Mike Vick and musical chairs

So I ended up getting a last-minute invitation to go to the Eagles/Skins game last nite. But I’ve been sick for the last week and it was due to rain and it’s November… But then my “inviter” told me we’d be sitting in a dry, warm, tricked-out luxury box. And I thought, “Well, it’d be rude to turn him down…

As a die-harder-than-most Iggles fan, I can’t say how happy I am that I was there to witness the clinic Michael Vick put on last nite. 4 TD passes, 2 rushing TDs, 300 passing yards and 80 rushing yards — it was a thing of beauty. Understandably, FedEx Field began to clear out pretty early in the game. Now in the interest of full disclosure, it was raining pretty hard for most of the game, but a lot of Skins folks just got discouraged:

Where are all da people?

This wasn’t halftime or anything. And the stadium was full at the kickoff. But by the middle of the second quarter, there was basically no one in the top two tiers of the stadium. It was like a great big game of musical chairs where 50,000 people decided not to bother sitting back down. I can’t imagine what it looked like on TV.

I mocked my cold/flu situation, posting the following update on Facebook:

I fully regret that post, as I feel like booty today. I have a show in a few hours so I need to get it together. So I apologize cold/flu thing. Now please release me. Love, EJ

I see right through you…

Right Through You – Alanis Morissette

My absolute favorite song from “Jagged Little Pill” and it captures exactly how I’m feeling right now about Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie. The remarks he made during his follow-up press conference on Friday re: hiring Michael Vick made me sick. And it amazes me that reporters and commentators and bloggers alike are lauding him for being “charitable” enough to sign Vick despite his personal convictions, when his statement was so clearly bullshit. I mean seriously, I didn’t see a selfless man willing to give  a guy a second chance because he was big-hearted. I saw a businessman bashing his most recent (and potentially most profitable) investment in years in order to justify an unpopular decision that was based strictly on the bottom line. You can ‘t convince me of anything else. The NFL is a billion dollar business and Michael Vick has the potential to help lead the Eagles to a championship. Jeff Lurie knows it. And signing him because of that is a perfectly reasonable — hell, a very, very smart — business move. But in trying to pretend it was about anything else, he comes off as either a liar or a bad businessman. And neither is a good look for him.

Below are a few excerpts from an article/commentary I just submitted for a magazine. Not sure it’ll get published so I wanted to post some of it here. OK, here goes — and I promise I’ll chill on the Eagles posts until at least next weekend. This events of this weekend have just been so unexpected!

“I needed to see a lot of self hatred in order to approve this.”

That’s just one of the classless and seemingly disingenuous remarks Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie used to explain his decision to sign Michael Vick in his 8/14 press conference. He then went on to explain how much he loved animals, and how he’d lost several dogs in the past few years. He described Vick’s actions as “murderous” and “inexcusable” and lamented for nearly 15 minutes about how difficult it was for him to decide to sign Vick…

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Short ‘n sweet

Coach Reid in the 8/14 presser re: how Michael Vick will contribute to the team:

large_michael-vick

I’m not going to sit here and tell you how he’s going to contribute because I’m not naive to think that the rest of the National Football League’s not watching… I will say, though, that he will contribute. And you can ask defensive coordinators on other teams if they are worried about that.” — Andy Reid

Gotta love that. Coach Reid, succinct as ever.

Vick-tory?

vick

Now this was unexpected.

In principle I’ve been totally for Michael Vick getting the chance to play in the NFL again. I think he got a raw deal on his jail sentence, and I believe he should have the opportunity to get his life back. But I gotta admit, that I never in a million years thought he would land in Philly. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Lurie, Reid, and the boys have made some smart (albeit hard to swallow) decisions during the offseason and so I hope know they have a plan here. I’m just having a tough time seeing it just yet.

The pros as I see them so far are: 1) Having Vick as an option could help to keep McNabb on his toes. Clearly they didn’t bring him in to take over the starting QB spot, but having a waaaay-more-than-viable second string QB (provided he’s able to get back into his pre-prison conditioning/form) forces Donovan to make sure his game is as tight as possible… As much as Eagle fans love to boo McNabb’s mental lapses, we never really want to see Kolb or Feeley — or whoever the other guy is — take the field. A little fire under the ass is a good thing. 2) Vick’s athleticism lends itself to all kinds of interesting and creative looks on offense. We lost our best all-purpose defensive player in Dawkins but now we’ve got a guy that can realistically jump into any number of offensive sets and make it work. I’ve often been critical of Andy Reid’s play calling. So this should be interesting.

I’m sure there are more pros that I’ll come to recognize in the coming weeks, but I guess my biggest concern is that maybe we were already OK and now we’re forcing it. Michael Vick isn’t an egomaniac and I’m sure he appreciates the opportunity and accepts what his role will be, but I’m just scared that when certain egos get involved and chests start to puff out, we’ll end up like those LA Lakers teams in the early 2000’s where they stacked the roster with superstars but couldn’t get it together. McNabb says he’s not worried about his spot and that he lobbied to get Vick to Philly — which I’m sure is all true now, but…

Exhale. Time will tell. I’ll reserve judgement for later and in the meantime just put a little faith in the front office. (Haha who said that? ;) Well, that’s all for now. But I’ll be checking out this 11am presser for sure.

Later.