After Week 1 of the NFL season was in the books, one of the top stories in circulation involved Tennessee quarterback Vince Young, who was booed heavily at home before the Titans pulled out a 17-10 win over Jacksonville.

Young, who suffered a knee injury late in the game and left the stadium on crutches, reportedly was upset enough by events to spark concern among teammates about his emotional well-being. When Young was nowhere to be found for four hours Monday night, police were called to help find him. It turns out Young was fine, though the news reports forced Titans coach Jeff Fisher to spend much of his Tuesday radio show addressing the matter.

This writer’s immediate reaction to the story was that it was nobody’s business. A player’s personal life and whereabouts are not for mass consumption, and his emotional health shouldn’t be news for a leering public. The right to know isn’t absolute.

Years ago, what an athlete did on his own time was off limits. Any high-profile person’s sins, sexcapades or personal issues rarely made the news, nor, for that matter, were they grounds for impeachment.

That’s all changed, of course, and the scrutiny of an athlete’s personal life seems to be justified by the fact that he makes lots of money playing a kid’s game. He’s supposed to be a role model for children, and the media have taken on the role of policing him.

Does that make any sense? Not only are most of us spared the pressure of having our work assessed in print, we also don’t have the details of our personal lives reported worldwide. In pro sports, the former is understandable, the latter isn’t justified.

After giving the coverage some thought, I’ve changed my tune a bit on the Young story. There’s a side of it I hope sports fans will digest and take to heart, though it’s unlikely.

Young works hard to succeed and struggles with failure, just like the rest of us. He happens to do it in a very high-profile profession and accepts what comes with it, but that’s not to say he’s unaffected by what goes on around him.

Anyone who has attended a sporting event has probably witnessed an athlete targeted with an insult that most of us would never repeat to another human being. The basic tenets of decency apparently don’t apply to fans, as many think they are justified by buying a ticket and believe they are paying player salaries. As far as being an unhappy consumer, it’s too bad some of that wrath isn’t directed at some of the country’s greediest CEOs.

No matter how much money an athlete makes, he doesn’t deserve to hear comments that we wouldn’t want directed at us. Even if you think Young is thin-skinned or overly emotional, those are qualities that are part of his makeup. He might be a fine-tuned athlete, but he’s not a robot.

Most professional athletes play their entire careers without lashing out, despite the constant barrage of derogatory comments they hear about their game, their personal lives, or their mothers and daughters. Even just a steady stream of boos can be hard to take when an athlete is simply having a bad day. After all, we all have them.

If there’s anything to be gained by having the Young story out there, it’s that athletes are more like us than we might realize. They battle with personal failure and the embarrassment it brings, just like the rest of us, except they do it before tens of thousands of onlookers.

If making lots of money at a kid’s game is a justification for anger and bile, maybe it should be directed at those who profit exponentially in far more consequential pursuits, such as taking jobs overseas or waging war under false pretenses. The guys on the field are just playing a game.