Oh, great. Here we go again with the Mike Vick to Buffalo talk. Tony Dundgy confirmed during the pregame show Sunday night before Philadelphia hosted Dallas that the Bills and Vick “talked originally” when Vick was searching for a team after serving 18 months in federal prison for running a dogfighting ring. Vick, whose days in Philly seem to be numbered after this season, will be a FA and Dungy commented on what Vick should do here on out.
“I told Michael to just worry about this year,” Dungy said. “It’s technically up to Philadelphia. If they want him back, he has to stay there. If they don’t, there are some teams looking for quarterbacks: Cleveland, St. Louis and Washington.
“But I think a dark horse is Buffalo. They talked originally. There was some communication there. I think that could be a good spot.”
OK, if you just started reading my blog, I made my feelings clear in training camp what I felt about Mike Vick coming to Buffalo. I wasn’t a big fan of it.
Things have of course changed since I wrote that article. The Bills are a disaster, especially with their quarterback play. The only way I would get on board with the signing (When I mean on board, that’s like me on a rescue boat with a rope attached to the Titanic)is if the Bills fired their entire coaching staff and drafted a QB of the future in the first 2 rounds of the draft. Now if you can package Tony Dungy and Vick into that equation, it would make it a little more enticing, but that’s nothing more than living a fantasy.
Lets look at the body of work for Mike Vick. As I documented in my previous article, Vick is nothing more than a running quarterback and once his legs are gone, the dude is shot. He has a lot of wear and tear on his body for running so many times over the years. His completing percentage is less than 54% and he almost ruined Roddy White’s and other Falcons receiver’s careers. I know some apologists will say Vick is a winner. If you look though, in 6 years as the Falcons QB, Vick only made the playoffs twice and was surrounded by the best rushing attack in the league. More importantly, Vick had a front office that would spare no expese to build a team around him. Can’t say that about the Bills.
Vick is all about hype. You remember during the preseason, how ESPN made such a big deal about the Eagles and the wildcat offense would goto another level. How’s that going for the Eagles?
That hype is what the Bills would bank on if they choose to sign Vick. The Bills are all of a sudden about bringing in players who are in the twighlight of their career. The team is hoping the mere presence of a named player will bring them credibility and more importantly ticket sales from the fans.
I wrote in the preseason that if it was the 2010 offseason, I could see the Bils making a play for Vick. The reason being was the Bills already sold a ton of season tickets and didn’t need another get rich quick scheme because they already had Owens. We all know Owens is as good as gone after this season. So now the Bills have to find a way to sell tickets.
This is what happens when you have a marketing guy as your GM. Russ Brandon is looking to sell tickets and hype. If the Bills were really committed to winning they would of fired Dick Jauron and re-signed Jason Peters. The Vick signing will do nothing more than make some stupid Bills fans forget the problems the franchise really has. It will also give the front office another excuse to not fire Jauron.
It would be an exact copy of last year, when fans were clamoring for Jauron’s head and the Bills introduced T.O. and all was forgotten. Replace Owens name with Vick’s name and all is good in the hood. The best part will be that Vick’s salary will be far less than the 6.5 million T.O. is making. Maybe, 10 years from now, the Bills will sign Payton Manning when his arm is hanging by a thread.
Now is Mike Vick better than Edwards? Yes. But so was Terrell Owens over Josh Reed. In other words, the biggest problem is the Bills are just looking for facades to make fans forget about the problems with the coaching staff, poor management, and poor players on the team.
You put Mike Vick with that offensive line and with Dick Jauron as your head coach, it will be nothing more than a 7-9 season in front of 72,000 fans, who will buy into the hype and the beer. But what else is new? That’s the problem with Bills fans, they will buy into anything that is different from what they are watching, even if it’s good or bad.
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