Country Mike Blog

Music City Miracle II

Mike Sudhalter  |  January 8, 2009

Forget that last second win over the Buffalo Bills.

A Tennessee Titans Super Bowl victory with veteran Kerry Collins under center would be somewhat more of a miracle, I think.

Collins, 36, was a star at Penn State under Joe Paterno and was one of the Carolina Panthers' first quarterbacks before landing with the New York Giants, leading them to the Super Bowl eight years ago.

He also had an uneventful three-year stint with the lowly Oakland Raiders, a battle with alcoholism and other off-the-field issues.

He started the season with the Titans as a backup to Vince Young, the 2006 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year who had just led the team to a playoff appearance.

Collins replaced Young - 11 years his junior - early in the season and did the unthinkable - guided the Titans to a 14-2 record and the top seed in the AFC playoffs.

All should make some good content for a country song, right?

That's exactly what Collins is doing. He's already written a song, "I Don't Need The Whiskey Anymore". and has worked with some of Music City's top songwriters. It's helped that he's always written down life experiences and may turn them into songs.

But it's likely that Collins' honky-tonk moonlighting won't fully take off until after his playing days are over.

Right now, the Baltimore Ravens stand in his way. They'll visit the top-seeded Titans on Saturday in an AFC Divisional Playoff Game. That's the same Ravens squad that gave Collins fits in the Super Bowl eight years ago.

If Collins reaches the Super Bowl, it'll mean that he's been in the Super Bowl the same year as two presidents were inaugurated - Bush (2001) and Obama (2009). His Carolina Panthers team was one win away from reaching the Super Bowl in 1997 - in the same month of Clinton's second inauguration.

In 2013, will Collins be a 41-year-old starting quarterback, a rising country star or neither?