Is this the end for Michael Vick?

Michael Vick may have played his last game for the Eagles.

If so, it was a fitting and, quite frankly, sad end to his tenure as quarterback.

After yet another Eagles loss, a concussed Vick walked through the locker room with head trainer Rick Burkholder keeping ever so close. Vick appeared woozy, although it would be presumptuous to say he will not play Sunday at Washington.

Last season, Vick suffered a concussion against the Falcons and still played the following week. But when he walked out of the locker room and through the corridor that rings the inside of Lincoln Financial Field, Vick stopped for a moment and Burkholder had to grab his hand and turn him toward an exit.

It was the kind of hand-holding one offers an elderly person. Vick, in black sweats and high-tops, disappeared through the door.

The 3-6 Eagles have seven games of torture left after Sunday's 38-23 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. If Vick is sidelined next week and the Eagles lose, it may be time for Andy Reid to hand the quarterback keys over to Nick Foles for good. Not because Foles gives the coach any better chance to win - that would appear to be pure folly after the rookie failed to impress in his debut - but because the coach would owe it to the franchise.

If Foles impresses and manages to win, then Vick probably won't return for 2013. If Foles struggles, then it's another story. Vick is signed through 2015, but he is guaranteed only $3 million next season. The Eagles could easily discard the quarterback and eat his salary.

But what if Vick still had life here? What if the next coach (Reid is as good as gone) and general manager Howie Roseman (he is as good as back) and Lurie (he isn't going anywhere) came to the conclusion that 2012 wasn't Vick's fault?

What if the new coach - say, Chip Kelly, who runs a speed offense at Oregon - believes that there is still gas left in Vick's tank or that Foles isn't a franchise quarterback?

Those are questions that won't be answered for weeks. But with each loss, Lurie and Roseman must come closer to formulating a plan. And after they decide to fire Reid and pick his replacement, they must decide on a quarterback.

The key date for Vick is Feb. 6, three days after the Super Bowl. If the Eagles cut Vick before that day, they will be off the hook for the guaranteed $3 million of his $16 million salary for 2013.

Vick, like Reid, came into this season knowing he had to perform to survive. It's like that for every NFL player. But the pressure appeared to have been too great for both - Reid with Lurie's "substantially improve upon 8-8" ultimatum and Vick with his paper-thin contract.

It could be asked of Lurie: How wise was it to stick both coach and quarterback under the guillotine heading into such a critical season?

Jim Mora once called Vick a "coach-killer." His son Jim, of course, was the second Atlanta Falcons coach to lose his job with Vick as his quarterback. Reid will endure a similar fate barring a miracle. But it would be terribly unfair to pin the disaster of the last two seasons on Vick.

He hasn't been anything more than an average quarterback since that fateful loss to the Minnesota Vikings in December 2010. After winning eight of his first 10 starts with the Eagles in 2010, Vick has gone 10-14.

Reid fooled himself into believing that Vick 2.0 was better than the first, pre-incarceration model and that the QB would return to his 2010 form even though the 2011 season said otherwise. But Vick did not come back, and the coach did not protect his quarterback with a first-rate offensive line despite the injuries that have plagued the unit.

Somehow Vick survived an eight-game beating. But it was only a matter of time before his style of play and poor blocking caught up.

It was unclear after the game on which play Vick was hurt: There was the scramble in which Cowboys nose tackle Jay Ratliff caught him from behind and slammed his head into the ground, and then a play later a rather innocuous hit from linebacker Ernie Sims in which the back of Vick's head hit the ground.

Both plays were indicative of Vick's tenure here. He typically dove forward on the scramble rather than give himself up with a slide. And he recognized Sims' blitz too late and overthrew a wide-open LeSean McCoy, although he may have been foggy from the previous hit.

Vick will always have that magnificent 10-game stretch in 2010. The rest has been a blur. It may now be over.