Philadelphia Eagles Should Re-Sign Michael Vick and Trade Kevin Kolb

On the heels of two brutally painful back-to-back losses to the Cowboys, Eagles fans this morning are forcing themselves to look ahead to next season to forget about the heartbreak of these past two weekends.

And while most Eagles fans are wondering where the offensive line help will be coming from next season, or whether the Birds will be able to pick a middle linebacker and stick with him all season...the quarterback position may end up receiving the most speculation of all.

Naturally, with one crappy performance in the playoffs, the "Should the Eagles keep Donovan McNabb?" questions have already begun flying.  (And after last night, even the biggest McNabb apologists will have trouble defending him... 1-for-5 for two yards after 20 minutes of play??)

Instead, the true quarterback question for the Eagles going into the offseason should be:

What do the Eagles do with Michael Vick?

The popular opinion seems to be that the Eagles won't be exercising Vick's option...in fact, Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a post-game article titled "Vick experiment seems destined to end ."

But judging by what he accomplished in his severely limited playing time, this writer believes that the future of the team should rest in Vick's hands, not Kevin Kolb's.

It's time for the Eagles to part ways with Kevin Kolb, and go forward with the $5.2 million option for Vick next season.

(I know this is the part where you stop reading in order to jump down my throat faster, but hear me out).

Yes, Kolb is the only quarterback in NFL history to throw for 300 yards in his first two starts...but let's take a closer look at those 300-yard games for a second.

In the first, a 48-22 loss to the New Orleans Saints back in Week 2 (when McNabb was sidelined with two broken ribs), Kolb completed 31-of-51 passes for 391 yards, two touchdowns, and three interceptions.  On the surface, those are pretty decent numbers.

But then remember that the Eagles ran 51 passes to only 22 runs, and Kolb's YPA of 7.67 doesn't jump off the page nearly the same way.  And keep in mind that on Kolb's first career TD pass, a 71-yard bomb to DeSean Jackson, Kolb hit Jackson about 15 yards away from the line of scrimmage, and Jackson added 50 yards after the catch (YAC) to boost Kolb's stats.

Also remember that after Ellis Hobbs fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half to allow the Saints to go up 24-10 and get dangerously close to blowing the game wide open, Kolb hammered that final nail in the Eagles' coffin himself, by throwing an interception deep in Eagles territory two plays later.

The Saints went up 31-10, Andy Reid abandoned all traces of a run game, and the Saints defense started playing "prevent," allowing Kolb to dink-and-dunk his way down the field to ensure that the Eagles would run out of time on a comeback bid.

The next week, Kolb notched his second 300-yard performance of his career against the over-matched, winless Kansas City Chiefs, who didn't record a sack or a hit on Kolb all day.  No pressure on the QB typically equals a pretty solid game.  (And had the Eagles' offensive line held up against Dallas in a remotely similar fashion, perhaps the Eagles' offseason doesn't start on Saturday night).

Long story short, we haven't seen enough out of Kolb to clamor for him to replace McNabb.  And any Kolb detractor will gladly point back to last season's 36-7 debacle against the Baltimore Ravens, where he replaced McNabb at halftime only to throw four interceptions in 30 minutes.  

In less than three full games, Kolb's thrown four touchdowns to seven interceptions.

Meanwhile, the Eagles also happen to have a three-time Pro-Bowler on their QB roster, and his last name isn't McNabb.  (McNabb's been to five, with a sixth berth on the line if Drew Brees or Brett Favre can make it to the Super Bowl.)

And it's not every day that NFL teams get rid of one (or two) former Pro-Bowlers in favor of a high-round pick.  Go ahead, bring up Philip Rivers (fourth overall in 2004) or Aaron Rodgers (24th overall in 2005)—I'll see you and raise you a Brady Quinn (22nd overall in 2007) or Matt Leinart (10th in 2006).  And remember that Kolb was a second-rounder, meaning that the Eagles haven't invested nearly as much into him.

Contrastingly, for a guy who once signed a 10-year, $130 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons, keeping Vick for $5.2 million next year is still a discount.

Vick is the NFL's all-time leader in rushing yards/attempt (with 7.2 YPC), and ranks third all-time in QB rushing yards after only seven seasons in the NFL.  In 2006, Vick became the only QB in NFL history to rush for over 1,000 yards in a single season.  

And while Vick's throwing accuracy has always been a point of contention...has it not for McNabb as well?  

Anyone who doubted Vick's potential with the Eagles was finally silenced on Saturday night, when Vick hit rookie Jeremy Maclin for a 76-yard touchdown bomb that seemed to temporarily breathe some life into the otherwise overmatched Eagles.  The Vick-to-Maclin connection was the longest passing touchdown in Eagles playoff franchise history, and reminded the NFL just how dangerous Vick can still be.

Though for those not paying close attention, Vick had really started coming into his own in the second half of the season.  He ran and threw for a score to help the Eagles blow out the Atlanta Falcons, 34-7, and followed with another running score the next week against the Giants in the Eagles' 45-38 victory. 

Vick's season stats, including the playoffs:

7-of-14 passing for 162 yards and two touchdowns, and 25 rushes for 94 yards and two more touchdowns.

Now, I recognize that this scenario borders somewhere between implausible and impossible, given that most NFL teams would be loathe to pay a backup QB $5 million.

But again, I'll go back to Leinart and Quinn.  Leinart signed a 6-year deal worth up to $51 million in his rookie season, yet Kurt Warner has led the Cardinals to improbable back-to-back appearances in the NFL Divisional Playoffs.  And Quinn signed a 5-year deal in his rookie year that could have been worth up to $30 million — this is the same guy that got benched for Derek Anderson earlier this season.

Point being, while it's not an overly popular roster construction strategy, some teams in the NFL do pay backups an excessive amount of money.

For this to work, Vick would need to see considerably more action next year.  

And again, I'm not calling for McNabb's head by saying that Vick should stay.

Judging by coach Andy Reid's comments ("I was asked if Donovan will be my quarterback next season and I said yes," Reid said today . "That’s what I’m saying now. That is my call."), McNabb's got the 2010 starting gig all but locked up.

But seeing McNabb and Vick work in tandem?  

The Eagles have been playing around with the Wildcat for the past two seasons, but they possess the ultimate Wildcat weapon in Vick.  He can run, he can pass, and presumably, he can even catch a short dump-off.

Why not install some screen passes from McNabb to Vick?  Vick in the open field was always what NFL defensive coordinators feared most...why not design plays to get him some running room?

Or better yet...the Eagles have tried their fair share of flea flickers with McNabb over the years.  But what happens if McNabb takes the snap, then hands the ball to Vick?  

Defenses will have to sell out to cover Vick's passing and running lanes...so put McNabb on the other side of the field, have Vick toss it back to McNabb to run a flea flicker with him, and the Eagles have a play that would drive defenses up a wall.

The biggest problem with Vick this season is that the Eagles asked him to do too little. Marty Mornhinweg had the keys to the most explosive offense in the NFL, and while the Eagles put up 31 points per game during their six-game winning streak, and set a franchise record for points scored in a single season, they did this mainly without the help of Vick.

Imagine how scary the Eagles offense could look next year if Vick wasn't just a decoy.

With Vick, Kolb, and McNabb all in the final year of their contracts next season, the Eagles must make a decision on their long-term future one way or the other.

But with McNabb's tutelage, Vick could become the Eagles' next long-term QB with his unique skill-set.  It's already begun to pay off, if the Vick-to-Maclin TD or Vick's comments after the game were any indication.

"I feel like I'm probably better than I ever was in my career, as far as the mental aspect of the game," Vick said. "Physically—that will come. That is easy."

Personally, I'd rather have one of the NFL's most explosive playmakers on the Eagles' side of the ball.  If that means picking up his $5 million option for the upcoming season, so be it.

The guy clearly has the support of the locker room, as his teammates unanimously chose him as the recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award .  Why take away one of the team's most potent weapons because they made a mistake in a draft three years ago?

If the Eagles were smart, they'd see the present and future in McNabb and Vick, and let No. 5 and No. 7 have another go-around next year.  

They should trade Kolb for a second round pick (what they used on him), use a third-sixth round draft pick on a third-string emergency QB (after all, draft positioning doesn't always guarantee success...Tom Brady was a sixth rounder, wasn't he?), and let the McNabb-Vick show carry on.

It's not their fault the offensive line sucked on Saturday.