Michael Vick’s Controversial Legacy Worth Revisiting
… You hear that?
That’s the sound of a NFL defensive coordinator spitting his gum out in anger along his team’s sidelines. He takes his right foot and steps on it because he felt he called the perfect play in the absolute best defense to stop then Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on a 3rd down play.
But it didn’t work.
There were many times when the former Atlanta Falcons icon was dead to rights, defenders draped all over him and close to putting him into grass all while he carried the football in his left hand carelessly like it was a yo-yo.
Take your index finger and your thumb on one hand and form what looks like the letter ‘C’ using both. That’s all it took for Michael Vick to take off and run for a first down or better, 30-40 yards down the field as he somehow some way found a way to make defenders look silly in the open field.
Michael Vick was that fantastic collegiate track star who’s favorite sport growing up was always football, his first true love.
Not really, but you get the point, right?
Told before entering the NFL Draft that he was too small, didn’t throw the ball accurately enough and wasn’t ‘intelligent’ enough to read or counteract what defenses would do to him at the NFL level, Michael Vick exceeded everyone’s expectations of him.
Even himself.
When looking back on his career, specifically the career before he was convicted and sent to prison for 23 months due to his role in dogfighting conspiracy, Michael Vick the player was transcendent in ways that he could be the answer to this question, Who was the most important African-American football player of their generation?
Drafted by the Atlanta Falcons with the first overall pick back in the 2001 NFL Draft, the former Virginia Tech star quarterback was looked at as the savior for the Atlanta Falcons franchise which went from a high of reaching its first ever Super Bowl during the 1998 season with a 14-2 regular-season mark to going 9-23 over the next two seasons after.
After sitting for a majority of his rookie season, it would be in 2002 when the electric athlete got his opportunity to start. A year after a 7-9 finish, The heroic dual-threat Quarterback would lead the Atlanta Falcons to a playoff birth as the Falcons went 9-6-1.
The Newport News, Virginia native would set three NFL rushing records by a quarterback in 2002 as he rushed for 777 rushing yards, 8 TDs, and averaged 6.9 yards per carry. The left-handed quarterback would also throw for 16 touchdowns on the season.
His most tantalizing and heart-stopping moment of the season would be his then record and career-high 173 rushing yards on 10 attempts in the Falcons 30-24 overtime victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 13 that season. Vick would use a 46-yard touchdown run in OT to give the Falcons their 8th win of the season.
He and his Atlanta Falcons would earn a date with Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in the NFC Wildcard round where fans around the world would be treated to a historic upset.
Michael Vick would lead the Falcons to a 27-7 victory at frigid Lambeau Field as stunned Cheeseheads looked on from the stands in disbelief at what they had just witnessed as the Falcons showed they were more than a dome team. Vick would finish the game 13-for-25 for 117 passing yards, 1 TD and 64 rushing yards on the night. It was the Packers first playoff loss at Lambeau Field in NFL history.
In the national spotlight under the bright lights of the NFL postseason it served as a coming out party for the then 22 year-old Quarterback who in just his first full season as a starter was a Pro-Bowler.
Misfortune would hit Vick during his 2003 season as one of the brightest stars in the NFL during his time, thrilling the fans with his unreal athleticism and speed and ability to fling the ball down the field effortlessly, would break his leg in a preseason game vs the Baltimore Ravens on August 16th, 2003.
The Falcons unsurprisingly would struggle without their franchise star quarterback’s contributions, going 2-10 without him before Vick returned later in the season to go 3-1 as a starter as the Falcons finished 5-11.
The injury wouldn’t diminish his star, as he began appearing on countless magazine covers and commercials while becoming a feature athlete for Nike as he became the first NFL quarterback to ever have a shoe named after him as his Nike Zoom Vick signature shoe back in 2003 was the first of four signature shoe entries.
In 2004 behind a strong rushing attack by Michael Vick (902 rushing yards) and running back Warrick Dunn (1,106 rushing yards) along with a stellar defense led by linebacker Keith Brooking would finish the regular-season as NFC South champs at 11-5 and ultimately reached the franchise’s second NFC Championship Game.
With talent and athleticism never before seen by an NFL quarterback, Vick easily became the league’s most poster boy among the African-American contingent and was revered in Atlanta by fans, entertainers and musicians. His popularity would show up in one of the most important markets: jersey sales. He consistently finished among the top 5 in jerseys sales throughout his tenure in Atlanta.
He fit in perfectly with the African-American hip-hop culture at the time, immersing himself well in a city that’s built on its music and its love for sports.
Continuing to run his way to the NFL record books as today he’s still the only quarterback to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season, an incredible feat set back in 2006 with the Falcons, his last season in a Falcons uniform. He also still owns the all-time rushing yards record for a quarterback at 6,109 rushing yards.
Focusing specifically on his first six seasons with Atlanta and not the five seasons that would follow with the Philadelphia Eagles where he had the best statistical season of his career in 2010, Michael Vick was every young kid who grew up in a neighborhood of violence, drugs, and corruption that used football as a path to escape it necessary hope.
Vick smashed his arguable labels and stigma that still today seem to follow African-American quarterbacks, with Baltimore Ravens rookie quarterback LaMar Jackson told he should consider a move to wide receiver for his NFL future instead of playing quarterback where he won the Heisman Trophy for his outstanding 2016 season.
Flamboyant and always full of confidence, Michael Vick was larger than life at his peak, a hero and inspiration to the future generation of dual-threat quarterbacks like Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III.
“I was the guy who started it all,” Vick told ESPN back in 2014 as a member of the New York Jets. “I revolutionized the game. I changed the way it was played in the NFL. The things I’ve done, I’ve pretty much surpassed myself and expectations — over 25,000 yards in total offense in the NFL, and I missed a lot of years and a lot of games.”
Vick finished his NFL career with 22,464 passing yards, 133 TDs, 88 INTs while completing 56% of his passes.
Never a perfect quarterback, Michael Vick playing the most prized and important position in the NFL and doing it in a way that defied common football logic.
A 6-foot tall (barely), 200-pound quarterback who could out-run defensive backs and make 260-300 pound defensive lineman miss when they tried to collapse the pocket, his influence in the urban culture doubled with his importance to African-American children picking up a football is why Vick, in my opinion, is the most influential and important African-American player of his generation.
Not worthy of a place in Canton, Ohio, Vick is worthy of this specific recognition as he’ll always be remembered as the NFL’s quarterback version of Michael Jordan that could ruin a defensive coordinator’s day if their defense lost containment on him or underestimated his ability as a passer.
Long after his career has ended, we can still visualize in our mind and hearts what we felt whenever Michael Vick had a football in his hands.
What are your thoughts on Michael Vick’s legacy? Leave your comments below!