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Monday, December 11, 2006
Vick or Tomlinson: You pick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch _ History is being rewritten as we speak. The Falcons are being characterized as ham-handed more than five years after the fact. It would have been better, goes the new consensus, to have dealt downward in the 2001 draft, better to have landed LaDainian Tomlinson than Michael Vick.
Better at this moment, sure. But not better over the fullness of time.
Tomlinson has rushed for more than 1,200 yards in each of his six years as a pro, and he just broke the NFL record for touchdowns in a season with three games to spare. Even so, he would have been the wrong man to draft in 2001 for the simple reason that he wasn’t Michael Vick.
If you’ve just taken notice of Vick these past few weeks, you’re working with incomplete data. You’re hearing that he’s a coach-killer. You’re seeing him flip off the home folks. You’re watching him preside over a unit that has managed seven offensive touchdowns in five games. All those things represent the truth, but not the whole truth.
The whole truth: Michael Vick galvanized a franchise and its city. The Falcons had rendered their run to Super Bowl XXXIII a raging aberration with subsequent seasons of 5-11 and 4-12.
But then, on the day Vick was drafted, a scheduled open house at the complex here overflowed its banks.
Expecting a crowd of 1,500, the Falcons were amazed when some 7,000 members of the public showed up, clogging traffic and forcing running back Jamal Anderson to drive his motorcycle on the shoulder just to reach HQ. The Falcons had completed the trade with San Diego only the day before, so the thronging represented a spontaneous outpouring.
Said Anderson that giddy day: “We’re the organization that pulled the trigger on Michael Vick. It’s cool to be a part of that.”
Vick made the city and the football-watching world view the Falcons differently, and when he became the starting quarterback after a year’s apprenticeship he began to deliver on that promise. He took the Falcons to the playoffs in 2002 and won at Lambeau Field. In 2004 he led his team to the NFC title game. Even now, in the midst of his least effective season, it’s essential to note that he’s 38-25-1 as a starter.
San Diego is 48-44 in games that Tomlinson has started and hasn’t won a playoff game since it made him the fifth pick of the 2001 draft. (And much of his time as a pro was spent alongside draft classmate Drew Brees, who has become the NFL’s leading passer after leaving the Chargers.) As good as he is, Tomlinson as a draftee would have been viewed locally as just another running back. (FYI: Tomlinson outgained Warrick Dunn by just 46 yards last season and had 59 more carries.)
What the Falcons lacked in 2001 was a focal point. Vick has been that, often for better but occasionally for worse, since he arrived. He became the reason to watch the Falcons, the reason to believe they were never out of any game. Arthur Blank would probably have bought the team anyway, but surely the allure of Vick, who was about to become the No. 1 quarterback, clinched the deal.
The men who oversaw Vick’s drafting — Dan Reeves, Harold Richardson, Ron Hill, Taylor Smith — are gone. Neither Jim Mora nor Rich McKay cared to join the MV/LT debate Monday, Mora saying, “I wasn’t here in 2001.” But if you were around then and have watched all along, you know exactly what Vick has meant to this franchise.
Has he progressed at the rate you’d have thought? No. Does he still command your attention every second he’s on the field? Absolutely. Even if he never does anything else for the Falcons — and there’s no reason to think he won’t do a whole lot — he was still the right pick at the right time.
The Chargers did well in the 2001 draft. They landed a Hall of Fame back. But not every trade is a zero-sum game. The Falcons did more than OK themselves. They took a quarterback and gained a credibility they’d never had.
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