ESPN NFL

Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky

NASHVILLE -- I kept a close eye on Vince Young at two practices today, and he looked a lot like he has in the past -- inconsistent, mixing some great moments with others where you wonder what he was seeing. On Day Five of camp, we should not read a whole into that, however.

	AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
	Titans QB Vince Young looks inconsistent in training camp.

I've been saying I'd be curious to see how he responds to the first bit of adversity after everyone was happy about everything in the offseason.

On Monday, he threw three picks and my reporter friends here said he was defensive when he fielded questions about them.

This morning he was five-for-eight in my unofficial count during seven-on-seven, which was in a 2:00 drill setting. In a team period later, rookie linebacker Stanford Keglar dropped an interception and Young put Brandon Jones in a bad spot on one throw where Jones would have gotten walloped if things were live.

He also threw a beautiful deep ball with just the right arc for a huge gain to Biren Ealy, who found space between conversing defenders. (Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was quick to point out that Jevon Kearse would have had a sack on the play.)

As Young did during OTAs, he was pulling it down and running more often than he did last year.

I talked with offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger between practices. Because Young has often hung his head and had trouble letting things go in the past, I asked how he was bouncing back from a bad play or bad series.

Here is what Heimerdinger said about what looked like a bad day for Young on Sunday and on how the QB responds to such things:

"Two of the picks (Sunday) were on me and the other one he just forgot what route he had, it was on him. But the other two picks were on me. So we really didn't discuss it. I've just got to do a better job of explaining some situations for him. But he was fine. He's mad because he didn't want to throw the picks...

"He's doing better with that, I think he's got to let it go. Any quarterback, even Steve (McNair), if he threw a pick, he carried it for a while and didn't let it go. And then that's my job to get him back on track somehow, some way, to get him settled down. So that comes back to me. I don't know what to compare him to, because I wasn't here last year.

"I have to find a way to get him back (at those times), I have no choice, that's my job. We're installing a lot of things, we're throwing a lot of plays at him. As we go, I mentally make notes of what he's comfortable with. If we had a game tomorrow, I would do these things and these things. But as far as I am concerned he's done a nice job right now of turning to me and saying, 'That was my fault, I screwed up,' and he hasn't hung his head and he hasn't done any of that.

"So I haven't seen that, I don't know that part of him. The biggest thing now is if you throw a pick in two-a-days at practice, to me, it's learn from it. You don't want picks. But if you throw one, as long as we learn from it, then it's OK as long as we learn from it. We still haven't given a trophy for practice yet. I'm more concerned that he learns so he doesn't do it again when he gets that same look."

The late practice was in full pads and featured a lot of run-game work. With Kearse getting a rest, Jacob Ford worked as the first left end. In one-on-one pass rush drills, he jumped offsides three times in a row, and coaches finally ran the play to be snapped on the first sound. David Stewart stonewalled him. Later in team periods the defensive line was very twitchy, following Ford's lead. D-line coach Jim Washburn accepts a certain degree of that as a byproduct of aggressiveness, and I suspect in this setting he didn't mind their eagerness.

In a goal line nine-on-seven run period, the defense fared very well against Chris Johnson, Chris Henry and Ahmard Hall. (LenDale White was excused to be in Colorado for a court appearance.)

Team period highlights: Kyle Vanden Bosch and Eugene Amano, the starting right guard for now, had a big buildup and finally came to blows, with a KVB swipe taking off Amano's helmet. They had a second go a bit later... Nick Harper had a fantastic pass break up on the right sideline, closing from behind and leaping to get a hand in, knocking away a pass from Young intended for Justin McCareins.

Henry continues to do the same thing that got him in trouble last year. He'll slow up or even stop, as if waiting on things to open up, and then get stacked up. On one goal line play he might have scored if he put his head down and tried to wiggle forward rather than showing so much -- too much -- patience.