Michael Vick: If We Had Had OTA’s & Mini Camps We Would Be Way Ahead Of Schedule

Michael Vick talked to the media yesterday and he expressed a desire to put together a quality game on Thursday versus the Browns, but his comments about yearning for the missed OTA’s and mini-camps caught my eye.

Truth is, I heard a bit of doubt in the signal-caller comments about this squad missing all of the off-season time with the coaches. “Honestly, I wish we could have that time back now”, Vick revealed. “But I think that we have a lot of smart guys on our team and we just have to cram a lot in. But I honestly know, if we would have had OTA’s and mini camps we would have been way ahead of schedule as far as what we’re doing. But as of right now I like where we’re at, we can build from where we are now and I think a lot of good things will happen.”

That last comment sounds like a guy who may be wondering whether this group will be ready for the season and able to avoid making mistakes in early season games The more I look at this squad and listen to their leaders, Vick and Andy Reid, the more I expect them to stumble out of the blocks.

They’ve been making a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball. Offensively they’re still have some trouble with the blitz and defensively they seem to leave a receiver open every time they blitz.

Reid’s preseason habit has been to not play his starters in game four. There’s an outside chance he may change that habit this year, but chances are he will sit his starters in the final game of the preseason against the Jets. This Thursday’s game against the Browns will likely be the last action that quarterback Michael Vick gets this prior to the first game of the season against the Rams. I sense a sense of urgency from Vick.

For this reason the Birds are taking this game against the Cleveland Browns very seriously. When asked whether the Birds were game planning for this one, Eagles quarterback Michael Vick responded, “Yeah, our schedule is a little bit different this week. So we’re preparing as if we were going to play a full game. We just want to go out and put on the best performance possible, play as a unit, play smart and stay healthy.”

As you would imagine, Vick is eager to get back on the football field after that awful three-interception performance against Steelers. “As a player you always want to go out and put on a great performance”, Vick said. “And you’re able to go back and look at the film and you know why certain things happened the way it happened and what could have been done differently. And like I said last week, that’s a positive. I know why I made the mistakes that I made and how I can correct them and I’m just going to go out this weekend and try to put on a great performance. As long as I’m out there, even though it’s preseason, it’s still a game.”

“He just needs to continue to execute and lead the way that he has in the past, and he’ll do that,” said Reid yesterday in his afternoon press conference. “There’s going to be a blip every once and a while. That’s how it is when you play quarterback and you have the ball in your hand every snap, but you have to have a short-term memory and learn from it and move on.”

Vick knows that this team will sink and swim depending on his performance. The former number one pick in the draft knows a crisp game by himself and the offense would help this team regain its swagger. He was clearly blindsided by his pathetic performance in Pittsburgh, so he’s glad to be through training camp in Lehigh and back at the Nova Care Complex, so he can spend more time in film study.

“I mean, I just learned a lot just watching the film”, Vick told a large group of media members in front of his locker yesterday. “And you know, I don’t think I need to go into a big dissertation about what happened. But obviously we all know that it could’ve been better. And I think it’s just playing with a sense of urgency, you know just going out and making sure that you make the right decisions. You know, every interception I threw last week could have been prevented just by making a better decision with the football, that’s it.”