Reid Wrong for Vick

I know there are a lot of people out there who believe Andy Reid made the right call in electing to start Michael Vick over Kevin Kolb for the foreseeable future. There are a seemingly equal number of people who believe Reid is making a huge mistake. I am about ninety percent into the latter camp. I think the coach made the wrong decision, but I don’t think it matters much. No matter the quarterback, I fully believe the Eagles are incapable of winning the Super Bowl as long as Andy Reid makes the team’s football decisions.

Those who believe Vick should be the starter do so for the following reasons: based on his track record as quarterback of the Falcons, Michael Vick is a winner in the NFL; Vick has played spectacularly through six quarters this season while Kolb had a pretty bad beginning to his 2010 season; the Eagles’ offensive line is awful, especially injury replacement center Mike McGlynn, and Kolb’s limited mobility will get him hurt again; Vick gives the Eagles the best chance to win ten or eleven games this year and make the playoffs; and, frankly, Kolb has not shown anything to forcefully prove that he should have been starting over Vick anyway. I cannot disagree with any of those reasons; they are all one hundred percent correct. Still, I believe Kevin Kolb should be the Eagles’ starting quarterback.

The Kolb supporters tend to subscribe the following: after three years of grooming Kolb and five months of propping him up as the starter, two quarters is not enough time to determine that he’s not the right guy for the job; Kolb shouldn’t lose his starting job because of an injury; Kolb is much better suited to run Reid’s West Coast Offense than Vick; Kolb played good-to-great in his two starts last season, so Reid should have more confidence in him; and it undermines Kolb’s standing with his teammates for him to lose his starting job so soon. I cannot disagree with either of these arguments either.

What the people in both camps are neglecting to do is take the coach into consideration. We have seen Andy Reid for eleven years; we know him by now. From what we know of Reid, Kolb should be the guy. Let me count the ways:

1. Michael Vick is 30 years old. Anyone who’s followed the Eagles during Jeffrey Lurie’s ownership tenure knows that this organization does not like signing or extending players in their thirties. Some might think the quarterback position would be immune to this, but the Eagles have not yet shown this to be true. The Eagles drafted Kolb just as McNabb turned 30. At the time, the effective portion of McNabb’s contract was set to run out after the 2009 season, when he would be 33. Due to their organizational philosophy, Eagles can see Michael Vick as nothing but a short-term fix. This was not a move for beyond 2010.
   
2. The Eagles have wanted Kevin Kolb to be the starting quarterback since November 2008. I will always believe that when Andy Reid benched McNabb for Kolb at halftime of the Eagles’ 2008 game in Baltimore, he anticipated never playing McNabb again. Had Kolb led a second half comeback victory, that most certainly would have been the case. The Eagles last that game, however, and Kolb’s most infamous highlight was throwing a pass that Ed Reed turned into the longest interception return in NFL history. Still, I think Reid was ready to make a permanent move to Kolb. Unfortunately for the young quarterback, the Eagles had a short week because of a game Thanksgiving night. It would have been an unfair and impossible situation to put a guy in the position of starting his first NFL game without a week of practice preceding it. In that Thanksgiving game, McNabb went out and had one of his three best games since the Super Bowl year of 2004. Then, the Eagles went to the NFC Championship Game. Losing in the previous round may have made Kolb the starting quarterback in 2009.
   
3. Michael Vick is not the type of quarterback you want Andy Reid to trust. People in Philadelphia have often remarked that Reid called a more balanced offense when McNabb was out due to injury. I think this is because Reid did not trust the backup quarterbacks the way he did McNabb. He trusted McNabb. When that trusted quarterback played, Reid called fewer running plays than any other coach in the league. If Vick gains Reid’s trust as the starter, Reid will be inclined to revert back to his throw throw throw days. While you do not want any quarterback to play in that type of system, but I cannot think of a one less suited to play that style than Michael Vick.
   
4. The decision to start Vick effectively breaks the bond that Kolb had established with the Eagles’ young core of offensive players. In this regard, Kolb had succeeded with the Eagles’ recently drafted skill position players in a way that Donovan McNabb had not. Although McNabb put up decent numbers throwing to DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, and Brent Celek and handing the ball off to LeSean McCoy, they were actually Kevin Kolb’s guys. They bonded with him and believed in him. More so than McNabb, Kolb had the confidence of the team’s young nucleus. The move to start Vick, especially since Andy Reid said that Kolb’s injury had nothing to do with the switch, undermines that. Kolb and the rest of the young guys had been looking forward to this as their time. They were coming up together. Now those guys play for Vick. Who is Kolb? What is his role? In his press conference this morning, Reid said that he cannot predict if Kolb will still be on the Eagles’ roster after next month’s trading deadline. That tells the team, especially the skill players with whom he had bonded, that the team does not believe Kolb is ready. What reason do those guys have to believe it now?

Michael Vick gives the Eagles the best chance to win the NFC East this year, but what about 2011 and beyond? The Cowboys were the only team in the division to beat the Eagles last year, but they are now 0-2. Nobody in Philadelphia believes that McNabb’s Redskins are a threat. The Giants looked like a mess Sunday night and their offense looks to be in shambles. The division is there for the taking. Going with Kolb means growing pains. While I believe the Eagles are a 2010 playoff team with Kolb as the full-time starter, not many in the city or organization agree. The general consensus is that they would be a better team in December than in September and October. Vick is more experienced, more seasoned, and has proven that he can win playoff games with under-talented teams. I just don’t believe this is a smart approach to the development of the football team.

Naming Vick the starting quarterback is all about right now. The only outcome that can justify this move is the Eagles winning the Super Bowl this coming February in Arlington. At the very least, they need to play in that game. I don’t think this is a Super Bowl caliber team, though. It would be one thing if Vick became the Eagles’ long-term starting quarterback, but I’d be very surprised if we see him wearing midnight green on Opening Day 2011.

This reminds me very much of the mistake the Packers made by allowing Brett Favre to come back in 2007. Yes, Green Bay reached the NFC Championship Game that season, but they neither won nor reached the Super Bowl. In the end, the only thing that was accomplished that season was delaying Aaron Rodgers’ development by one year. 2007 could have been that year of transition, 2008 could have been about getting a taste of the playoffs, and 2009 could have been a Super Bowl year. If the Eagles really do keep Kolb and intend to start him in the future, this year of starting Michael Vick will only delay Kolb’s development and waste a year of Jackson, Maclin, Celek, and McCoy’s careers.

Trading Kolb would be a bad move, too. It would be akin to starting over one year after…starting over. If Reid and the rest of the Eagles hierarchy did not fully believe in Kevin Kolb, they should have drafted another quarterback high this year’s draft. They could have even acquired Jason Campbell in the Donovan McNabb trade. They could have done something. Vick is not their answer. He’s too old for their eyes. We know this.

For the 2010 Philadelphia Eagles, it is Super Bowl or bust. I think it’s going bust.

If I was an Eagle fan, I’d be very upset today. This is a sign that the Eagles organization, once again, is settling for merely competing.