Vicktory!

The play of Michael Vick is the story of the young 2010-11 NFL Season. Having won the starting quarterback job from the young and promising Kevin Kolb, he has performed spectacularly, leading the Eagles to two wins and an almost remarkable comeback victory in game one.

Andy Reid's much criticized decision to start him in game three is looking more and more like a no-brainer. How do you sit down the hottest and one of the most effective QBs in the league?

Given the team's flaws, it's weak offensive line, it's suspect defense (although it played well yesterday) the need to be able to put points on the board is essential. Grind it out, defensive football is the game plan of the past. Wide-open, run and gun is the game plan of this Eagles team. That Vick is showing the maturity to wait just a bit longer for his receivers to get open underneath, is opening the field for him to run, if they don't.

He is an offensive weapon extraordinare. Whether better NFL teams will come up with defenses that better contain and confuse him, remains to be seen. As our Bob Grotz says, Vick is bound to stumble sometime this season. What he has proven already though is that with the receivers he has, and those legs of his, he can strike at anytime.

Now, for those who will never forgive him his past crimes against man's best friends, I sense a softening.

With yesterday's game safely in hand in the middle of the fourth quarter, Mrs. Spencerblog and I took our two mutts for a walk.
For the first time, she admitted Vick's talents and the Eagles' need of them. Still, that didn't keep her from mentioning the fact that, among his other numerous crimes, he'd taken his own family's dog and threw it to a trained killer just to see how long she'd last.

We - the dogs and I - ignored her. It's too awful and gruesome to think about. We choose to believe he is a changed man.

And yet, his new success could re-inflate that old sense of entitlement that comes (for some) with being praised beyond all common sense and proportion.

Did those many months in prison, chasten him or is this all an act? Eventually, we'll find out.

In the meantime, the NFL's first big game of the season is coming up this weekend; Philadelphia vs. Washington. Vick vs. McNabb. The Thrilla in South Philla. Should be fun.