Michael Vick Injury: Why Vick's Health Isn't Only Reason Eagles Are Screwed

Another week, another injury for Michael Vick.

This time, the superstar quarterback came up with a broken right hand in the Philadelphia Eagles' 29-16 loss to the New York Giants. Luckily for the Eagles, Vick is a left-handed thrower, so this latest setback isn't entirely devastating.

But, Vick's fragility does bring to light an unsettling string of deficiencies that should give fans in Philly pause as to whether their "dream team" really has what it takes to make the city's Super Bowl wishes come true.

The Eagles have plenty of issues to address and holes to fill before they can consider themselves contenders in their own division, much less for the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy.

And not just under center, either.

Poor Pass Protection

You can call Michael Vick "injury-prone," but such a label, if too hastily applied, overlooks perhaps the biggest reason he's been getting knocked around so early and so often—his offensive line.

The Eagles came into the regular season knowing all too well that their protection would be shoddy, yet hoping Vick's mobility would help to mask their deficiencies up front, as was the case last season. Andy Reid attempted to rebuild the line through free agency, but ended up cutting guard Reggie Wells and tackle Ryan Harris, who went down with a season-ending back injury.

To be fair, the line has already demonstrated significant improvement, cutting down the hits taken by Eagles quarterbacks from 11 against the Rams to six against the Falcons to just two against the Giants.

That being said, Philly's front five will have to continue to gel in pass protection if the team is going to keep its signal-callers, Vick or otherwise, upright and healthy enough to be effective and successful.

Inability to Generate Anything Through the Air

As one might expect, if the Eagles' pass protection isn't any good, then their passing offense won't be any good either.

Which is particularly disconcerting, given Philly's long-standing reputation as a pass-first attack.

The Eagles have ranked among the top 10 most productive aerial attacks every year since 2004. It's in their makeup, and Andy Reid's in particular, to move the chains with short passes to running backs and tight ends and the occasional deep bomb to speedsters like DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin.

Yet, even when playing from behind, the Eagles stuck to their running game, something they wouldn't normally do even with the advantage. Philly ran the ball 40 times but threw on only 30 occasions.

Granted, the ground game was working quite well for the Eagles, as they tallied 177 yards rushing yards in those 40 attempts, 128 by LeSean McCoy, resulting in a solid average of 4.4 yards per carry.

Meanwhile, the passing game was anything but stellar for the Eagles, with 20 completions for just 199 yards (sack yardage included).

If it really is the case that the Eagles are already abandoning their West Coast passing attack, in all or in part, for a more rush-heavy offense, then panic may have already set in with 13 games left in the season.

Not a good sign for such a highly touted team, to say the least. 

Mike Kafka's Lack of Experience

Whether Michael Vick's hand will knock him out of games or not, it's clear that the Eagles will probably need to go to the bullpen and bring in Mike Kafka from time to time.

That, too, poses a serious problem for Philadelphia, as such presses into significant duty a second-year quarterback who now sports all of 11 completions in 16 career NFL passing attempts, with two interceptions.

Now, one can hardly judge Kafka too harshly either way with the exceedingly small sample size that he has thus far put forth in his young career. However, for a team with such high aspirations and expectations for the season, having a quarterback with as little experience as Kafka hardly bodes well for the Eagles' chances of delivering on their considerable promise. 

A Vick-Centric System

Of course, if experience really is a concern for the Eagles, Reid could always turn to Vince Young, who's on the mend after pulling his hamstring in the preseason.

But that still would solve perhaps the biggest dilemma to come from a prolonged absence for Vick.

That is, the Eagles' entire offense is designed specifically for Vick to take advantage of his peculiarly spectacular talents. Part of what made Vick's 2010 season so remarkable was that he was putting up big numbers and wreaking havoc on opposing defenses while playing in an offense set up for a pocket-passer like Kevin Kolb.

With Kolb gone and Vick earning beaucoup bucks in his place, Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg went about retooling their system to better suit Vick's left-handedness, speed, shiftiness and ability to throw on the move.

Therefore, it doesn't really matter who, other than Vick, is taking snaps under center for the Eagles because Vick is the only player who's capable of running the team's offense to its full effectiveness.

With anyone other than Vick, Reid and Mornhinweg are forced to water down the offense—"vanilla-fy" it, if you will—to put any given substitute in position to have some measure of success.

Even if that measure is far less than what Vick would give them. 

Lackluster Play Calling

Then again, the Eagles' staff wasn't exactly hitting home runs with its play-calling to begin with. Philly had two of its drives stuffed at the goal line, one at the beginning of the second quarter and one part-way through the third, turning what would have otherwise been 14 points on two touchdowns into just six points on two field goals.

Granted, the Eagles still would've lost to the Giants had only those facts changed, but it's also reasonable to assume that Philly would've approached the game a bit differently had the team been even with New York at 14-14 rather than down 14-10 in the second quarter.

Or had they been up 20-14 or even 24-14 after punching it into the end zone in the third quarter rather than up by only two points, at 16-14, after settling for yet another field goal.

Either way, the Eagles' goal-line play calling proved to be a huge problem in this game. After trying to go aerial in the second quarter, Philly figured running straight ahead would work out better in the third.

But it didn't. Not even on four tries, after the Giants were caught offsides on the second attempt, without even a single one going to LeSean McCoy.

What's more, the third-down play on that drive—a run by fullback Owen Schmitt—got sniffed out so quickly and with such destructive force by the Giants that Vick ended up with a broken hand in the process.

So, really, the Eagles were slapped with the insult of failing to convert at the goal line for a second time along with the injury to Vick's hand.

Ramshackle Run Defense

But let's not place all the blame on the offense. Certainly, the defense deserves at least some of the hand-wringing in the City of Brotherly Love.

The Eagles' run defense has been particularly lackluster thus far, surrendering 394 yards on the ground through three games.

That places Philly's run-stuffing easily among the worst in the NFL thus far. As with the offensive line, this isn't exactly a problem that nobody foresaw. The Eagles lost most of last year's starting linebacking corps to free agency, including Stewart Bradley, who led the team in tackles last year.

This season, the Eagles are relying on one of the youngest bunches of 'backers in the league to get the job done, among them rookie Casey Matthews, sophomore Jamar Chaney and third-year Moises Fokou.

Such inexperience, then, has turned what was last year a decent run defense into one of the least resistant units in the league in 2011.

Too Many Big Plays Allowed

On the whole, the Eagles defense has struggled to prevent opposing teams from pulling off big plays and quick scoring drives.

Through three games, Philly has allowed five touchdowns on drives that took three minutes or less, a number that expands to seven on drives of four minutes or less.

No team can afford to give up big-play drives to frequently if it hopes to win, especially one like the Eagles, which, as previously mentioned, is becoming more and more run oriented.

Philly has long had a reputation for putting together lightning-quick scoring strikes of its own but will find itself hampered in that regard if Vick isn't around to make those sorts of plays.

Thus, in the meantime, the defense must do a better job of keeping the team from falling behind so shortly out of the gate if the Eagles are to have any shot of staying in contention this season.

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