PHILADELPHIA – Another night game, another national audience, another opportunity for America to lean forward on the sofa, pet the dog and wait to see what the heck Michael Vick was going to do next.
Vick has been a full-scale gaper delay since becoming the Eagles’ starter this season. Like him or not, trust him or not, believe him or not, ready or not, here he goes and just try to look the other way.
Six days before, Vick competed his quick journey from backup to brilliant with that ridiculous 400-yard performance against the Redskins. He became the focus of every NFL conversation, the hottest sports story in the country. The word “redemption” was thrown around a lot less accurately than Vick’s passes. He was a video game come to life and people couldn’t wait for the next edition to be issued.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Vick said before playing the Giants on Sunday night. “It wasn’t easy against the Redskins. I know it looked easy, but it wasn’t.”
Vick knows that things can turn most harshly against you when riding the highest. He’s been there. He knows that games like the one on Monday night are to be enjoyed but not expected. And, although he wouldn’t say it, he knew that the New York Giants are not the Redskins.
So, Sunday’s game was just another game for Vick, not another one of “those games, and America probably sat back at some point and dug the remote from the cushions.
The Giants are nobody’s fools when it comes to slowing down an opponent’s offense. They came in ranked first in the NFL for overall defense, which is 31 places higher than Washington. Their secondary is nothing special, but it doesn’t have to be because the Giants bring pressure on the quarterback and their linebackers are beastly run-stuffers.
Against Vick, New York didn’t change its approach. Vick danced around and made them miss a few times, broke off a couple of decent runs, but, for the most part, he was under duress when he dropped back to pass. Justin Tuck sacked him three times all by himself.
It wasn’t ordinary, because very little that Vick does is ordinary, but the phone call from Canton asking for his jersey and shoes wasn’t going to come this time. Not all of the issues were his fault. In fact, not many of them were his fault. Without any time to throw, Vick wasn’t as accurate as he was against the Redskins. Of course, the Hubble telescope isn’t as accurate as Vick was against the Redskins.
And then there were the drops. DeSean Jackson and Jason Avant were both unable to come up with catches in the end zone. The ball to Jackson was a little low, but it should have been caught. The ball to Avant … well, aside from walking down and handing it to Avant, there wasn’t much else Vick could have done for him.
Those botched catches cost the Eagles points and if Jackson hadn’t allowed himself to be overthrown on a bomb earlier in the half, this might well have been an easy win. But not every week is going to be 35-0 before everyone gets seated. Those aren’t the wins that make a quarterback great. The wins like Sunday’s against the Giants, a wild 27-17 affair over a division rival, are what makes quarterbacks and seasons great.
The difference that Vick can make was most apparent on the go-ahead score as the Eagles fought back after giving up 14 unanswered points. On fourth and 1 from the 50, there was a bobbled exchange between center Mike McGlynn and Vick. That can happen to anyone, but Vick calmly pulled in the bobble, swung around to pitch it to LeSean McCoy, and got all of that done just before defensive end Osi Umenyiora arrived to either sack Vick or knock the pitch from the air. McCoy gathered it in cleanly and went the distance through the bunched New York defense for the touchdown.
Vick made a difference again a couple of minutes later, and he wasn’t even on the field. On a fourth and 6 from their own 44, the Giants elected to go for the first down with more than three minutes to play and all of their time outs remaining. The reason? No confidence they could keep Vick from scrambling around for a couple of first downs to end the game.
Forced to run on the play, Eli Manning fell forward awkwardly after getting the first down and he fumbled away the ball. You can credit that turnover to the presence of Vick, and maybe that offset Vick’s own fumble earlier in the second half, his only turnover of the season.
Vick was the same guy on Sunday as he was on the previous Monday night. This time, though, he wasn’t wildly different from anything you had ever seen before. He was merely the difference, and that is all you ask.