Vick right where Eagles expect him to be in recovery

PHILADELPHIA — Michael Vick took part in a morning walk-through with the Eagles Wednesday morning, clearly a positive step in his recovery from the concussion he suffered Sunday night.

Eagles coach Andy Reid and head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder addressed a Vick-hungry group of media, saying the team planned on getting all three of its quarterbacks — including backups Vince Young and Mike Kafka — ready to face the Giants on Sunday.

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“We’re pretty fortunate to have three quarterbacks who can play the game,” Reid told reporters, according to The Associated Press. “My message to all three of them was: ‘Get ready accordingly.’”

That process is already underway as Vick participated in the walk-through, and according to a source close to the situation split first-team reps with Kafka. Yes, it’s only a walk-through, but as WR Riley Cooper pointed out, it’s the practice session in which the offense installs its base passing game. That makes the person under center quite relevant.

Vick was also on the field for the afternoon practice but did not take reps and wasn’t wearing a helmet as Kafka and Young split reps. Young was absent from the locker room during the open session and didn’t address the media Wednesday. Kafka did, however, but remained mum on just who will eventually be under center.

“Since I got here, you got to prepare the same way, that was my approach from day one, prepare the same way and prepare as if you’re the starter, and take it from there,” Kafka said.

All signs surrounding Vick’s recovery appear encouraging.

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Burkholder provided a detailed description of his progress from Sunday night through Wednesday, saying Vick doesn’t have “a whole lot of concussion symptoms,” except for a sore neck and jaw, and would undergo further baseline testing, including seeing an independent neurologist in the next day or two. He noted Vick’s MRI exam on Monday came back negative.

Vick underwent his first baseline test on Tuesday, with the results of that test being “very, very,  close to what his (normal) baseline is,” according to Buckholder. Although Vick could be improving at a fast rate, the symptoms do have to possibility of showing up at a later stage for any respective player.

“I’ll tell you right now, he’s right in the middle of this process, right where we expected him to me,” Burkholder said. “And everything’s progressing.  We’re not going to push him ahead of where we think the process goes.  We’re not going to judge it right now.  Michael will continue to go through the process with me, and he’s doing fine right now.”

The team also applied two more tests, according to Buckholder, which included cognitive functioning — such as how Vick mentally interacts at meetings and the team walk-through — and the process and progression of exertion, including cardio, lifting, and balance.

While Giants coach Tom Coughlin said his team will game plan for Vick, regardless of his status, Reid made it very clear he’s keeping all of his options open.

– StaceyDales

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Was trading Kolb the right move by the Eagles?

Published: September 19th, 2011 | Tags: Michael Vick, Bump -n- Run, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin, NFL GameDay Final, Philadelphia Eagles

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Michael Vick has played a full 16-game slate once in his eight full NFL seasons. Quarterbacks get injured, and Vick’s style of play and his running ability leaves him susceptible to a greater number of hits than most at his position.

So, in many ways the Eagles took a calculated risk trading capable backup Kevin Kolb during the offseason. With Kolb out of the picture and backup Vince Young on the shelf with a hamstring injury, the Eagles turned to Mike Kafka when Vick left with a concussion against the Falcons.

While hindsight always provides the easy answer, the question remains: Was trading Kolb the right move?

NFL Network analysts Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin took up the topic on “NFL GameDay Final.”

“They’ll regret it, but they couldn’t do anything but trade him because of the financial numbers (he) and Vick wanted,” Irvin said.  “Every team in the NFL would love to have two starting quarterbacks and just name one of them the backup. But the reality is they did the right thing. I love what every one of (the Eagles) were saying, that they wanted to win for Vick. That means he’s the clear leader of the team.”

Faced with losing Kolb to free agency, the Eagles could have gotten nothing in return. It’s remains an unknown what their contingency plan — Young — will provide when he gets healthy. For at least one week, it’s going to be the Kafka show, which is a reality the Eagles should have seen coming.

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Derek Anderson was in the right

Derek Anderson has since apologized for the way he handled his postgame news conference on Monday night, but I still can’t help but think the whole situation was blown out of proportion.

It was disappointing to me to see that when the Cardinals were losing, the TV cameras spotlighted Anderson, and then the snap judgment was that just because he was smiling on the sideline, he must be enjoying the whipping they were taking and didn’t care.

I think it’s ignorant, close-minded and very shallow of people to always try and find the negative in a situation. It’s also presumptuous to know what Anderson and Deuce Lutui were even talking about in the first place.

It’s human nature that people handle things in different manners. I have five children and for two of them, when things get heated or they get nervous, they smile or laugh so they don’t have to deal with the real pressure of the situation. I don’t think Anderson handled himself in the wrong manner by smiling on the sideline.

I got whipped a bunch of times in this league. I smiled and laughed often when I was in the locker room — or maybe I wasn’t hooting and woofing — and it was my right. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t taking the game seriously or that I wasn’t disappointed we lost the game. It’s human nature.

I also don’t mind the way that Anderson walked off the podium following the game. Listening to the exchange, I felt the reporter was baiting Anderson and then basically attacked his character as a player. That’s where it became personal to me. Every player in this league is there because they’re very competitive and they love the game. When you attack that, and everything they’ve done in their life is football, it’s personal.

Anderson did answer the initial question, about why exactly he was smiling, by saying it was none of anyone’s business. But the reporter didn’t like that answer and wanted another one. Anderson did get upset, but that’s human nature too.

I was happy that he walked off, because I know I would have done the same thing. I probably would have been even more upset at the reporter and attacked him back. It was the right move that Anderson left — he surely didn’t have anything nice to say at that point.

I hope people realize that Anderson takes the game seriously, and that he’s not going to let his character come under question if he wants to smile on the sidelines.

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ESPN’s Schlereth right on in his criticism of Dolphins

After Thursday night’s game against the Chicago Bears on national television, ESPN analyst and former Pro-Bowl guard Mark Schlereth had some choice criticism for the Dolphins coaches. Not only are the fans getting more and more impatient with the Dolphins offensive play-calls, but it seems that more and more people are starting to pay attention to Miami’s flaws now.

“I just think it’s inexcusable. That is an awful job by that coaching staff.”

That’s an an awful job by that coaching staff regardless. Their best 11 guys are when they get into their Wildcat formation, no disrespect to Tyler Thigpen. They got into the Wildcat exactly zero times [on Thursday night], they did not run the ball at all [on Thursday night]. … I’ve heard excuses coming out of Miami, I’ve heard people talking about, ‘You know, We have a beat-up offensive line.’ All the more reason that you run the football. Let me tell you something, pass protection in this league is 10 times harder than run blocking: assignment-wise, picking up blitz, all those different things.

“With young guys and guys who don’t have a lot of experience, much harder than it is to run the football. So don’t give me this baloney about Oh, we had guys injured, so we’re gonna drop back and throw it. That’s garbage. Absolute garbage. The coaching staff for the Miami Dolphins ought to be embarrassed. As a former offensive lineman, when I watch that, what they put on the field, it makes me angry, because I know how hard it is to go out there and pass protect when you’ve got guys like the Chicago Bears defense breathing down your neck.

“Your job as a defense is to make that offense one-dimensional. Miami walked out of the locker room one-dimensional, they did that for the Bears. Now, the Bears, on the flip side, made them zero-dimensional, because once [the Dolphins] became one dimensional, they were just rushing the passer. And then I would see things like ‘We’re running play-action.’ Hey, yeah, that will getcha. Right? That will get the Bears. Run some play-action. You ran it four times in the first half. Run a couple play-actions, that’ll fool them.”

Finally someone else has decided to take notice to the awful play-calling that Dan Henning likes to call a gameplan. This kind of stuff has been going on all season, and I believe of which was the chief reason why young quarterback Chad Henne had such an average performance all throughout the season, because of Henning’s gameplan.

Schlereth’s comments focus on the downfall of the Dolphins high-octane rushing attack, which only had seven carries on Thursday night, but it is so much more than that, and more coaches than just Henning are responsible for the mediocre play of the offense. Quarterbacks coach David Lee. Head coach Tony Sparano. Henning. General manager Jeff Ireland. Those are just some of the people that should be splitting the blame for the offenses play this year.

David Lee:

With Lee being the one who oversees all that goes on with the production of the quarterbacks, it is his responsibility alone to develop Chad Henne into the quarterback that we all know he can be. So in turn it is Lee alone who is at fault for Henne’s lack of performance this year. We have all unfortunately witnessed the clutch performances (and sometimes very lucky performances) by New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, and most of that production and development can not only be attributed to their offensive coordinator, but to their quarterbacks coach as well. While Henne can still become a solid, if not elite quarterback for the Dolphins, if he does not, with all of the physical skills that he possesses, it will be partial fault of Lee’s if Henne if Miami has to go in a different direction in the next two seasons.

Dan Henning:

We all know the problems with the Dolphins offense. Whether it is the lack of a  ground game, only a year after finishing fourth in the league in rushing, or the questionable offensive calls on third down, we all know Henning should be gone after this season. The team has also witnessed the steady decline in the Wildcat formation, which features the Dolphins best 11 men on the field all at once. But now because of the lack of an offensive line, the team has all but abandoned that formation. So Henning has chose to put the game in the hands of his quarterback, with letting him pass the ball between 30-40 times per game, while only calling dink and dunk plays most of the time. Sure, there is the occasional deep ball, but the fact of the matter is that the Dolphins offense is built to be the kind that can make big plays, but with all of the poor offensive play-calling, the offense is instead focusing on running slants and screens that get stuffed almost everytime. While Lee could be one of the main reason for the lack of production from Henne, it is Henning that is the main reason for the lack of production from the whole offense.

Tony Sparano:

While I love Sparano’s motivational tactics, and his emotion and love for the game, he just is not a good X’s and O’s type of guy. He has shown that over the years he does not know how to manage the clock, and some of the roster moves do not make sense at all either. This is a guy that is a guru for the offensive line. That was is MO. He came in as an offensive line specialist, and over the three years of his tenure in Miami, the offensive line is no longer a strength of the Dolphins. While Miami is particularly strong in the pass blocking area, the Dolphins offensive line is very poor when it comes to run blocking, and this is the chief reason why the Dolphins only ran the ball 7 times on Thursday. Now that Miami’s line is pretty much devastated with injuries, the blocking has gotten worse and worse, as can be expected. But with a guy like Sparano, you would think that he would know what he is doing when he blows up the whole interior of your line like he did with Miami’s this past off-season. Gone are Justin Smiley, Donald Thomas, and Jake Grove, and in are Richie Incognito, John Jerry, and Joe Berger. This year’s line has nothing on last years offensive line. Plain and simple. The running game has deteriorated because of this factor, and causally the Dolphins offense has declined as well. While it may not be Sparano’s fault completely, he has a say in who comes onto the roster and who stays, and in the offensive line’s terms, the responsibility lies in his hands.

Jeff Ireland:

While Sparano is not completely responsible for who goes on and off the roster, Ireland is. Ireland is the guy who brought in all of the off-season acquisitions, and Ireland is the one responsible for helping destroy the offensive line, and repeatedly destroying the bottom end of the Dolphins roster. The failures of the Dolphins special teams comes from the lack of chemistry of the special teams unit, which was mostly composed of the bottom end of the 53 man roster, can be attributed to this. The continued high round draft failures such as Pat White, Patrick Turner, Chad Henne possibly, the whiffs in free agency of Jake Grove, the failure to lure in players such as Ryan Clark, Calvin Pace and Antrel Rolle really makes me wonder about this regime, and coaching staff. Ireland has a direct role in every roster move that is made, so one has to wonder now that since he is in his third year running the team, why it is still such a disappointment? The team came into the season with such high aspirations, only to crap the bed with mediocre play by multiple units of their roster, all guys that Ireland brought in. So if the team fails to make the playoffs this year and next year, would Ireland ’s tenure be labeled as a failure or not?

The bottomline is that the Dolphins have plenty more problems to worry about right now besides all of the injuries that are taking place. Until the Dolphins get some change in their coaching staff, I won’t expect anything out of this team. After all, how can you expect your team to be one of the best when your coaches aren’t some of the best?

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Simply Miserable; Dolphins do nothing right in 16-0 loss to Da-Bears

Wow. Just wow. The Dolphins did just about everything wrong Thursday night vs the Bears. I guess you could chalk this loss up to three things; too many injuries, too little rest, and just poor play.

The game started off with the Dolphins just not getting the breaks that they needed to get some points on the board, or gain any momentum at all during the first half. Then, slowly but surely the wheels started falling off the bus.

Tyler Thigpen couldn’t get a drive going. Cory Procter got hurt, and Miami was forced to move their starting left guard, Richie Incognito, to center. Pat McQuistan came in in the place of Incognito at left guard.

The defense couldn’t get off the field. Benny Sapp and Al Harris were getting burnt in coverage all night long. Yes, Sapp had an interception, but he also got torched mutliple times.

Just when the situation seemed that it could not get any worse, Brandon Marshall self-distructs. First he drops a pass, then commits a taunting penalty for tossing a ball to Jay Cutler, then drops another ball. Marshall’s night culminates in him leaving the game late in the first half, and not returning due to a hamstring injury.

It was just one of those nights for the Dolphins. The lone bright spot was the performance of Cameron Wake, who finished with a sack, a forced fumble and five tackles. His trip to the Pro-Bowl should be sealed after he dominated the Bears offensive line. Wake single-handidly forced the Bears offensive line into a couple holding penalties, and what should have been many more also.

What seemed to be the theme of the night for me was really the lack of play makers that we had tonight. Our hired guns, Brandon Marshall and Karlos Dansby, had little to not impact tonight. The usual suspects, Davone Bess, Jake Long, Vontae Davis, and Sean Smith all had little to no impact on the game. While Jake Long was injured, he allowed three sacks by Bears defensive end Julius Peppers.

Thigpen was just completely ineffective as well. Whether it was errant passes, miscommunications, or just plain bad decisions, “Thiggy” showed that he clearly is not ready to be this teams quarterback. He has a couple more games to prove himself to this regime, but right now, based on what he has shown me tonight, he is not anywhere close to getting a new contract with this team after this year. If anything his performance is pushing Jeff Ireland to examine the first round quarterbacks a little more closely now.

While on the topic of offense, well, they did very little to help out their defense, who put in a rather proud effort for what their offense gave them. The offense failed to put any points on the board at home for only the second time in 40 seasons. When your running backs only combine for 7 carries for 12 yards, it is hard to place the outcome on the game on your 3rd-string quarterback.

The offense did not look prepared to go out for this game. They looked more worried dealing with their injuries than they did with their gameplan, which sums up the story of our season. The Dolphins time and time again cannot get their running attack going, and have to rely on their quarterback, and in this situation, putting the game in Thigpen’s hands was simply setting themselves up for failure.

I have to admit that I was excited about this game, and the opportunity it presented. Thigpen was getting a shot, and we all were getting a glimpse at what he brought to this team. The Bears have been somewhat inconsistent all season long, and I for one thought the Dolphins would be able to come in and at least contend with the Bears.

This was not the case though. While the defense gave it there all, the offense let their other unit down. The defense was on the field for 37:51, while the Miami offense only held the ball for 22:09. Ball control will now be the main problem for the Dolphins for the rest of the year, and simply, it has been for us all season. Last year we could turn to our running game to eat away at the clock, and this year our rushing attack never got going, and we do not have that go to ground game to keep the opposing team off of the field.

Going into the season I thought the Dolphins only had a few spots that needed filling after this year, but this season has only raised more questions than answering questions.

Miami now has a 10 day layoff before they travel to Oakland to face off against the Raiders. At this point the Dolphins would need to win out, and get some help to make the playoffs. Hey, I’ve seen crazier things happen, but after the 16-0 shutout the Bears handed us tonight, it’s hard to believe in the guys that we have playing right now.

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McNabb responded right way to Shanahan

I trust in Mike Shanahan – his coaching, his system and what he can get out of a quarterback — enough to know that signing Donovan McNabb to an extension was the right move for the Redskins.

I know Shanahan well, and he’s one of the best coaches in the league. He can coach the quarterback position as well as anyone. The realization for Shanahan is that if he feels he has a quarterback he can win with, go ahead and lock him up.

Everyone wants to talk about the circumstances surrounding how McNabb was benched, but the bigger picture was that Shanahan tried to offer some criticism to help his quarterback realize there was a sense of urgency and he needed to improve. Just because the two sides were approaching a new deal didn’t mean McNabb didn’t have to practice hard. Shanahan was going to dish out some criticism and have a measure of correction, just like a coach should.

McNabb isn’t above that.

Coaches are cryptic people by nature. They’re never going to tell us everything that’s going on. That’s one part of this league to which I’m not naive. I talk to coaches every week, and it would be foolish to think everything I’m told is exactly what’s going on. A coach can never step up to the microphone and tell us every single thing we want to know and answer every question truthfully and with full disclosure.

Rex Grossman didn’t give the Redskins their best chance to win. Everyone knows that wasn’t true. But people, let it go. What did they expect Shanahan to say? That McNabb was horrible that day, he hadn’t practiced well all week and that Shanahan saw exactly that on the field? That would have been throwing McNabb under the bus.

I’ve always said it’s the coach’s job to have his finger on the pulse of his football team, and he needs to know how to motivate players individually. You have to find ways to criticize players just enough to spark motivation to go out and fix problems, but not so much to damage their psyche or your relationship. Shanahan knows best what that is, much better than we do.

Players aren’t like regular people and can’t be overly sensitive to criticism. It’s critical that a player can receive coaching. If they get benched, then what? Are they going to play or quit? Coaches have to test players to find out if it’s fight or flight. Shanahan was going to find this out before extending McNabb. I believe McNabb responded the right way, and it’s a big part of why he got the big deal.

The extension might be premature, because I would have liked to see McNabb play better before giving him a contract. But if I’m Shanahan and I just criticized McNabb that way and he responded the way that he did, it’s a sign that I can give him the money because he can be pushed hard but won’t break. Maybe that was a sign for Shanahan that he could push McNabb to a higher level.

What Shanahan can trust is McNabb, who will be 34 soon, has always been a character guy who will work to improve. That’s what you bet on. McNabb won’t run and hide when there’s adversity. Shanahan was testing McNabb and the criticism was fair, how he responded was the most encouraging aspect for the Redskins.

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Was McNabb extension right move by Redskins?

Published: November 15th, 2010 | | Tags: Washington Redskins, Donovan McNabb, Warren Sapp, Brian Billick, Jim Mora, Charles Davis, NFL Total Access, Michael Lombardi

The “NFL Total Access” crew weighed in on the biggest question of the day Monday: Did the Redskins make the right move by signing Donovan McNabb to a five-year extension?

Insider Michael Lombardi believes the Redskins were at least partly motivated by what it would take to replace a proven, veteran quarterback.

“Obviously it’s hard to find great quarterbacks,” Lombardi said. ”And then you have to pay a guy to replace McNabb, which would be much more difficult than to keep him. I think that’s ultimately what happened.”

Check out the video for the full reaction from Lombardi, Charles Davis, Warren Sapp, Brian Billick and Jim Mora.

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