The deluge of shallow questions and articles on Michael Vick’s future with the Eagles has already begun…and I want to make it clear, Eagles Eye is attempting to take a more realistic football look at the issues involved…
Eagles’ quarterback Michael Vick spoke with reporters yesterday and said he definitely wants to be an Eagle again next year.
That’s the good news for Eagles fans…and the bad news—Vick wants to be an Eagle again next year.
I say “bad news”, because for the Eagles, Vick’s statement causes major problems and challenges for the organization. As you may know, Vick is not under contract for the Eagles in 2011. What would it take to sign him for 3 years?— $40 million?—and this for a 31-year-old QB who may be restricted to playing only 10 games a season at best due to the bruising and injury-riddled style of his play?
The Disney Movie rebirth section of the Vick come-back story is over… every team in the NFL now has the revised book on Vick’s genius at the quarterback position. It was wonderful to be a part of the Eagles fan base to witness the Renaissance period of Vick’s redemption as a solo artist in the NFL… but now we’re in the Rococo period of self-parody. The league has figured Vick out. He now has become just another serviceable part in an average offense. For him to excel and get better, the team has to get better…
Meanwhile, starter-turned-backup QB Kevin Kolb says he wants out of Philly if Vick is signed by the Eagles.
Events seem to suggest the Eagles must do whatever it takes to re-sign Michael Vick to an extension. ESPN reports that sources have said the Eagles will place the franchise tag on Vick (assuming it exists in the next CBA) if they can’t reach a long-term deal with him in the offseason. That means the Eagles can “force” Vick to remain for at least one more season by paying him “the going rate” for a journeyman quarterback of his stature…probably in the area of $8 to 9 million.
Eagles head coach Andy Reid said he wants both Michael Vick and Kevin Kolb to return to the team, and he wants all of his coaching staff to return, too. When Reid, holding his season-ending news conference, was asked who he expects to be the starter when the team reconvenes, he said “we’ll see.”
Obviously, Reid is not tipping his hand as to the certainty of signing Vick…because even he’s not sure where Mike Vick is going to end up.
My favorite player quote on all this uncertainty came from Darryl Tapp (Eagles’ LDE): “If we were still playing, and we should have beat Green Bay, I wouldn’t even be worried about it…but I hate football right now.” Tapp, whose former Seattle teammates are going to Chicago to play the Bears ( the matchup the Eagles would have gotten had they beaten Green Bay), added, “It’s going to burn, watching the Seahawks” against Chicago.
Inspired by Tapp’s candor, I finally said, enough of the Bleacher Report and CBS.com nonsense that’s out there regarding Vick’s future with the Eagles. Let’s go to a couple of actual football players who have excelled at the collegiate level, and get their real-world take on what the football essence of the story is…
Leo Pizzini (former Division I safety with 2 years of eligibility remaining): “Vick is special… how special??? to be determined… but I’ll roll with Vick… no doubt… no second guessing… he’s unique… offensively… I think we could do a little bit more to cater to that… I think our offensive creativity kind of stalled a bit down the stretch… I saw some really nice play calls earlier in the season… I thought we got a little bland in the late season…”
“If I was gonna make one criticism… I’d say we need to incorporate more hot-read adjustments and work both the QB and receivers through those reads..”
“I’d love to see us get a receiver that can dominate in the air… and rip balls away from defenders… maybe Maclin will be that guy… but I don’t see it in him yet… I’m ready to slide him into the slot and go for a Vincent Jackson-type player… maybe Vincent Jackson!!! … draft Pouncey and Wisniewski… lets roll!!!”
“I don’t need a SB ring to be a fan… I’m OK with or without whatever… I’d love to see them win… sometimes or most of the time you need a little luck though… subordinating luck is a tough task… we’re working towards it… we’re doing almost everything right… we got the right core of young players to make a run at it for a few more years… this will be an appropriate offseason to sign some top-tier free agents and polish off the team… it sucks to lose how we did against Green Bay… but it’s football… two quality teams faced-off… somebody was gonna lose…”
“If Vick stays, we need more help for Starship 7… I’d like to see Maclin win some more jump balls for him… maybe push Maclin to the slot… go for Vincent Jackson??? and Pouncey and Wisniewski would be two awesome picks to bolster the line… although… that wouldn’t help at RT… I’m no aficionado of offensive linemen, so I’ll defer… add Carlos Rogers and/or Nnamdi Asomugha to the defensive backfield and I think we’re set… would’ve been nice to make 2011 a back-to-back thing… damPack had to rain on our parade…”
“I don’t see us using a lot of slants and short hitch routes especially not in adjustment to a shown blitz… I see us hook up on that tight drag route but usually when protection is strong… I’d love to see more of that cuz it works real well… I see a lot of out routes… but mostly… I think we rely on beating the blitz by having a mobile QB that evades and extends the play… if our WRs are making hot route adjustments… they aren’t taken advantage of by the QB… but I definitely don’t see hot read adjustments on the 15-play script… but most important… it seemed like the blocking couldn’t pick up adjustments when a pressure package rolled out against us… although Dunlap did nicely when he came in for Justice… I dunno… I think we we force the play on the field too much… and I think its a weakness at times…”
Jerome Brown99 (“JB” of PE.com’s On the Inside fan forum) is a former fullback in the Nebraska championship program, and he chipped in with some extra insight on Leo’s comments: “Starship7 wasn’t very good at the line-of-scrimmage pre-snap. But he doesn’t have to be. He just needs to run the O. And he needs better blocking… Just imagine our O with a line that could effectively pick up the blitz.”
(Great point… Tom Brady has that smart blitz-pickup transition line in New England. It makes all the difference… )
Leo Pizzini responds: “@JB… for sure… better offensive line = problem solved…but those drag routes we like to run for Vick are not quickly developing plays… we’re usually waiting for the receivers to cross the offensive line like you’re saying on a high/low clear out on the opposite side of the field… and it’s a nice play… with protection in place… But… for example… in the Minnesota game… I look at one of the CB blitz plays that hurt us… Winfield (or whoever) was lined up over Celek split out… he came right by Celek on a free blitz…..Maclin is coming across on that drag route… but it’s too slow developing… but if Celek reads that blitz… he could have run a quick hitch or quick out away from the linebackers… and Vick would have had an easy hook-up (as long as he could clear the blitzing corner)… but Celek cleared out… took the seam, Maclin couldn’t get across in time… and Winfield gets an easy shot at Vick… where a nice hot-read adjustment would have been a big gainer to Celek… that’s the stuff I think we miss… what says you?”
JB99: “We had trouble that week for sure. But one play against Green Bay… they tried a CB blitz… and our guy broke off on a quick slant and was wide open… but Starship7 went the other way and hit Avant on a hitch for a 1st down. We are not gonna hot-
read everything they throw at us, though. Big plays are there… with blocking.”
Leo Pizzini: “All right… I’m down with your insights JB… Let’s sign Vick…and build a wall around him. I’m riding with our Birds through thick and thin… bolster the line and the secondary… add play-makers wherever else it can be a nice perk… get the CBA done… year 1 of Reid’s second-generation Eagles is under our belt with greater success than most anticipated… good season Eagles!!! lets put a finish on this roster… still can’t believe the season is over… good nite all!!!”
Thank you, real football players Leo and JB, for putting the focus of actual football credibility and plausibility on the question of Vick’s future with the Eagles. From your insights, here’s my take: Sign Vick for three years, for whatever it takes… the identiity of the franchise is at stake. Keeping Vick also provides the motivation for the front office and coaching staff to make all the upgrades they need in every offensive and defensive department to keep Vick physically viable for the better part of a 16 or 18-game season. Sign Vick, and build a wall around him, as Leo says. Spend the money. Andy Reid, treat it as your last big rodeo. Let’s face it, you’ve painted yourself into a corner with Vick the ultimate quarterback artiste. Kolb is your current backup link to the old order of West Coast Offense thinking….and he may be riding out of town. Signing Vick may force the cutting of those old-world ties. But committing to a Vick-led offense will force you to improve every other aspect of the game to a higher level. Vick’s imprint on the brand of the Eagles requires a greater level of support from every other phase of the organization. Maybe that’s the breakthrough realization the Eagles need to move forward on a 3-year run of excellence…
You’ve come this far with Vick through every imaginable roadblock of sociology and probability. Why stop now? Build it around him, for better or worse…his time has come and will not last forever. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity…and we may never “pass” this way again.
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