Mac, Vick Updates
Posted: January 31st, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 85 Comments »Here is your rumor of the day.
Source: "#Eagles are going sign Maclin to a two year deal."
— John Barchard (@JohnBarchard) January 31, 2014
I don’t mean that in a nasty way. John is a pretty stand-up guy from what I know, but I still think we have to classify this as a rumor for now. Even John is making sure people take this the right way.
All unconfirmed. Not trying to be @AdamSchefter or blow up a TL, just keeping my ear to the ground. #Eagles
— John Barchard (@JohnBarchard) January 31, 2014
I hope John is dead on the money and Mac is back. Would 2 years make sense? It might. Mac would have some security if something goes wrong with his ACL this year by having the extra year in the deal, which I’m sure would be built into the contract accordingly. Technically you could sign him to an 80-year deal with little to no bonus and then cut him after a season with no repercussions. Obviously Mac and his agent would only sign a 2-year deal if there was some benefit to their side.
If John’s report is right, he’ll get a ton of credit. If the report is wrong, I say we banish him from the village.
I’m not going to write a ton about Mac coming back until we do in fact get some more clarification or details. Would be great news if this is accurate.
BGN writer Mike Kaye asked Les Bowen and here is his update.
@mike_e_kaye Checked in w/some people, waiting to hear. Most likely scenario all along has been 1 yr deal w/the team that handled his rehab
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) January 31, 2014
Sorry to disappoint fans who were getting all excited, but I'm told by source w/knowledge of situation, nothing imminent w/Jeremy Maclin
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) February 1, 2014
To be fair to John, he didn’t mention a time frame with Mac’s re-signing. We’ll just have to wait and see.
* * * * *
Mike Vick has been making the interview rounds and has made it clear that he wants to start in 2014. I have no problem with this. Vick is still talented. He’s healthy. It only makes sense that he wants to start.
As Vick made the rounds on radio row yesterday, making sure listeners in many markets knew his thinking, at one point he told ESPN radio, in response to a question about whether he would rather go to a possible Super Bowl team as a backup or start for a struggling team, “If it came down to that, I would have to lean in the direction of playing. That’s just being candid and being honest. I want to play. I feel like I’ve still got a lot of football to give.”
During a break between radio interviews, Vick told a pair of Philadelphia reporters he wants, “to be an asset to somebody’s team . . . I want to see what’s out there for me. I think it’s only right. This is the first time, probably the only time I have to do it in my career. I just want to take advantage of it. I’m excited about it. It’s new, and it’s kind of refreshing.”
That all sounds pretty good.
Then Vick went on 97.5 with Mike Misanelli and said some odd things.
“I just don’t think I would lose a quarterback competition,” Vick proclaimed. “I’m not saying that out of arrogance but out of confidence. The one thing I won’t do is go to any other place and battle for a position. Why would i do that?
“Battling for a position takes away from the game. It takes away from you preparing yourself and it takes away from you being able to give your team your all at an early stage. Battling with Nick was great, it was friendly competition but I couldn’t focus on the season and what was to come, but it was about being the best that I can be every day. I’ve been through that experience. I just want to go somewhere and get acclimated and start winning football games.”
Mike, I’ve got some bad news for you buddy. You are not going to be handed a starting QB job by any team. Will. Not. Happen.
That’s not an anti-Vick statement. This is just reality. Injuries have hurt Vick’s performance in each of the past 3 seasons. He missed time in 2010 as well, but played at a very high level all year long.
No team is going to look at Vick and see him as “The Answer”. No team will hand him a job. Remember that Andy Reid tried to trade for Alex Smith prior to 2012. Reid wanted some serious competition for Vick…or to replace him. This year Vick had to battle Nick Foles for the job. Vick was unquestionably the starter in 2011, coming off the brilliant 2010 season. Vick was up and down in 2011.
I don’t doubt that someone will give Vick a chance to compete for a starting gig, but no team will give him the job. Vick hasn’t proven he can be counted on to start a full season. He’s also an older player.
I hope Vick changes his attitude and embraces the challenge of a QB competition. It brought out the best in him in the summer of 2013. Vick didn’t like it because he’s just not used to competing for a starting spot, but I think it good for him. Donovan McNabb was handed the starting role in Washington and then Minnesota. He’s now out of the league. Veteran players have to get out of their comfort zone if they’re going to succeed with a new team. One way to do this is to make them fight for their job.
My preference is for Vick to go to Oakland. I think it would be fun to see him in the silver and black, running around and making plays. I don’t think Vick is going to have many suitors. He’s just not for everyone’s tastes. And I do know that no head coach is going to want to hear that Vick is against competing for his job. That statement is something I fear that Vick may come to regret.
Nothing says “Sign me!!!” like a 34-year old QB telling teams he wants to be given the starting job.
_
Vick is.. vick is dumb. He knows what should be said and he will say it, but then he turns around and shows his tru colors. like for real vick u dont think battling for your job will make you better? thats what the whole sports world is based on.. .. COMPETITION!!!!!!
I’d welcome Vick back……as a punt returner
…
But if your main strengths aren’t FBI,diagnosing defenses and accuracy, I don’t want you playing QB for the eagles
I was really disappointed by Vick’s comments. It sure sounds like he’s subtlely throwing Chip under the bus for his inability to outperform Foles during the regular season. I have a HUGE problem when a player does that to a coach, especially when all the coach did was ask Vick to earn his job by being the best quarterback. “Oh, if only I didn’t have to compete in the offseason, I would’ve been so much more focused and prepared, and done fine in games. That young punk Nick Foles had an unfair advantage.” Vick is no different than the likes of Nnamdi, DRC, Babin, Vince Young, and all the other Dream Team whiners who never took responsibility for their shortcomings. I want players who hunger for more competition and challenges. Not entitled whiners who refuse to make themselves better. I’m not interested any more in bringing him back to Philly as a backup. Let some scrub team like the Raiders have him.
6 weeks and he will be some other fanbases problem….at best he will play 5 games while a team gets a rookie QB ready to take over for him at the bye week
I’m not sure if Vick was trying to blame Kelly so much as maybe try to sell an excuse to other teams on why things didn’t work. He does need to be able to tell teams something.
Vick will definitely backpedal from this “competition” statement. Why would he even say that? He’s been such a good teammate this year, and now he’s giving GMs a reason to pause before bringing him in.
Yeah, bad move on his part. I understand that he doesn’t want to compete, but you just can’t say that.
I find myself thinking that about athletes pretty often:
“I understand you thinking that… just don’t freaking say it to a microphone.”
“QB competitions” are a waste of time. Either you feel comfortable with the guy on your team or you are not. And let’s not make any mistake by feeling that this is just how Vick feels. There were a number of Eagles that had not been enthusiastic with the concept of “competition” during training camp and preseason. Alex Smith never had to do any competition, and neither did Carson Palmer. It’s typical, in fact, for the new free agent QB signee to not have to do any QB competition unless they are as marginal as Matt Flynn. Vick isn’t a marginal QB. If you don’t think you can deal with the infamy or the injury risk, then don’t sign him. It’s entirely fair for him to not want to deal with the bullshit.
At this point, teams will consider Vick pretty close to a marginal QB. He isn’t a marginal name or talent, but he is, practically speaking, a marginal player as things stand.
No, he’s not. I understand that people willfully believe so, but no.
So, for the people who happen to disagree with you, it’s just a belief, but your opinion is fact? What about his play over the past 3 seasons totally disproves the idea that he’s anything more? Even if he had played very well, his inability to stay healthy is a huge mark against him and makes any other part of the discussion almost academic.
Vick can still play. He could still be an average starter if the offense is tailored to his strengths. That’s not necessary a bad thing since rookies force that too. It just depends on which teams feel comfortable with the QBs coming into the league this year.
A 34 year old QB whose ceiling is “average starter” is pretty much a marginal player in today’s NFL. Teams want a QB who is consistently above average, or they want a QB who is young and cheap. Vick is neither.
Vick got like 7m a year that’s pretty good value. Plus I think he was decent enough before leaving. Only losses were to playoff teams and those were def team losses.
Well, the attitude is demonstrably insane…
1) What GM in his right mind would chose Matt Flynn, Kevin Kolb, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Chad Henne, or any of those other guys who have been involved in QB competitions over Vick? No GM interested specifically in actually winning games would chose Alex Smith, Jason Campbell, and that sort, either.
2) Vick’s injuries, to date, aren’t of the serious kinds that would lead you to think it’s anything more than the norm, particularly at his age. There isn’t *that* much reason to believe he can’t last a full season. He isn’t an injury risk in the same way that Jake Locker is, or probably the way Tony Romo or Peyton Manning will be next year. And injury risk to QBs are really a rather random thing. You wouldn’t rely on Vick to stay healthy, but there isn’t a specific reason he couldn’t. That also doesn’t mean that a QB competition would make clear that injury luck has changed either.
It’s never really been academic with Vick.
Why would a GM interested in winning invest in, and give the starting job to, a player `you can`t rely on to stay healthy`?!
Where`s the logic? Would you invest in a stock that has underperformed the previous two years?
Well… Nick Foles has missed games in both years he’s been in the league for injury reasons. Would you say that that has intimidated Howie Roseman from assuming that Foles will be the starter next year?
To quote Kelley “I don’t have expectations of this-has-to-be-this. Our evaluations are based upon demonstrated abilities, and he demonstrated in the time that he was in there that he deserved to be the starting quarterback.”
Foles demonstated his capability to lead this team as evidenced by his 7-1 reg season record, and leaving the Eagles in the lead on his last play on the field in the playoffs.
Kelley has his No.1 in Foles,and no.2 with Barkley(which they`ll both need to coninue to prove-and improve on- during the off-season …Vick`s comments display his lack of tact. Coaches want intelligent QB`s, ones that think before speaking in public. Now if Vick planned on telling everyone that he deserves a starting job with no competition, this futher exemplifies a dilusional ego and confused thought process,which should hasten his exit from employment in the NFL as a starting QB.
Not sure the response is relevant to the reply, which was about injuries, and I was pushing just a tad back on double standards.
One was the last game of a 4-12 season in which the team said he could’ve played. The other was a concussion, an injury that says nothing about one’s durability, unlike the rib and leg injuries Vick experiences every year.
The GM of the Chiefs chose Alex Smith and got 11 wins out of it. I don’t think he’s a great QB, but his record over the last 3 seasons is 31-10. If SF and KC were uninterested in winning games, they must view all these wins as pleasant surprises. As for the injury point, no, none of his individual injuries are all that serious on their own, but an entire career’s worth of injury history suggests that the chances of him staying healthy are very small. These injuries have been the norm for him his entire career. At some point, we have to consider that his injuries are so consistent they’re more than just the result of bad luck. I don’t know what that last clever line is supposed to mean exactly, but if he can’t stay on the field, or even if the injuries just hurt his level of play as they did this year, everything else is moot/academic.
Also, you say the attitude is “demonstrably” insane. What can you present to demonstrate that it is?
Plenty of regular season victories for Andy Dalton, too, with plenty of yards and TDs. Doesn’t mean that you have a chance at post-season glory with Dalton without historic defenses either.
Alex Smith has a pretty stark record of being a bad QB before Harbaugh, and while he’s less…conservative than than he usually is in the playoffs, he’s still a dude far more likely to be a loser in the playoffs than otherwise. If he was any good, then there would have been no way he loses the game against Indy.
Ah, to put this just a bit more stark. Alex Smith has a job because the Hunts don’t actually care about winning all that much, any more than Mike Brown does or Bill Bidwell does. Alex Smith is just a pretty face to reassure people that “they’ve got a QB”. Anyone who knows what they are looking at, knows that Alex Smith doesn’t have much of a will to win, nor does he quite have the tools, like a good ability to see the field and pull the trigger when there is a play to be made. If he was put on a bad team, like the Jaguars, he would not represent much of an upgrade from Henne.
How do you know anything about his will to win? Come on. This is weak even for you. You’re resorting to the “will to win” now.
I know its tempting because he makes it so easy but dont waste your time. He’s a lost cause.
Did Jed York care about winning in 2011 and 2012? If not, he probably should’ve spent less time and money on the team and not bothered to hire a great new coach. That’s a lot of effort for someone who cares so little.
Are you kidding? Alex Smith vs. IND:
30/46, 378. 4td, 0int 119.7 rating, 44 points
If the Chiefs defense were any good, then there would have been no way he loses the game against Indy.
He also would’ve gone to the Super Bowl had Kyle Williams been able to handle a punt.
I thought the Chief’s defense was one of the best? What was it, 8 Pro bowlers? Now you’re saying they’re bad as a defense of Alex Smith? I am not agreeing or disagreeing, just curious.
It’s super overrated, though it does have a lot of good individual players on it. The point is that putting up 44 points on offense is a tremendous performance, whereas giving up 45 on defense is a horrendous one. The unit Alex Smith led did infinitely better in the playoff game than the other one on the team, despite the fact that he’s obviously one of the worst QBs in the league and can only hope to one day be as good as Joe Webb is.
They basically didn’t score in the second half.
You mean the same Joe Webb that converted to a WR? Do everyone a favor and STFU. Yes, Alex Smith is a better QB than Vick and yes I’d take Dalton too. Joe Flacco: 1 SB Ring. Vick: None. ETC. Vick is an average starter with mediocre QB play at his best day.
It’s called sarcasm. I thought it was obvious here.
Allow me to educate you son. Michael Vicks best day was a Six TD performance against the redskins. He had Four passing TD’s and also two rushing TD’s in that game and racked up a 20-28 for 333 yards. If your going to type that BS your gonna get called out.
If regular season victories are so easy to rack up, why does Vick have so few? If post season success is so key to evaluating the true quality of a QB, why is Vick’s postseason mediocrity ignored?
Trolls: Don’t feed ’em.
Plenty of teams looking for a qb, plenty of teams w under 8 wins this year, like drc leaving it’s not like he couldn’t go somewhere and be successful. He’s got a good attitude.
Remind me again, how has Vick faired in the playoffs? 2 wins? He’s managed to lead 3 teams to the playoffs? Yep… Clearly the model of success.
What other “veteran backup quarterback” do you have in mind? Can’t just say dump somebody without a replacement who is better!
Not arguing the idea of having Vick as a backup. I’m arguing Shah8’s point that Vick, unlike Alex Smith or Dalton, is a very good QB. Shah8 has argued that those QBs can’t win in the playoffs… Well Vick hasn’t been great himself either.
Kap has been just as successful in sf. So what’s Smith’s replacement value?
There isn’t *that* much reason to believe he can’t last a full season.
Other than the reason that he’s only lasted a full season once in his career, and that was almost a decade ago at this point? You’ve heard the phrase “the best indicator of future performance is past performance”, have you not?
At this point, Vick is viewed as an injury prone player because experience has demonstrated him to be an injury prone player. That really IS pretty much academic.
I don’t think he’d last s full season but health isn’t proved in a qb competition.
Nothing screams marginal like 128 gp, 7.1 career YPA, 128:85 td-to-int ratio, 58-48-1 record.
He’s not marginal. The “margins” of the starting quarterback landscape would be, what, the 26th through 32nd best QBs in the league? He’s certainly better than that. But, given durability issues and recent performance, he’s not good enough that you’d sign him and say, “I’m riding with this guy no matter what.” Unless you’re other option is Chad Henne or someone of his ilk. The ideal situation for him — if he wants to start — is a team with a young or unproven QB that the team is not sold on. Oakland, with Pryor, fits the mold. Vick starts out as the presumptive starter, but if Pryor comes to camp and blows the doors off, Vick holds the clipboard. Cleveland and Tampa would present similar opportunities.
Have you seen the qb play in this league?
you’re right, the qb competition was a waste of time, it should have been Foles from day one.
Keep an eye on titans kamerian Wimbley as a possible cap casualty. He would be someone I could really see Howie targeting(mid level signing)..young player, coming off a down year where he was benched and only played 360 snaps, but lot of it has to do with him being better suited to play 3-4OLB..basically he is the titans Brandon Graham…
…
Barwin
Wimbley
Cole
1st or 2nd round OLB draft pick
..
Now we are getting somewhere!
,.,
Cut Cole next year and add another youngbuck. If we sign a young veteran like Wimbley, we could draft van Noy to do the Casey Mathews thing where he plays some OLB and some ILB
Wimbley is far from young.
wtf…didn’t realize he was 30 already…thought he was 28
I don’t think 30 is over the hill for a lb, they aren’t a db. Perfect for a 2 year team friendly deal.
I don’t get why people are mad at Vick. Everyone knows he would have been a rental anyway. You really can’t blame him for trying to get the most he can while he’s still (somewhat) viable. As for his choice of words for competition, well this is THE guy that beat out 2 QBs to start a season and mid-season before. If he feels like that then so be it. Let him go and bring him back if he’s not picked up by anyone. There’s no other backup QBs that’ll bring better play off the bench if Foles goes down.
There’s no reason to be mad at Vick. He wants to start. I totally get that. He’s airing his opinion at the right time. Fine by me.
I see signing Maclin and Cooper and then drafting a WR as upgrading Avant with Maclin, and upgrading D Johnson with the rookie. Avant can stay. We’d have D-Jax, Maclin, Cooper, Avant, Benn (if he’s back), and the rookie. Or just get rid of Benn and get someone else in here.
I’d rather have Benn on the team instead of Damaris. The rookie WR has to play ST as either a returner or etc.
Yeah, I think Demaris is gone. He did squat this year.
Doesn’t have to be a rookie.
Tommy did you see Maclin’s tweet today? About “staying tuned” for something
Maybe he’s a dancing with the stars fan?
Maybe he’ll be the celebrity boxer taking on George Zimmerman
I might by that pay per view if Zimmerman gets his face pounded in.
Maybe he was going to send some additional twitter nonsense to Shady like he did a few years ago during one of their birthdays.
If I were Vick, I’d take a different approach to the two options I’d have: to sign with a crummy team like the Raiders and lose the starting job anyway in a year, or to stay with the Eagles as the backup and get a Super Bowl. What a knuckle head!
Vick is going to have to embrace his new reality. That is: people look at him as a (very) short term solution, there will be a younger option people hope will become a long term solution wherever he goes. And here’s the thing, people will be rooting for the young guy. He needs to embrace that, Mike Vick against the world, show people you’re a real option for 3 years, still a top 10 QB. Get a chip on that shoulder and go seize the day.
How would everyone feel about us trading completely out of the first round? In return we would pick up an extra 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at the top of the order. That would be crazy would it not? We would have plenty of picks to gives us some decent depth which we need so desperately.
Who would give all that up for the 22nd pick? That gm should be fired.
Man, you are a negative Nancy. I don’t know all the intricacies of draft day, I said it would be crazy…… And the answer is Jerry Jones.
“blow up a TL”
Nice to see you getting respect from other journalists.
Took me a minute to get that. Kudos sir.
LOL,
On another topic, did anyone see/read a preview of the movie Draft Day being released in April, 2014. It takes place on one day, draft day, 2014. The original thought was that it would feature the Bills, but since it was cheaper to shoot the movie in Cleveland, it ended up being about the Browns. The lead is Kevin Costner who plays the role of the GM of Cleveland, in other words, Joe Banner, a pretty funny concept.
Unless there are multiple cameos by the cast of Major League, I cannot find anything taking place in Cleveland to be that entertaining.
Maclin’s “stay tuned” tweet was even sent out nationally by Evan Silva (who doesn’t exactly lack for followers) that helped build the drama yesterday. If the deal is longer than one year, I sincerely hope that any guaranteed money is 100% built into the first year. There are several players (Foles. Boykin, Kelce, Cox, Kendricks) who are going to need a good chunk of cap money devoted to their new deals in 2015, so I hope we’re not dumping too much money into Maclin at that point. Ideally Maclin is a low-cost bridge to Allen Robinson (or somebody of that size / skill) taking over at WR2 in 2015 and beyond at a low cost.
We have Ryans, Cole, Peters, Celek, Casey, C. Williams, Fletcher, Avant, Chung, & Herremans who could all be off the books by the time those players contracts come up.
We are in a good position cap-wise. Maclin is a good young player who I personally want kept around. It gives Fokes more weapons while allowing us to use the draft for fixing the defense and replacing aging vets. No need to use the resources to replace productive young players when they can be easily signed.
Vick would have several situations into which he could walk in and start with no competition. They would be:
– a team who has a QB sustain a season ending injury in mini-camp or training camp. This would require Vick to be on the street and wait for bad news.
– a team who invests a mid-first round, late first round, or 2nd round pick on the QB of the future, but needs to have Vick start the season as the bridge QB.
– a team with a bad QB situation, a coach on the hot seat, and no inclination to draft a QB early because they’re in “win now” mode.
– Tampa
I may have just drafted us a 3-peat Super Bowl team from 2015-17!
Round 1 Pick 27 (N.O.): Kony Ealy, DE, Missouri (B+)
Round 2 Pick 22: Kelvin Benjamin, WR, Florida State (A)
Round 2 Pick 23 (CINN): C.J. Fiedorowicz, TE, Iowa (B+)
Round 3 Pick 6 (JAX): Craig Loston, SS, LSU (A-)
Round 3 Pick 22: DaQuan Jones, DT, Penn State (A)
Round 3 Pick 27 (N.O.): Keith McGill, CB, Utah (A-)
Round 4 Pick 22: Jeremiah Attaochu, OLB, Georgia Tech (A)
Round 4 Pick 26 (N.O.): Lamin Barrow, ILB, LSU (A)
Round 5 Pick 22: Stanley Jean-Baptiste, CB, Nebraska (A)
Round 5 Pick 29: Hakeem Smith, SS, Louisville (B-)
Round 7 Pick 22: Jeff Budzien, K, Northwestern (A)
And these guys would be:
Ealy and Attaochu- OLB 4 and 5
Benjamin – swapped in for Johnson
Fiedorowicz – swapped in for Casey
Loston and Smith – swapped in for Chung and Coleman
Barrow – swapped in for Matthews
Jones – swapped in for Geathers
McGill and Jean-Baptist – swapped in for Carmichael and Marsh
Budzien – swapped in for Henery.
Assuming a 53 of (K, P, 10 OL, 3 QB, 4 RB, 3 TE, 5 WR, 5 CB, 4 S, 5 OLB, 4 ILB, 8 DL)
I so wish that simulator was real! I have pulled off some amazing drafts lol
Vick vick vick… I hope Chip clotheslines you. You acted fake the whole time, i could feel it..
Aren’t most athletes who “say the right things” being fake? Isn’t that how we judge the personality of athletes, by measuring their intelligence and self-control based on their ability to spout the kind of BS that leaves sportswriters and commentators without the ammunition necessary to start up some nonsense controversy?
By my estimation, Vick aced the test these last few years.
Hey, if Vick doesn’t want any competition, he should just come out here to Oak-town, cause they certainly don’t have any to give him!
Chip Kelly “win the day”
Mike Vick ” I couldn’t focus on the season and what was to come, but it was about being the best that I can be every day”
So, Vick doesn’t get one of Kelly’s key points. Hilario.