Unstoppable

I am a Carolina Panthers fan by birthright.  My Panthers got smoked in preseason game two last night by the Eagles.  Michael Vick looked unstoppable.

I live in Charlotte, NC.  I was born here, so technically I am a Charlottean, but not by much more than birthright.

Before the Queen City, I lived in Scotland for two years which for the purposes of this story shouldn’t count.  Before Scotland, I lived in Atlanta for 3 years.  Before Atlanta, I was attending college in Louisiana and couldn’t have cared less about professional football. 

OK, so where am I going with this?  Atlanta was my first exposure to a big NFL town, and it just so happens that I moved there in 1999.  That was an important year for my (then) NFL team and (then) city, although we didn’t know it at the time.  While Atlanta was busy hosting the Super Bowl as a city and sucking out loud as a team, our future was winning the Big East Rookie of the Year award and sending the college football world into a certifiable tizzy. That future had a name and number.  

Michael Dwayne Vick, 7.

I grew up an SEC football fan.  To me, that was what real football looked like.  Outside of Randall Cunningham and the 85 Bears, I was never really that into Sundays.  I watched.  My folks made the Super Bowl a big deal at our house.  But that all paled in comparison to a Saturday in Knoxville or Baton Rouge.  Mr. Vick and my new hometown team changed all of that. 

Unless you live under a rock, you know the story.  Number one overall pick in 2001. Electrifying speed and arm strength.  Houdiniesque plays where you would swear that he literally vanished in order to avoid contact. 

The Michael Vick Experience was one heck of a ride from opening day 2002 until April of 2007 when that experience came to a grinding and disturbing halt. 

You know that story too.

If you are paying attention to my timeline you’ll notice no mention of the 2001 season.  That’s because in the narrative that has become the real-time biography of Vick, no one talks about that year.  For me that was the year to remember.  Forget the pro bowls, playoffs and comebacks.  2001 was the most important year of Michael Vick’s career. 

In 2001 Michael Vick held a clipboard.

Technically, he saw action that season, but for the most part, 2001 was his year to grow.  He came into the league with perhaps as much hoopla as any QB in the history of the game.  But, under coach Dan Reeves’ regime, he was forced to take a step back.  And, most importantly, fall in line. Chris Chandler started in front of Vick.  I remember radio interviews where Vick spoke very humbly about his place on the team and in the world.  He drove a Ford.  He had not yet become that Michael Vick.

I find it fascinating that nobody in the national media talks about that year.  It was the end of an era where teams took some time to groom franchise quarterbacks.  And, I firmly believe that it gave Vick the chance to build a foundation that he would desperately need to lean into later.

That later happened in April of 2007.  A series of very bad decisions took him from The Michael Vick Experience to 21 months in a federal prison, Chapter 11, and a reputation that would crush a lesser mortal.

Again, you know that story.

Flash forward to last night.  There he was commanding a new offense in Philadelphia.  By all NFL measurements, he is a long-in-the-tooth player.  But, there he was…the master of the open field scramble…throwing elite caliber out-route laser beams…making my Panthers look silly.  He looked unstoppable.

Tony Dungy gets a lot of credit for mentoring Vick through his dark days.  He should. 

Vick’s year holding the clip board gets no mention as the place where Vick learned what it was to allow a mentor to shape his life.  It should.

Ironically, Vick is battling with a young gun for the starting QB position in Philly. At the moment Vick is the on-the-field front runner.

He is without a doubt the locker room leader for that team.  When controversy stirs (and man has it ever this preseason), he’s the one who unites the team.  If new coach Chip Kelly wants his shiny new up tempo offense to work in the NFL, he’ll need Vick’s talent on the field and his leadership off of it.

Coach Kelly would be wise to remember 2001, and hand the young gun a clipboard.

My new favorite QB, Cam Newton’s path to the NFL is strikingly similar to that of Vick’s.  He was the second African American QB to be selected overall number one in the NFL draft.

Three guesses as to who was the first.

Electrifying athletic ability; The Cam Newton experience is in full display. 

By statistical measures, he is the most successful QB in history through his first two seasons, but critics always point to a lack of…something.  They can’t articulate succinctly what that something is exactly, but a lot of them agree that it’s missing.

Cam never got to hold a clipboard.  If he did, he’d be unstoppable by now.