The Michael Vick Experience (according to the talking heads...)

One of the biggest stories of this NFL season is the fact that Michael Vick, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles and a man whom was in jail for 19 months just a year and a half ago, earned the starting job over Kevin Kolb and has played so well this season, he's been talked of having a shot at the MVP award at season's end.

However, it seems that there are some sports' "analysts" whom don't want to separate the man from the athlete and want to dismiss his success this year in any possible way. No matter what one may think of his previous actions off the field, one can't deny what he's done on the field this year. Well, I suppose they can, but they'd be wrong in doing so.

To start the season, the Eagles opened with Green Bay, one of the pre-season favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Kevin Kolb got hit in the backfield and suffered a concussion just after halftime. The Eagles trailed 20-3 when Vick entered the game. Vick naysayers state that the rest of the game didn't matter, that Vick was playing a prevent defense, which allowed him to post decent numbers. The fact of the matter is, Vick brought the Eagles back to within 7 at 27-20 and drove the Eagles inside Packer territory late in the 4th with an opportunity to tie the game. Philly then failed to convert on a 4th-and-1, but how can these "analysts" not lend any credit to the quarterback for leading his team back in the 2nd half against supposedly one of the top defenses in the NFC? A 17-point game in the 3rd quarter does not mean it's essentially over, especially when the trailing team pecks away at that lead and winds up coming within 40 yards of tying the game. Was Green Bay playing prevent when up 27-17 or 27-20? I don't think so. For the game, Vick finished 16-24 for 175 yards and a touchdown (quarterback rating of 101.9). He also ran the ball 11 times for 103 yards.

Up next on the slate, the Eagles squared off against the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars. The reason many of these Vick naysayers dismiss his success in these two games is due to the level of competition. For the record, Jacksonville is 6-5 and tied for 1st in the AFC South alongside Indianapolis. Detroit, while just 2-9, has been a bigger pain than their record would indicate. Just ask Chicago or the New York Jets, whom they would have beaten if place kicker Jason Hanson hadn't gotten roughed, as the Lions replaced him with defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh for an extra point try and the rookie sensation missed. In the Lions' game, Vick led the Eagles to a 35-32 win, where he completed 21 of 34 pass attempts for 284 yards and two touchdowns (108.0 QB rating). He also ran the ball 8 times for 37 yards. The Eagles dominated 6-5 Jacksonville 28-3 and even with Vick completing the lowest percentage of his passes on the season thus far (54.8%), he made the completions count. Vick finished the game 17-31 for 291 yards and three touchdowns (119.2 rating). He also ran the ball 4 times for 30 yards and another touchdown. This isn't college ball. There is unbelievable parity in the NFL. The 4-7 Cleveland Browns beat up on the 9-2 New England Patriots 34-14 earlier this season. Are we supposed to put an asterisk by that game and label it as a fluke, even though Cleveland beat the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints a week prior? There are definitely some superior defenses in the NFL, but I don't understand how we can dismiss a player's performance because he played against supposedly a sub-par NFL defense. If it wasn't for Vick's outstanding play, the Eagles would have likely lost to the Lions, who scored 32 points against Philly and Vick was responsible for all four touchdowns against Jacksonville.

Vick then got banged up in the first half of their game against Washington, one they'd eventually lose 17-12. Naysayers point to this game and say, "You see? He's going to get hurt. He still plays recklessly." There are some NFL quarterbacks who rarely get hurt (Peyton Manning and Brett Favre), but Tom Brady has been banged up in the past and missed considerable playing time, as have: Chad Pennington, Bruce Gradkowski, Vince Young, Carson Palmer, Tony Romo, Matthew Stafford, Jake Delhomme, Matt Hasselbeck, Marc Bulger, Matt Moore, etc. Because of Vick's speed and tendency to take off a few times every game, he is prone to receiving a few more hits than pocket passers, at least that's the train of thought many of these "analysts" take. That's not true in a lot of cases, however. Ask Jay Cutler, when his Bears faced the Giants earlier this year and the Chicago Bears' starting quarterback got sacked not once, not twice, not even seven times, but ten times. Sometimes a guy like Vick can avoid those big hits by the defensive linemen and linebackers, run for a few yards and get hit by a cornerback instead (or out-of-bounds).

After missing the games against San Francisco, Atlanta and Tennessee, Vick came back to face the Indianapolis Colts. The quick Colts' defense made Vick run around a little more than he had previously (excluding the Green Bay game), but overall, the quarterback played well and led the Eagles to a 26-24 victory over Peyton Manning and the Colts, in a game Philly was penalized 14 times for 125 yards. For the game, Vick was 17 of 29 for 218 yards and a touchdown (93.8 rating). He also ran the ball 10 times for 74 yards and another score.

To this point of the season, Vick was a nice story, "analysts" were starting to admit that he was playing the quarterback position better than he had when with the Atlanta Falcons and that Philly was in good hands with both he and Kevin Kolb at quarterback. But, perceptions and expectations would alter drastically after the following game, when Philadelphia squared off against Washington on a Monday night. Most people know what happened, but for anyone whom was living in a cave somewhere, the Eagles scored 28 points in the first quarter and on the first play of the second quarter to total 35. They scored 45 points at halftime and had 59 points at the end of the third quarter, until they finally decided to run a Frank Solich playbook and run it up the middle on 1st, 2nd and 3rd down, as to not risk injury. For the game (really three quarters), Michael Vick was 20 of 28 for 333 yards and four touchdowns (150.7 rating). He also ran the ball 8 times for 80 yards and two more scores. It was the first time in NFL history that a quarterback had thrown for over 300 yards, run for 50+ yards, thrown for 4 or more touchdowns and run for 2 or more. Vick's jersey was then sent to the Hall of Fame for his efforts in the game, what many are calling the greatest Monday night performance in NFL history (some labeling it the greatest of all-time). After that game, many talking heads were calling Vick and the Eagles offense unstoppable, that they could be the best and quickest offense ever, that Vick could turn out to be one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game. Vick went from being a nice story and an improving quarterback to being a MVP candidate, with talk of him possibly being on his way to becoming the greatest quarterback to play in the NFL. Vick tried to put things into perspective, by saying that it may have looked easy on television, but it wasn't and that such performances by both he and the team weren't going to happen very regularly. But, you know the talking heads - they tend to blow things out-of-proportion and run with an exciting story as long they can.

That brings us to these two most recent games, against the New York Giants and the Chicago Bears, considered to have two of the quickest and best defenses in the league. The Eagles defeated the Giants 27-17 to gain sole possession of 1st place in the NFC East, before falling to Chicago 31-26, which presented a tie atop the East. Naysayers are now claiming that both the Giants and Bears provided blueprints on how to stop Vick, that he looked somewhat ordinary and that he isn't in fact unstoppable. Seriously? Since when is an athlete "unstoppable"? Michael Jordan even had bad games. Lance Armstrong didn't win the Tour de France in his most recent effort. Muhammad Ali lost fights. While it is possible (although unlikely) for a player to put on a "perfect" performance once in his/her career or once in a while, it's impossible to carry on that "perfection" for a long period of time. Vick played about the perfect game against the Redskins on that Monday night, but like he said, it's not going to be like that every game. Against the Giants, no, he didn't put up such gaudy numbers, but did play well, as he was 24 of 38 for 258 yards (83.0 rating). He also ran the ball 11 times for 34 yards and a touchdown. The Giants have one of the fastest defenses in the NFL and used this speed to apply pressure on the Philly quarterback. This was somewhat effective, yet the Eagles still gained almost 400 yards and scored 27 points (five separate scores) on this vaunted defense. Also, even if one wants to claim the Giants limited Vick and provided a blueprint for the rest of the league, how many teams will be able to successfully follow that blueprint? The Steelers? Chargers? Bears? Giants? Maybe 4 teams out of 32? Then against the Bears, Vick threw his first interception of the season. He now has 13 touchdown passes and 1 interception. The ball was tipped at the line-of-scrimmage and caught in the end zone to deny the Eagles a chance at a score and the lead going into halftime. The Bears didn't allow the big play, which is what their defense is set to do. They make teams play patiently on offense and they didn't think that Vick and the quick-strike Eagles' offense would be able to do that. The Bears dominated the 3rd quarter to lead 31-13 and at this point, the naysayers claim the rest of the game for Vick and the Eagles was just garbage time. Once again, Vick led the Eagles back to 31-26 with about a minute and a half left to go, when David Akers attempted an onside kick. If the Eagles had recovered, they could have very well won the football game. They were one play away from having an opportunity to win the game, so once again, please don't tell me it was "garbage time". For the game, Vick was 29 of 44 for 333 yards, a pair of touchdowns and one interception (94.2 rating). He also ran the ball 9 times for 44 yards. Again, so where is this blueprint the Bears have of Vick? He was responsible for 377 yards against them and two touchdowns. The problem was with the Eagles' offensive line, their defense, their special teams and their offense not cashing in the red zone. But, the Eagles scored six times and went on seven scoring drives against this great defense.

So, for the season, Vick has completed 149 of 235 pass attempts (63.4%) for 1,941 yards (8.26 ypa), 13 touchdowns and 1 interception for a quarterback rating of 106.0 (tops in the NFL). He's also carried the ball 64 times for 419 yards (6.5 ypa) and 5 touchdowns. So, in 6 full games (5-1 record) and about a full game's worth of action against Green Bay and Washington the first time around, Vick has compiled 2,360 yards of total offense and 18 touchdowns with just 1 turnover. That's an average of 337 yards a game (277 passing and 60 rushing) and close to 3 touchdowns a game. Vick (no athlete, for that matter) is not unstoppable, but the Giants and Bears did not provide a blueprint for the rest of the league on how to stop him.

Many people ("analysts" included) just seem to want to root against the guy and dismiss his success whenever possible. Sports' "scientist," KC Joyner, even wrote last week that Vick has been extremely lucky this year, claiming that after watching videotape, Vick made X number of bad decisions (these decision-making skills being subjective to the interpreter, of course) and should have Y number of interceptions. That's it. Let's just let a guy base an athlete's performance on the what if rather than the what is. If we judged sports history on that, there would be no such thing as actual sports history. Also, why don't we hear about these blueprints for Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and company? Why does it seem many talking heads just assume they're unstoppable, yet when Vick doesn't put up 400+ yards and 6 touchdowns on a team, suddenly there's a blueprint for the league to follow? Rivers didn't play exceptionally against either Seattle (5-6) (80.3 rating) or St. Louis (5-6) (77.4), as the Chargers fell to both NFC West teams. Does this mean the Seahawks and/or Rams provided a blueprint for the league on how to defend Rivers? Uh, no. Tom Brady struggled against both the Jets (72.5 rating) and Ravens (69.5 rating) this season. Once again, does this mean the two teams have shown the league how you beat Brady? No, not really. Manning has had a few poor showings this year: Kansas City (65.0 rating), Philly (67.0), Cincinnati (69.8) and San Diego (59.8). There are numerous factors to take into consideration when a quarterback's numbers don't meet expectation. Perhaps there were injuries on the o-line or even a receiver, tight end or running back. Perhaps the quarterback himself was banged up a bit. Perhaps the weather conditions made it difficult to grip the ball for the quarterback or to pull the ball in for the tailback, tight end or receiver. Perhaps the field conditions were awful. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Phillip Rivers are all very good quarterbacks, but for the time being they all trail Michael Vick in quarterback rating. It's time to realize that none of these quarterbacks are unstoppable, but Vick is turning himself into an elite quarterback in this league.

Up next for Vick and the Eagles will be: the Houston Texas (5-6) at home, Dallas (3-8) and the Giants (7-4) on the road, closing with Minnesota (4-7) and Dallas (3-8) at home. If the defense can step up at all, I like Philly to beat Houston, along with Dallas. The Giants will be difficult to beat on the road and I like the birds to win the final two at home to close with an 11-5 record. That should be enough to make the playoffs and even win the East, but the NFC West may ruin one or two teams' wishes of entering the field of six. I have a feeling Tampa will be one of those clubs and am uncertain about the other, either Philly/NY Giants/Chicago/Green Bay.