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Friday, September 28, 2007
Schaub trade was right move for Falcons at the time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It looks bad now, but trading Matt Schaub wasn’t a bad move. At the time, it was a sound transaction made for the right reasons. The Falcons dealt Schaub to Houston on March 22. Would anyone have believed then that an April 20 drug arrest of Michael Vick’s cousin would, in the course of 129 dizzying days, transform the franchise quarterback into a convicted felon?
On March 22, Michael Vick had never been charged with any crime. (For all the uproar regarding the water bottle, ask yourself this: Would any NFL team have cut its starting quarterback over an incident that yielded no charges?) He had taken to a new coach and a new offense and had, from all available evidence, taken control of his career. “He’s been phenomenal,” Rich McKay said in April. “I think you guys [in the media] have put it in his head: ‘This is it.’”
Let’s recall: Pretty much everything that happened over the winter was about Vick. Bobby Petrino didn’t just sign on to coach the Falcons; as he said, speaking of Vick four days after taking the job, “That’s why we’re here.” He had long dreamed of fitting his scheme to such a stylized talent, and now he had that chance.
As of March 22, Schaub was a career backup who’d started two NFL games. This wasn’t a case of the Falcons drafting Brett Favre and giving up on him after one season and four NFL passes. The Falcons had studied Schaub for three years and this is what they’d decided: He was good enough to start (and maybe win) somewhere, but not so good he’d ever start ahead of Vick.
Schaub would have become an unrestricted free agent after this season. The Falcons couldn’t keep him with a fat long-term contract because Vick was already making his $130 million, and Schaub wouldn’t have stayed as a No. 2 because he wanted to start. So, to get anything in return, the Falcons had to move him this spring.
On March 22, they traded Schaub to the Texans for Houston’s No. 2 choices in 2007 and 2008 and a swap of Round 1 positions in the April draft. The Falcons took defensive end Jamaal Anderson with the eighth pick of Round 1; they selected offensive lineman Justin Blalock with the Round 2 pick acquired from Houston. Both are starters already. That wouldn’t seem a bad yield for a backup quarterback.
The Falcons aren’t surprised Schaub is doing well in Houston, but nobody around the team ever bought into the revisionist theory that Schaub should have been starting here. The players saw Vick on a daily basis and knew full well that he routinely did things nobody else in football could do even once. Dumping on Vick the person has become a local pastime, but let’s not forget the reason we took note of Vick in the first place: He could play the game.
And he was about to play it for a better coach in a better system, and everyone in Flowery Branch was ecstatic over the prospects. Then Davon Boddie got arrested — funny how a marijuana charge mushroomed, kind of like a third-rate burglary bringing down a president — and a search warrant for the property at 1915 Moonlight Road was filed. On Aug. 27, Vick pleaded guilty.
Recalling the Falcons’ historic lack of sagacity is a source of continual hilarity. (Dumping Favre! Drafting Reggie Kelly! Hiring Marion Campbell — twice!) Already the Schaub trade is considered the latest in the line of royal whiffs, but it must be noted that this poor result wasn’t the product of a poor choice.
The Falcons were convinced they had the right quarterback. In a weird way, the trade with Houston only underscores their belief in Vick. Had they any hint of what would happen, they’d never have traded Schaub. Alas, they didn’t know the unknowable. To borrow Tom Joyner’s question to the evangelist Juanita Bynum: “If you’re a prophet, didn’t you see this coming?”
Don’t get self-righteous and say you knew, on March 22, that dogfighting would be the undoing of Michael Vick. Because you didn’t. On March 22, nobody did.
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