Vick.....leading a revolution?
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By David Fleming
ESPN The MagazineIN THE COURTYARD outside Unit 667, Michael Vick's childhood home in the notorious Ridley Circle housing project of Newport News, Va., residents remain tortured by any number of inaccessible escape routes. Buses roar past on Ivy Avenue without stopping. The sky is filled with jets leaving Norfolk Airport. A nearby canal used by fishing boats to reach Chesapeake Bay is protected by barbed wire and no-trespassing signs. Even spiritual escape appears unavailable: Access to the abandoned Zion Church, a block over on Marshall Avenue, has been blocked by a long 2-by-4 nailed haphazardly across the ornate doors of the sanctuary.
Ridley's collection of narrow two-story buildings, each packed with eight units, has been painted light blue over the original brown. There's less grass, replaced by mostly sand and dirt, cigarette butts, bottle caps and broken shards of glass that sparkle in the sunlight. Other than that, the Circle remains nearly identical to the place where an 8-year-old Vick first picked up a football with escape on his mind and, instead, started a revolution.
Behind each Ridley unit are cement patios where, Vick says, the drunks and old-timers would hang out. When he needed cash, Vick would wander into the courtyard, football in hand, and bet the men that he could throw the pigskin over any one of the 120-foot-long buildings they chose. They would laugh, right up until the football left his hand. "I could throw a football the first time I picked one up as a little kid, and I'll be able to throw it when I'm 70," says Vick. "The second anyone doubted me or my arm, it was payday." He's been defying doubters ever since.
Parents and teammates at Ferguson High School nearly revolted when Vick entered the starting lineup as a freshman. The next week he threw for 433 yards and four TDs. As a redshirt freshman at Virginia Tech, he led the nation with a passing efficiency rating of 180.37 (at the time the second-highest ever in the FBS) while taking the undefeated Hokies to the 2000 BCS championship game. Two years later, Vick, the first black quarterback ever taken No. 1 in the draft, became the first visiting quarterback in NFL history to win a playoff game at Lambeau Field. "I brought to the table what everyone is looking for now in a quarterback," he says. "I revolutionized the position."
Whether the NFL is ready for that revolution remains to be seen. In 2010, after an 18-month prison term for federal dogfighting crimes and a three-year layoff from the most difficult position in sports, Vick returned with a vengeance, posting one of the best all-around seasons in NFL history. Last year, he became just the second quarterback to throw for 3,000 yards, run for 500 and maintain a 100-plus passer rating. Hall of Famer Steve Young did it in 1992, but he played in all 16 games. Vick needed only 12. -
In that time span, he has not only turned the Eagles into a Super Bowl favorite but might also have accomplished something even more significant: devising a game plan to save the No Fun League from itself. Suddenly, it's hard to imagine the NFL moving forward without Vick. His reincarnation as a disciplined, accurate pocket passer and field general, combined with his gift for improvisational magic, is the vital evolutionary leap in quarterbacking needed to bridge a growing chasm in the game. The NFL rescued Vick. Now he's poised to return the favor.
"If Vick helps inspire this change, people will have to start looking at his influence on the larger game in a completely different light," says noted QB guru Steve Clarkson. "He really could end up like Michael Jordan -- as the first of something brand-new."
WE'VE HEARD ALL this before, though. During Vick's time in Atlanta, he was the most dynamic talent in the NFL and for a time the league's highest-paid player. In his first four seasons as a full-time starter, he was named to three Pro Bowls, and by 2004 Vick had the Falcons in the NFC championship game -- all while operating in schemes that often hindered his rare gifts instead of accentuating them. Until 2004, Vick ran Dan Reeves' run-oriented offense, an antiquated system incorporating elements dating back to the 1970s. He was then asked by Jim Mora to do a 180 and switch to the West Coast. "It was wearing me down," says Vick. "I had lost confidence and was losing my love of the game. Football wasn't fun anymore. If I had stayed in Atlanta, I'd be a year or two away from retiring."
It wasn't just the schemes that were stopping Vick from becoming a true pioneering force. His lightning-quick release, arm strength and unmatched explosiveness in the open field had always kept him one step ahead of defenses. If he lacked the focus and commitment to perfect his fundamentals and develop the mental side of his game, it was largely because, well, he didn't have to. "He was so talented and the game came so easy for him that he didn't understand the need to spend the time on his preparation," says Frank Beamer, his coach at Virginia Tech.
Prison took care of that. When he entered Leavenworth in 2008, Vick was perhaps too far ahead of the game. While he was inside, the game caught up. To counter ferocious pressure from zone blitzing and the cover 2, quarterbacks who could escape and keep plays alive with their feet became a necessity. The spread offense and the Wildcat, featuring the modern, hybrid athletic style that Vick embodied, became all the rage. In the past six seasons, Ben Roethlisberger has taken the Steelers to three Super Bowls using Vick's template. In April, when the Panthers drafted Cam Newton No. 1 overall, coach Ron Rivera said what impressed him the most about the Auburn quarterback was his ability to hurt opponents with his arm and his legs.
"There has been a change in the entire philosophy of football," says Steelers defensive coordinator ? LeBeau. "You can hardly watch a high school game today without seeing empty backfields, spread-out receivers and teams throwing 70 percent of the time. The quarterbacks are more gifted and the game is wide open."
Inside Leavenworth, Vick watched as a style of play he popularized blossomed in his absence. With little more than his thoughts to fill 548 days behind bars, Vick told Tommy Reamon, his high school coach and mentor, that he replayed, on an endless 24-hour loop, every play, every misstep and every wasted opportunity of his pro career. "You get some money and some leeway, and it's just human nature that you keep taking it a step further and a step further," says Vick about his unraveling in Atlanta. "The next thing you know, you're so deeply involved that there's no way out. I learned a lot about myself in prison, and I held my head high and said, 'I'm gonna work to get back everything I lost.'"
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TWENTY-SIX TEAMS stated publicly that they wanted nothing to do with Vick upon his 2009 release from prison. Two weeks after his reinstatement by commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick was growing frustrated and almost jumped at a low-ball offer from the Bengals. Instead, he showed patience and bided his time. Shortly after, the Eagles came calling -- even though they were one of the teams that had stated they had no interest in signing him. The choice was easy. He arrived in Philly 20 pounds overweight, without his explosive burst of speed and masking a crisis of confidence that lingered from his final season in Atlanta. What might have been a nightmare scenario for any other athlete ended up being exactly what Vick needed. Without those physical tools to fall back on, he was forced to develop as a quarterback.
Vick paid his football penance in 30-minute increments, before and after every practice, in the hellish Pennsylvania summer heat. Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg set out to rebuild Vick's mental approach, throwing fundamentals and endurance. Together they would create Vick 2.0, smarter and more efficient than the error-prone original.
The drills were monotonous. Mornhinweg would take a small net on a pole and go to various spots on the field. Vick would have to swish several in a row at each location. Then the quarterback would navigate a series of cones or dummies, gather himself back inside the pocket, execute a clean, balanced drop, locate the net and fill it again. He'd get just enough of a break to dry the sweat off his face and hands before moving on to another football version of Wipeout.
Week after week, in their own private two-a-days, Mornhinweg and Vick rewired the quarterback's muscle memory, forcing him to learn to move first and then throw -- not the other way around. Seeing both a changed man and an ocean of untapped potential, Mornhinweg walked up to Vick before practice late in 2009 and started asking about Vick's Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Whom would he invite? What would he say? How much fun would it be? "I'm an overweight third-string quarterback, and he's talking about the Hall of Fame?" says Vick. "Marty won't ever know how that one thing gave me so much of my confidence back."
For the first time in his life, Vick was developing more faith in his preparation and fundamentals than in his athletic gifts. At the end of the 2009 season, he went back to Virginia with boxes of game film to study, another first. For his personal trainer, instead of picking a semi-celebrity with a roster full of pampered all-stars, he chose a hard-ass named Tom Anderson, who coaches with Reamon at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, Va. Matching the no-nonsense tandem of Eagles coaches Andy Reid and Mornhinweg, Vick surrounded himself with people unafraid to tell him no. He would run through a series of grueling plyometric movements designed to increase explosiveness, and every time he'd glance up with a look of exhaustion and self-pity, Anderson would shake his head and tell him to do it again -- faster. "There was nothing magical about it," says Reamon. "We all grow differently, and this boy had to be humbled and humiliated and spend two years alone in a jail cell to get to know himself and mature as a man and a quarterback."
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6887763/nfl-michael-vick-style-play-fueling-quarterback-revolution-espn-magazine
Read the rest of the article....good read tho.....i agree....just like in that TP thread....WE NEED VICK TO WIN THAT RANG..... -
He's leading a revolution amongst the media and the fans that will believe any athlete coming out of jail and back into their sport will have learned something and will achieve great success simply cause "well, you see what happened to Vick? ? dude, that's all the proof you need"
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And let's be real, the whole rebounding from prison to becoming a superstar once again has just as much to do
With where he was drafted. He was molded by some of the greatest offensive coaches in the last decade or so. On top of that he was
Put into the absolute perfect style of offense. Yes, he had to mature and put in work and actually take advantages of his situation and perform on the field. But it ain't all about that. We all know this story would read much differently had he taken the lowball offer from Cincinnati -
He's leading a revolution amongst the media and the fans that will believe any athlete coming out of jail and back into their sport will have learned something and will achieve great success simply cause "well, you see what happened to Vick? ? dude, that's all the proof you need"
Cmon breh....dont think that is the case...casue people actually WANTED Vick to fail and WANTED him to be ignorant and not learn from that time he was locked down breh.....? people still rooting against him now.....I genuinely believe dude turned his life around and got unstuck from stupid. -
And let's be real, the whole rebounding from prison to becoming a superstar once again has just as much to do
With where he was drafted. He was molded by some of the greatest offensive coaches in the last decade or so. On top of that he was
Put into the absolute perfect style of offense. Yes, he had to mature and put in work and actually take advantages of his situation and perform on the field. But it ain't all about that. We all know this story would read much differently had he taken the lowball offer from Cincinnati
? thats the case for a lot QBs in the league bro.....its very few out there that can be great and elite in any persons system.
Yeah he may have been provided some good offensive minds before he got to Philly...but the man said himself that he never studied or paid much mind to the coaches....breh was just going out there and doing him...... -
coolestkidukno wrote: »Cmon breh....dont think that is the case...casue people actually WANTED Vick to fail and WANTED him to be ignorant and not learn from that time he was locked down breh.....? people still rooting against him now.....I genuinely believe dude turned his life around and got unstuck from stupid.
i would tend to agree with that.
but as far as the hating, people root for athletes to fail all the time -
coolestkidukno wrote: »? thats the case for a lot QBs in the league bro.....its very few out there that can be great and elite in any persons system.
Yeah he may have been provided some good offensive minds before he got to Philly...but the man said himself that he never studied or paid much mind to the coaches....breh was just going out there and doing him......
right. and its fortunate for him he was put into a situations where coaches wouldn't tolerate it. add that it with the just "one shot" mentality that Vick had and it was just the perfect situation.
thats why i hate panther fans saying, "man, if we had only signed vick...." really? we are a run based team with no receiving tight ends, one decent receiver, and our OC was fired by the Browns, where he was the TE coach. he wouldn't have stood a chance in carolina -
wait...what is the revolution he is leading?
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wait...what is the revolution he is leading?
LMAO....i swear yall are some non reading mofos.....basically the article was saying how he is leading the revolution of the NFL FINALLY embracing the "Athletic QB" aka the Black QB -
coolestkidukno wrote: »LMAO....i swear yall are some non reading mofos.....basically the article was saying how he is leading the revolution of the NFL FINALLY embracing the "Athletic QB" aka the Black QB
Brett Favre and Steve Young were both athletic at points in their careers. same with mcnair and randall cunningham. Warren Moon could also be mobile. point being, the NFL has embraced these athletic qb's. both black and white. -
Brett Favre and Steve Young were both athletic at points in their careers. same with mcnair and randall cunningham. Warren Moon could also be mobile. point being, the NFL has embraced these athletic qb's. both black and white.
more on the topic of not trying to make them conform....to what a "prototypical QB" is to the NFL....although he sprinkled some white QB names in the article Im pretty sure it was more geared toward the acceptance of the Athletic black QB....you know give the Joe Webbs of the world a chance to shine.... -
Brett Favre and Steve Young were both athletic at points in their careers. same with mcnair and randall cunningham. Warren Moon could also be mobile. point being, the NFL has embraced these athletic qb's. both black and white.
You cant honestly think they are anywhere near the same athletic ability of Vick..
The only one remotely close is Cunningham.. -
Brett Favre and Steve Young were both athletic at points in their careers. same with mcnair and randall cunningham. Warren Moon could also be mobile. point being, the NFL has embraced these athletic qb's. both black and white.
That's why 2012 stay cussing your ass out, They called White Quaterbacks that can move "MOBILE" and the Black Counterparts "Running Quaterback" The NFL always had running QB way back when Ken "The Snake" Stabler (Let's GO OAKLAND!!) Fran Tarkenton, Jim Zorn, Ken Anderson, Joe Montana and they never said ? because they was white. But when Randall was running for 100 yards on one play then turned around and throw a 100 yard pass it was a problem, but in the early 00's when the NFL damn near had all white running backs with Jake Plummer, Steve Young, Bret Farve (early years) John Elway, Rich Gannon, Mark Burnell, Doug Flutie they was getting praise for extending the play. But when Vick, Mc;Nabb, Kodell Stewart, Steve Mc'Nair and them it was some ol good ol boy racist ? they have to endure -
im happy for vick. i hate the eagles but im happy for vick.
GQ also has an excellent article on him this month. -
coolestkidukno wrote: »more on the topic of not trying to make them conform....to what a "prototypical QB" is to the NFL....although he sprinkled some white QB names in the article Im pretty sure it was more geared toward the acceptance of the Athletic black QB....you know give the Joe Webbs of the world a chance to shine....
I will say that the roles of almost every position go through a revolution. It just happens as the game changes.
On another note, nearly every top tier qb is a pure pocket passer. And that's because it's a pass centered league now. And I don't think anything Vick has done will drastically overhaul the position or cause black qbs to be more accepted -
thatni99ajahmal wrote: »You cant honestly think they are anywhere near the same athletic ability of Vick..
The only one remotely close is Cunningham..
I'm comparing them being a dual threat and having an ability to get yds on the ground. But let's be real, we've never seem a qb like Vick so there is no
Accurate comparison -
waterproof wrote: »That's why 2012 stay cussing your ass out, They called White Quaterbacks that can move "MOBILE" and the Black Counterparts "Running Quaterback" The NFL always had running QB way back when Ken "The Snake" Stabler (Let's GO OAKLAND!!) Fran Tarkenton, Jim Zorn, Ken Anderson, Joe Montana and they never said ? because they was white. But when Randall was running for 100 yards on one play then turned around and throw a 100 yard pass it was a problem, but in the early 00's when the NFL damn near had all white running backs with Jake Plummer, Steve Young, Bret Farve (early years) John Elway, Rich Gannon, Mark Burnell, Doug Flutie they was getting praise for extending the play. But when Vick, Mc;Nabb, Kodell Stewart, Steve Mc'Nair and them it was some ol good ol boy racist ? they have to endure
Props for this.
And off topic. Vick got some underrated kicks theat came out when he was with atlanta. Those nike vick zooms from 1 to 3 where hot. Im so mad at myself for not getting those in high school smh -
waterproof wrote: »That's why 2012 stay cussing your ass out, They called White Quaterbacks that can move "MOBILE" and the Black Counterparts "Running Quaterback" The NFL always had running QB way back when Ken "The Snake" Stabler (Let's GO OAKLAND!!) Fran Tarkenton, Jim Zorn, Ken Anderson, Joe Montana and they never said ? because they was white. But when Randall was running for 100 yards on one play then turned around and throw a 100 yard pass it was a problem, but in the early 00's when the NFL damn near had all white running backs with Jake Plummer, Steve Young, Bret Farve (early years) John Elway, Rich Gannon, Mark Burnell, Doug Flutie they was getting praise for extending the play. But when Vick, Mc;Nabb, Kodell Stewart, Steve Mc'Nair and them it was some ol good ol boy racist ? they have to endure
I prefer the term dual threat as opposed tonmobile and running -
waterproof wrote: »That's why 2012 stay cussing your ass out, They called White Quaterbacks that can move "MOBILE" and the Black Counterparts "Running Quaterback" The NFL always had running QB way back when Ken "The Snake" Stabler (Let's GO OAKLAND!!) Fran Tarkenton, Jim Zorn, Ken Anderson, Joe Montana and they never said ? because they was white. But when Randall was running for 100 yards on one play then turned around and throw a 100 yard pass it was a problem, but in the early 00's when the NFL damn near had all white running backs with Jake Plummer, Steve Young, Bret Farve (early years) John Elway, Rich Gannon, Mark Burnell, Doug Flutie they was getting praise for extending the play. But when Vick, Mc;Nabb, Kodell Stewart, Steve Mc'Nair and them it was some ol good ol boy racist ? they have to endure
I prefer the term dual threat as opposed tonmobile and running -
I'm comparing them being a dual threat and having an ability to get yds on the ground. But let's be real, we've never seem a qb like Vick so there is no
Accurate comparison
That's really what the gist of the article was about
How with his skills and hinging soon his success.....he can shift the way QBs get evaluated.....like how prime did with the CB position. Although it will be a more daunting task. -
I just don't believer that the way Vick has played will someone drastically change
how qbs are evaluated. Being a dual threat qb has forever, and still is, one of many ways teams evaluate the player. And I don't think teams would be more inclined to take a dual threat qb simply because of Vick, cause Vick has a skill set so few have. Teams are gonna take the best qbs who can lead an offense and move the ball, even if that person is a Schaub, rivers, Brady etc... Type
I also disagree with the insinution that somehow Vick managed to somewhat save the NFL
From itself. As If it were in any danger. Yeah he was a great story, but the NFL is full of good storylines -
I just don't believer that the way Vick has played will someone drastically change
how qbs are evaluated. Being a dual threat qb has forever, and still is, one of many ways teams evaluate the player. And I don't think teams would be more inclined to take a dual threat qb simply because of Vick, cause Vick has a skill set so few have. Teams are gonna take the best qbs who can lead an offense and move the ball, even if that person is a Schaub, rivers, Brady etc... Type
I also disagree with the insinution that somehow Vick managed to somewhat save the NFL
From itself. As If it were in any danger. Yeah he was a great story, but the NFL is full of good storylines
I feel you as far as the story lines go.....being the fact at how high profile and highly publicized his situation was ......it was kinda a big deal on many levels besides sports
I can see what ya saying bout the evaluation ? too.... -
I just don't believer that the way Vick has played will someone drastically change
how qbs are evaluated. Being a dual threat qb has forever, and still is, one of many ways teams evaluate the player. And I don't think teams would be more inclined to take a dual threat qb simply because of Vick, cause Vick has a skill set so few have. Teams are gonna take the best qbs who can lead an offense and move the ball, even if that person is a Schaub, rivers, Brady etc... Type
I also disagree with the insinution that somehow Vick managed to somewhat save the NFL
From itself. As If it were in any danger. Yeah he was a great story, but the NFL is full of good storylines
I feel you as far as the story lines go.....being the fact at how high profile and highly publicized his situation was ......it was kinda a big deal on many levels besides sports
I can see what ya saying bout the evaluation ? too....
