When Vince Young entered the NFL out of the University of Texas he was thought to be a can't miss prospect. The quarterback was drafted third overall by the Tennessee Titans and signed a contract guaranteeing him $26 million.
Six years later he is dead broke and out of the NFL.
Where did things go wrong for Young? The fingers are pointing in all different directions.
The first mistake that Young made was becoming the first client of a company, 1 Next Level Sports and Entertainment Inc., formed by Major Adams, a Houston criminal defense attorney, and the quarterback's uncle, Keith Young, a former middle school teacher.
"He was just very young ... and allowing these people to have too much control over his life and his name," Trey Dolezal, Young's attorney told MSNBC.
Young is suing Adams, and a North Carolina financial planner, Ronnie Peoples, alleging that they misappropriated $5.5 million. In some cases, the pair allegedly forged his signature or impersonated him on the phone or in emails, according to the lawsuit, filed in Houston in June.
Adams denies the allegations.
"This is a person scrambling helplessly and pointing in all directions to blame others to get out of debt," said Charles Peckham, Adams' attorney.
Peckham admits that his client twice wrote checks to himself from Young's accounts, but "both times were out of necessity, including once when the agent was required to use personal funds to charter a plane for the quarterback after he missed a team flight."
Besides the $26 million that Young somehow spent, he is also in default on loan of $1.9 million dollars from Pro Player Funding LLC, that he took out during the NFL lockout in 2011.
Young is now attempting to stop Pro Player from enforcing a judgment of nearly $1.7 million. He claims that Adams and Peoples obtained the loan instead of him.
"They conspired to take Vince's money," Dolezal said. "It's that simple."
Young was attempting to make it as a backup quarterback for his third team, the Buffalo Bills this offseason when Pro Player began their attempts to collect the rest of the money they were owed, after Young missed a payment and the loan went into default.
Young blames Pro Player as the reason the Bills cut him.
"I wasn't in the room when they (the Bills) made a decision, but what would you think? It certainly wouldn't help me if I'm the owner or the head coach knowing all this is going on with Vince and then he goes out and plays poorly," Dolezal said.
Bills coach Chan Gailey declined to comment on the story.
Peoples has filed a countersuit in which he castigates Young for allowing his uncle to serve as his business manager despite having no expertise in that field.
Peoples claims in the countersuit that every decision he made was approved by Keith Young. And he calls Vince Young's unwillingness to accept responsibility "a common occurrence ... as (former Titans coach) Jeff Fisher, (Texas coach) Mack Brown, numerous NFL executives, coaches, teammates, scouts, girlfriends and illegitimate children will attest."
Peoples' attorney, David Chaumette, said he has documents to support the strongly-worded filing.
"You'll find there was a lot of money being spent in a bunch of different directions," Chaumette said.
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