Mike Vick had just led the Eagles to their second straight victory, yet he looked sort of puzzled as he stood at the podium. Yes, Vick’s heroics –on a 10-play, 80-yard scoring drive, capped by a 1-yard touchdown run — had improved the Eagles to 2-0 on the year. Still, there were way too many mistakes, and way too many miscues, for the quarterback to be content.
“Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach as far as how many times we turned the ball over in two games,” Vick said. “We just have to do a better job at holding on to the football, I have to do a better job with my decision making and everything will work itself out.”
Vick went 23-of-32 for 371 yards and threw a touchdown and ran another one in. It was the second-most passing yards Vick had thrown for in his career and his eighth 300-yard game with the Eagles. Gaudy numbers, for sure. But the Eagles continued an alarming trend by turning the ball over four times. Four times. Take away those turnovers — Vick threw two interceptions and fumbled once — and No. 7 knows his offense can really be something special.
“It’s kind of a Catch-22 situation. We know how good we can be,” Vick said. “We see the progress and we see what we do down after down and then it’s all negated by penalties and turnovers, so the sky is the limit. I’m waiting to have a game where it’s all clean and I know sometimes that is very rare in this league, but it can be done.”
The Eagles also unveiled a new weapon against Baltimore: the no-huddle. The team used it to a lesser degree last week in Cleveland on the game-winning drive.
Yesterday, it was obvious the Eagles had been tinkering with it all week at practice. Vick looked extremely comfortable in the no-huddle as he picked apart Baltimore’s defense in the last two minutes.
“It’s fun. It just pushes the pace. Everybody saw how sometimes they couldn’t even get lined up,” Vick said. “Nobody has ever seen us do it before. It’s something that we added into our arsenal. I don’t know how much we’re going to use it.”
Line change
Andy Reid almost had a problem when he lost two starters — Jason Kelce (knee), King Dunlap
(hamstring) — from his offensive line. The coach said that if someone else went down, he was going to recruit a defensive lineman.
“I would have started with the oldest and the heaviest one,” Reid said.
“Stick Cullen [Jenkins] out there,” Vick joked.
Demetress Bell, at left tackle, and Dallas Reynolds, at center, came in and the offense didn’t skip a beat.
