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Premium – The Michael Vick talk is heating up. He is going to visit the Jets on Friday, according to NJ.com.
If Michael Vick picks the Jets, he’s making a clear statement – “I think the starting quarterbacks isn’t very good and I can take his job.”
People can say all the right things about mentoring, but if Vick comes to work in Florham Park, he sees a vulnerable starter.
The system familiarity is a huge factor for Vick and the Jets.
Vick has a strong understanding of Marty Mornhinweg’s playbook from their time together in Philadelphia.
He has a lot of familiarity with the pass routes Mornhinweg likes to call, signal checks, cadences and so forth.
This is very helpful. Instead of having to teach a guy from square one, Vick is high on the growth curve with Mornhinweg’s playbook, and NFL playbooks are like “War and Peace” these days.
Now if I’m Vick, even with the system familiarity, I wouldn’t want to go to this team, in this market.
Of all 32 teams in the NFL, the Jets might have the most insane media situation in the entire league.
Not only do they have one of the largest press corps in sports, but it’s rife with rabble-rousers. And making things worse, it’s highly-competitive, so you have a vicious media market, in the #1 media market, loaded with people constantly trying to “out” outlandish each other (if that makes any sense).
Just to give you an example of what is going in there – on top of the usual cast of characters – NJ.com just hired a beat writer from the “Deadspin” website, which is basically the TMZ of sports website.
“Rough crowd,” as they say.
And I’m not excluding myself. “I’m no angel,” as Gregg Allman sang.
But if you are Mike Vick, who has a history of scandal and erratic play, do you want to come to a market with a three-ring circus media?
Remember Manti Teʻo?
Some might have forgotten about him because so little has been written about him in the last year.
He went to San Diego in the 2013 draft, and has flown under the radar. It was the perfect media market for him, after the stuff that went on at Notre Dame with the fake girlfriend. The Chargers love him, he loves it there – perfect marriage. He’s left alone to just play football.
There are reports that Buffalo and Oakland are also interested.
If I’m Vick, I make a bee-line for one of those places. Why do you need the headache that goes with this place?
You want to re-visit the dog-fighting stuff, come here.
And honestly, he’s a big question mark as a quarterback right now.
His accuracy isn’t great, he throws too many picks, and he’s not as elusive as he used to be at 34. On top of that, he gets a lot of passes batted down (he’s only 6-0). Also, his durability has been an issue the last few years.
If I’m the Jets, I bring in a backup like Matt Schaub or Shaun Hill, pure West Coast guys. Vick really isn’t a West Coast QB.
