Vick is obviously fast, but McNabb, Culpepper, and
McNair don't look like track athletes, that's for sure.
I'm sure there are plenty of white QBs, like Jake
Plummer, for example, who could outrun them if they
wanted to. And I wonder if Vick's running would be
enough to win if he had a defense like Indianapolis
or Green Bay to work around. He might be 3-9
instead of 9-3. I wonder how much he would
flounder if he were the Colts' QB, with all those wide
receivers and tight ends to throw to- and with that
defense that he would have to overcome....
Interestingly, ESPN has been asking, "Why aren't we
paying more attention to Atlanta?" And "are they the
worst 9-3 team in the league?" At the beginning of
the year, it was nothing but Michael Vick hype. He's
the best player in the NFL, he's the most exciting
player in the NFL, he's the most important player to
his team, etc. Unless ESPN isn't representative of
the sports media at large, they seemed to have
cooled off on Vick for now. My guess is that they
desperately want to worship him but are
disappointed with his performance this year. With all
the talk in the offseason about Mora bringing in the
"West Coast offense," the media was salivating over
the possibility of him becoming the black version of
Steve Young. It was an unrealistic expectation that
certainly hasn't come to fruition yet, and the media
has been disappointed despite his team's 9-3
record.
While the media prefers blacks, and are more
forgiving when they screw up, there does seem to be
a desire for a "pristine" black athlete. They want a
black to "represent" a league, to be "the face" of a
sport. (Not that they don't want thugs like Ray Lewis,
but they want that one Michael Jordan-type to be "the
guy".) Last year Lebron James and Carmelo
Anthony were "the future of the NBA", and now it
seems like it's just James. Anthony has done
absolutely everything wrong imaginable, and the
media has cooled off as a result- at least for the time
being. And while they will forgive him, he's not that
"pristine" representative that they want.
Of course you never know when they'll turn on the
Hype Machine for Vick again. We'll see...