Philadelphia Eagles Player Scouting Reports: QB Michael Vick

During this dead period of the NFL, which is even worse thanks to the lockout, we’ll fill some time by taking a look at the scouting reports for every player currently on the Philadelphia Eagles roster.

Should this run into the free agency period (should such a thing ever start), we’ll adjust accordingly and skip over the impending free agents while taking a look at the newest additions to the nest.

We start with the most logical choice: starting quarterback Michael Vick.

The Good

The scouting report on Vick would have looked a whole lot different five years ago, and this section would be a whole lot shorter.

However, thanks to his new-found work ethic and dealings with head coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, Vick has quickly established himself as a quarterback, and not just a running back with a strong arm.

Speed is the first thing anyone is going to talk about when looking at Vick. Even with his abilities as a quarterback and throwing the football, the biggest concern any defense has when facing Vick is his ability to escape pressure and turn a broken play into something spectacular — just ask the New York Giants.

His ability to step up and find a seam straight ahead, as well as escape through the back door, is enough to have a defensive coordinator tearing his hair out and stomping on his headset.

Speed has always been there for Vick and has always made him dangerous, but what makes him even more dangerous now is the way he keeps his head downfield and is always looking to make a play through the air first. During his days in Atlanta, cornerbacks could completely ditch their coverage responsibilities as soon as Vick tucked the ball.

It was still difficult to make a play on him in the open field, but now they’re forced to stick with their receivers to the bitter end or risk getting burnt for a big play. This will open up running lanes for Vick and after taking off a couple times, that corner is likely to cheat by just a step or two, and Vick is now showing an ability to make them pay for that cushion.

Another plus to Vick’s game is how he’s now able to make plays from the pocket. No longer does he have to run a sprint-out to the hash marks in order to see where his receivers are going. His vision from the pocket has improved immensely and his footwork, while it still needs a bit of tuning, is good enough to allow him to plant his back foot and make a strong, accurate, quick throw.

Vick also displays a discipline in the pocket. Rather than always trying to leave out the back door, he will slide and shuffle-step away from pressure and step up in the pocket all the while keeping his eyes on his receivers and allowing them to get some separation.

And last but certainly not least is an improved toughness — both physically and mentally. The Eagles showed in the 2004 NFC Championship game how easy it was to rattle Vick. If he could be contained on the ground and given a few body shots, he would get skittish, would rush his throws, and would often give up on a play before it even had a chance to develop.

Instead, what we’re now seeing is Vick being able to pick himself up off the ground, shake himself off, and not let it affect him on the next play. That sort of mental toughness is at the base of Vick’s resurgence as a person and as a quarterback as it allows everything else to build and grow into the total package.

The Bad

For all intents and purposes, Vick is heading into his third year as a quarterback in the NFL. His days in Atlanta consisted of virtually zero coaching because he was such a weapon and the face of the league, so his coaches didn’t feel the need to teach him the nuances of playing quarterback and his inflated ego gave him no desire to learn on his own.

With that said, Vick is going to have a lot of the problems that any normal third-year quarterback would have.

There are times when Vick is slow through his progressions, or will skip his progressions entirely. Too often I can look at the game tape and see Vick completely miss the fact that the safety has bitten on a stop pattern by Brent Celek, allowing Jeremy Maclin to break down the field with a step or two on his corner.

Vick misses this because he’s too busy staring down DeSean Jackson, or whomever his first read may be, because he’s hellbent on making that first read work. He must learn to advance through his reads more quickly and understand there is a very good reason why there’s more than one option.

In that same vein, Vick was too quick to check down to LeSean McCoy. If that first read stayed covered, and stayed covered, and stayed covered, Vick would skip reads two and three and simply toss the ball to McCoy and expect him to make a play.

Granted, McCoy often made it work, but it gets aggravating watching Maclin or Celek running free and instead seeing the ball wind up in McCoy’s hands, who is instantly being swarmed by three and four guys.

The batted balls at the line of scrimmage were another big negative for Vick. At around 6-feet tall, Vick must squeeze the ball into tighter passing lanes than a quarterback the size of Peyton Manning or Josh Freeman. Plain and simple, he just didn’t do a good job of that.

The answer might come in tweaking his wind-up slightly, but that is a fairly big risk to take for someone who’s performing and progressing so well in other areas. Vick has a slightly side-armed release, which means the ball is coming out about 6-feet high instead of the extra six inches or so he’d get if he brought his arm straight over his head.

And finally, as evidenced in the loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Vick must absolutely learn how to better read the defense pre-snap. Antoine Winfield did not even try to hide the fact that he was blitzing — as he stood oddly across from no one — and Vick still couldn’t see it coming.

For all the good that we’ve seen from Vick, an ability to read the defense could be crippling and prevent him from ever performing better than we saw in 2010.

Conclusion

For all the bad still left for Vick, the good news is it’s all coachable. The bad news is that, with the lockout, I’m not quite sure what kind of coaching he’s getting at the moment. If all the bad is still left over from 2010, Vick could see a huge regression because teams will know how to take advantage of his obvious deficiencies.

But if Vick can take even half the step forward from 2010 to 2011 that he took from 2009 into 2010, he could potentially be the most dangerous player in the entire NFL.

He’ll have a year under his belt with all his receiving options, he won’t be starting from the basement floor, and all the coaching he’ll be getting will be a tweak here and a tweak there rather than the total re-programming he’s received over the last two offseasons.

Even at 31 years old, the sky is the limit for Vick. Because of the time spent in prison he’s got the wear and tear of a 29-year old and seems to have the enthusiasm of a rookie combined with the presence of a 10-year vet. And let’s not forget, Steve Young didn’t get his first real chance to start until he was 31, and he turned that into a Hall of Fame career.

I’m by no means predicting that for Vick, but by the time all is said and done, if he continues to progress, he could be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at least once in the next few years.