DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
Michael Vick could be a 1-year wonder with the Eagles.
Paul Domowitch: It could be one-and-done for Eagles' Vick
It's still too early to tell where this whole thing with Michael Vick and the spread-option offense (aka Wildcat) is going to go.
One place I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's not going to go, though, is into next season. Well, the offense might stick around, but Vick's not going to be here.
From the beginning, the unwritten understanding between the Eagles and the prodigal quarterback was that this was a 1-year-and-done marriage.
Yes, the team does have an option to keep Vick for a second season at the hefty price of $5.6 million. But unless something drastic happens, like, say, both Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb get abducted by aliens, they have no intention of exercising that option. And that's the way Vick wants it.
Vick is here strictly to refurbish his image and serve as Andy Reid's Wildcat toy for a season. Nothing more, nothing less. If he doesn't do anything stupid off the field, and completes a few passes and runs for a few yards on it, he should be marketable enough after the season to draw a second-round asking price in a league that currently has just 20 quarterbacks with a passer rating above 80.0.
Those of you who think Reid brought Vick to town with the idea of him possibly replacing McNabb as the Eagles' starting quarterback in 2010 need to get a clue. Or go watch some tape of Vick trying to run the West Coast offense when he was with the Falcons.
It wasn't pretty. The guy might own the best set of legs of any passer in history. But he never developed into a very good quarterback. He was Vince Young before Vince Young.
His completion percentage in 2004, '05 and '06 never rose above .564. Threw just 11 more touchdowns (49) than interceptions (38) in those 3 years. A statistic that tells you everything you need to know about Vick: He has averaged more yards per carry in his career (7.3) than yards per pass attempt (6.6).
Falcons coach Jim Mora and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp bent over backward trying to adjust their offense to Vick's particular talents. The most luck they had was when they essentially bagged the West Coast and ran the spread-option.
Because of the concern over a rookie wage scale, a larger-than-usual number of underclassmen are expected to declare for next year's draft. Many NFL personnel people already think it could be the most talent-rich draft ever.
The Eagles already have a nice stockpile of 2010 draft picks. Seven picks in the first five rounds, including two in the third. They likely will wind up with a third third-rounder as the final piece of the Lito Sheppard trade. And they could be awarded a pair of third- or fourth-round compensatory picks for losing free agents Brian Dawkins, Correll Buckhalter and Tra Thomas.
If they were to get a second-round pick for Vick, they could go into next April's draft with as many as seven of the top 100 selections.
Around the league
"He's [still] our kicker," coach Tom Coughlin said. "But we do have an issue we have to get corrected, let's face it. Those [missed] three points are going to be critical going forward."
-- Jim Zorn has been the Redskins' head coach for 20 games and his team has yet to score 30 points in a game. Through four games this season, they are 27th in the league in scoring, averaging just 14 points per game. To give Zorn a little help, the Redskins' thoughtful owner, Danny Snyder, brought in the obligatory "fresh set of eyes," hiring Sherm Lewis, a former offensive coordinator with the Packers, Lions and Vikings, as an offensive consultant.
-- Because he works for a whacko owner with an itchy trigger finger, the popular thinking has been that Zorn probably would be the first head coach canned this year. But the frontrunner at the moment appears to be the Bills' Dick Jauron. If the 1-3 Bills lose this week to the Browns, it would be their second straight loss to a winless team (they were beaten by the 0-3 Dolphins last week, 38-10) and might prompt owner Ralph Wilson to let him go. If Jauron gets the boot, the likely interim replacement is Bills special teams coach Bobby April, who also has the title of assistant head coach.
-- Michael Crabtree finally signed with the 49ers this week for pretty much the same terms he was offered by the team in July. Dumb? Absolutely. Even Eagles wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who drew criticism for his own 8-day training-camp holdout, thinks Crabtree blew it.
"If that was me . . . it's just not worth it [to hold out that long]," Maclin said. "[If] you get slotted you get slotted. You don't ask for money that you didn't get taken at."
Crabtree was the 10th overall pick in the draft and the second wideout taken, three picks after the Raiders selected Darrius Heyward-Bey; Maclin went 19th. Because most NFL teams that know what the hell they're doing had Crabtree rated ahead of Heyward-Bey, Crabtree and his agent, Eugene Parker, felt the slotting process didn't apply to them and asked for the same deal Heyward-Bey got.
