Following the Philadelphia Eagles' 31-24 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars last night in the team's third preseason game, many Philly sports-writers were quick to label starting quarterback Michael Vick as "shaky," all the while praising the play of backup quarterback Nick Foles. While Foles was very efficient in the second half of last night's game and has been for most of the preseason, I'm still slightly perplexed on the myriad of such articles which were published by Philadelphia writers either last night or this morning.
Vick wasn't as sharp in last night's game as he had been in the team's first two preseason games. He completed 15 of 23 pass attempts (65.2%) for 184 yards (8.0 ypa and 12.3 ypc), with 1 touchdown pass and 1 interception. In his defense, the interception was on a pass Vick was trying to throw away while getting hit. However, he held onto the ball too long and would have avoided the pick if he had tossed the ball out-of-bound sooner. Outside of that one ill-advised decision, however, Vick played fairly well. In addition to his passing numbers, he also ran the ball 7 times for 53 yards (7.6 ypc). When I first read the headlines, I was expecting to see that Vick completed just 8 of 20 passes, was picked off two to three times, and the team lost rather convincingly.
In what appears to be a rebuilding year for the Eagles, I can understand Philadelphia writers wanting to see a change at the quarterback position - to start new not just at head coach and offensive philosophy, but also behind center. However, even if that's the case, I don't think it's right for them to make their biases so obvious. For the preseason, Michael Vick has completed 28 of 38 pass attempts (73.7%) for 383 yards (10.1 ypa and 13.7 ypc), with 2 touchdown passes and 2 interceptions, for a quarterback rating of 101.0. If we removed one of the two interceptions, which was a late-in-the-half-hail-mary heave, his rating would be 112.0. He's also run the ball 9 times for 73 yards (8.1 ypc). So, while he wasn't as great in last night's preseason game as he was in the first two, his whole body of work has still been pretty impressive, and with Chip Kelly at coach, he should help make this an interesting and entertaining season for the team.
Comments
Post a Comment