It was September 2021, and Chase Young was on top of the world, talking to a local reporter about how exhilarating it was to show off his collection of luxury watches in an ad campaign for eBay.
“He never felt more like a businessman, like a pro,” the reporter wrote in a Washington Post profile. “He was wearing makeup, flashing the Presidential Rolex, pitching one of the world’s 500 most valuable companies five weeks after turning 22. He was nailing his lines or editing them to fit his voice: ‘I don’t want to look like a dummy walking with a bust-down watch,’ he said.”
Those were the glory days for the Washington defensive end, the days of appearances on “Family Feud”, commercials with Old Spice, Under Armour and many others wanting to sing the praises of a player who was the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.
The operative word there is “rookie.”
A team captain, though for the Washington Football team that often just meant the latest guy in the room.
He was a star in a black hole of a franchise. And then, like so many others before him, Young disappeared into that black hole, like he disappeared when his coaches needed him to show up for voluntary workouts with the rest of his teammates.
Young, who was traded to the San Francisco 49ers Tuesday, will not be remembered in Washington for his great rookie season. Instead, his legacy here will be defined by his failure to live up to the hype that came with being the second pick in the 2020 NFL draft. The glory arrived before the greatness took hold.
The Commanders, with a couple of moves that indicate new owner Josh Harris has big changes in mind, let Young go for a third-round 2024 draft choice after dealing fellow defensive end Montez Sweat — who was also in the last year of his contract — to the Chicago Bears for a second-rounder.
Young was supposed to be an impact player, and it appeared that he was heading that way after a promising first season with 7½ sacks, 12 quarterback hits and 44 tackles in 15 games. But the key word here is “promising” — likely not worthy of the attention he drew in that off-season.
I mean, Vinny Cerrato’s first-round prize draft choice, Brian Orakpo, had 11 sacks, 15 quarterback hits and 50 tackles in his 2009 rookie season and no one reportedly was lining up a calendar full of non-football duties for him.
I don’t begrudge any football player a right to capitalize on his career off the field, since that career can be so fleeting. Young’s torn knee ligaments in Week 10 of the 2021 season and his lengthy recovery from that injury are evidence of how small a window a player can have to earn.
But football has to come before the glory. Football is the glory. It is the reason that Under Armour and Beats want you. When your choice may be between a photoshoot and a voluntary practice — and you are the team captain — there is no choice. You show up on the field with your teammates.
Because if you don’t, maybe you wind up looking lost for the first 10 weeks of the season, with just 21 tackles and 1½ sacks like Young did in 2021 before he got hurt.
The expectations were greater. What were they? Have you watched Maxx Crosby for the Las Vegas Raiders play?
When Rivera selected Young, who grew up locally and played high school football at DeMatha, as captain, he clearly expected one of his team leaders to be there when he needed him. I know the workouts are voluntary, but nearly every player shows up, and if you are a captain, your presence is even more important.
When he named Young a captain near the end of his standout rookie season, Rivera told NBC Sports Washington he did so “because of the way he brings this energy to us as a football team, the way he handles who he is, there is an infectiousness to it and his teammates feed off of it. That’s the thing that has been impressive to me.”
Turns out they were empty calories.
We’ve seen the reports now surfacing about what we had heard behind the scenes — that Young was uncoachable and had his own ideas of how to be a star on the field.
Michael Silver reported in the San Francisco Chronicle that Young, “according to several Commanders coaches and other organizational sources, was viewed as an undisciplined player who developed bad habits such as deviating from assignments in an effort to make splash plays.” Silver is a former longtime Sports Illustrated NFL writer who is close to Rivera and was actually hired by the team for a time in 2021 as a contributor to washingtonfootball.com.
We kind of knew this when Rivera refused to pick up Young’s fifth-year option this season. This was Rivera’s biggest personnel decision, his first draft pick on the job, the second overall in 2020. Guys stake their reputations on decisions like that. They don’t give up on them like Rivera did unless there are deeper issues with the player.
The real white flag, though, appears to have been thrown by Harris, who, according to The Athletic, was the driving force behind these trades.
Young is just 24 years old. He has played well in stretches this season and still has time to capture greatness. If and when it comes, Hollywood is now just a short trip down the coast.
You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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