction, particularly this week.”
Young’s performance this season hasn’t outweighed his bad attitude. Schwartz tolerates a lot from his players, so you know Young has to have really been a problem for the coach to send him home.
Photo credit: Mike Carter-US PRESSWIRE
