Mike i will try to let some sunlight in and blow away the black cloud hanging over your head, this day(VBG:) Vick will be o.k. next week but will team be o.k. and not commit 110 assinine yards in penalties again!!? Vick he was as rusty as barnyard car--1920,.Big question i need answered Mike, who played RT on the 91 yard 8 minute drive, Dunlap or Bell--do you know???????????
Some writers from Philt have been first rate. But Sheridan headline was "Vick does NOT looked improved" Like DUH, he plays his worst game ever and writes that.
Fact, he had done nothing since last year, he was wearing flak jacket(which i think he must get used to) and in what was as important a 90s yards facing a QB in Eagles Football history(team new/VICK new it would be disaster it he did not bring team back, he was feeling down down very down, but had get his head together)
That was as High a Pressure situation he has ever been in--Reid had taken a walk away from everybody thinking thinking before the drive, but said never thought of bringing in Foles(what i think he was really doing Mike was praying--no joke) (Net Yard Gained Eagles 456 Net Yard Gained Browns 210. Penalties Eagles 110 Browns 35) Count the yards that were called back because of a penalty--how many holds did Dunlap have, one or 2?)
Vick came thru in a DESPERATE SITUATION.: articles / 2 Hayes and Hofman
Rich Hofmann: Vick hangs his head, then hangs in to rally Eagles to victory
All of which is what made Sunday at Cleveland Stadium so interesting. Vick's game was horrendous. After he threw his fourth interception of the day, and it was returned for a touchdown, the Eagles were trailing the bedraggled Browns by a 16-10 score.
It was the moment, he said in retrospect - and after leading the game-winning touchdown drive - that he moped a little, and his teammates saw it, and he worried about losing what he had worked so hard to build up.
"The last possession, I just knew it was do-or-die," Vick said. "My teammates, they all just had a sudden look in their eyes, as if they were wondering what was wrong with my attitude. Why was I hanging my head? They had never seen me like that before. But I just felt like I let them down.
"It will never happen again, regardless of what the game dictates. That last drive, it was just putting it all together. I wasn't going to disappoint my coaches. I wasn't going to disappoint my teammates. Even though we had to go 90 yards for the score, whatever it took, I was going to get it done."
And so begins the story of 2012. The Eagles won the game, 17-16, and managed to scare everybody to death in the process. Vick really looked bad at times - physically beaten up early, and then throwing this incomprehensible string of interceptions, one worse than the next, one of them even into triple coverage.
He is not that bad, and that is the truth - but he was that bad on Sunday, and that also is the truth. After playing only a dozen snaps in the exhibition games because of injuries, and then rejecting the notion that he would be rusty, Vick was perfectly oxidized. He threw for 317 yards and two touchdowns, but the interceptions overshadowed all. He seemed to laser in on his targets to the point where he could not see anything else.
Vick was not helped by offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg's pass-heavy play-calling - and Eagles coach Andy Reid went out of his way to say that they should have run more early in the game, even after LeSean McCoy fumbled on his first carry of the season. The result was Vick, throwing picks, seemingly lost.
After the fourth one, which put the Eagles in a fourth-quarter hole, the sideline made for a fascinating tableau. Vick hung his head. Rookie backup Nick Foles, who spent the afternoon carrying a football and wearing a baseball cap, stood motionless on the sideline near midfield. And then there was Reid, who went for a walk along the sideline, away from his team, away from everybody, and seemed to have a good, long think. He said he was not considering going to Foles.
"I just thought [Vick] had to work through it," Reid said. "He's our quarterback, so you've got to do that. The game is fast and it picks up off of the preseason, and he didn't have any preseason. This was an important game for him to get in and play, endure and tough it out, which he did. That's what you saw."
They won it at the end with a more balanced attack and with more of a no-huddle look on the last drive. Now they have a week to try to figure out where Vick is.
"Not playing in the preseason, playing enough, as a veteran I thought I would have that natural feel of the game," Vick said. "But you can't really simulate it in practice because it doesn't count. If you just have a chance to be out on that field, and play this game, it's different and it's special. I realized today how special it is, and how honored and privileged I am to be able to play in this league. And I never take it for granted . . .
"The thing I have to do is continue to get better. I know I can keep the turnovers down. I've just got to play within the system. That's what my coach tells me all the time - not try to do too much. Sometimes, I do that."
Then he said, more than once, that he had to "get out of Cleveland." Everybody laughed. They live in a survive-and-advance world, and the Eagles survived, and that is the ultimate truth. As for Vick, despite how bad this was, his ultimate truth has yet to be written
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Marcus Hayes: Just call it a game to build on
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CLEVELAND - The Eagles won their fifth preseason game, but just barely.
Wait. It wasn't preseason, was it? It just smelled that way.
Daily News/Inquirer
The Eagles' Brent Celek talks to former Eagles and current Cleveland Browns General Manager Tom Heckert before the Eagles play the Browns on Sunday, September 9, 2012. (Yong Kim/Staff Photographer )
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For the second consecutive season, a pedigreed group in green is expected to survive deep into January.
For the second consecutive season, a pedigreed group in green looked lousy in its opener, on the road, against a pathetic opponent.
Both times, they won.
Neither time, should it matter.
The Eagles scraped past the lousy Rams in St. Louis last season, then dropped four straight.
This time, against perhaps a worse team, they won by one point.
"We dodged a bazooka," said defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins.
Michael Vick, who missed all but 12 plays in the preseason due to hand and rib injuries, threw four interceptions. He was as bad as he ever has been . . . but he didn't incur any of the 12 penalties for 110 yards. And he didn't fumble to end the first drive; that was running back LeSean McCoy, stripped clean on a cutback.
This, against perhaps the worst team in the league.
Cleveland is a perpetual expansion franchise, reloaded once again.
The Browns started five rookies, chief among them 28-year-old quarterback Brandon Weeden, a former minor league pitcher who lacked his fastball. He threw four interceptions. His 5.1 passer rating was exactly 10 times worse than Vicks.
Featured back Trent Richardson, who missed the preseason following two knee surgeries, managed just 39 yards on 19 carries.
Yes, the Eagles' defense played effectively.
No, the Eagles' defense did not play a real NFL team.
The Eagles led, 10-3, at halftime.
If they play like this in a week when the Ravens visit, they will trail by 30.
And they know it.
"We felt like we played one of our worst games ever," said wide receiver Jason Avant. "And won. We feel like we just won the lottery."
Well, that's a step forward.
"Ugly game like this, in the past, we always lost," Avant said. "Oakland [in 2009]. Buffalo. Arizona."
Losses to the Bills and the Cardinals last season cost the Eagles a playoff berth.
A loss to the Browns on Opening Day might have blown the 2012 season to smithereens.
"We definitely dodged one there," said cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha.
The biggest name in a defensive backfield that underperformed last season, Asomugha and his unit shined Sunday.
Opposite corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie intercepted Weeden twice. Rookie nickel corner Brandon Boykin played well. Ohio native Kurt Coleman sealed the game with one of his two interceptions. Fellow safety Nate Allen made a couple of tackles, and Asomugha kept the Browns off the board with a touchdown-saving tackle in the second quarter that set up Coleman's first pick.
But, again, this was the Browns.
Can it really count?
Weeden on Sunday followed an illustrious line of failed franchise quarterbacks: Colt McCoy, Brady Quinn and Tim Couch.
Really, the Browns were better matched against the Temple Owls than the Eagles. Not only did the Browns start those five rookies, but once veteran corner Sheldon Brown left the game with a shoulder injury late in the first quarter, 11 of their top 22 players had fewer than three seasons of experience.
They call them the Baby Browns here in Cleveland.
The Eagles arrived ready to take the candy.
Cleveland, as a city, might never see a lovelier day than Sunday afternoon. Warm and breezy, sailboats and speedboats dotted the blue-green waves on Lake Erie both inside and beyond the breakwater, all under a cottonpuff sky.
Cleveland football fans might never see uglier football.
Vick could have had at least three other passes intercepted.
He fumbled twice; the Eagles recovered both.
McCoy lost 30 rushing yards in the second quarter on three holding penalties.
If ever a team deserved to lose, it was the Eagles.
But they did not.
"You saw a tough football team," said head coach Andy Reid, at once both ashamed and proud.
He has insisted that the 4-0 finish to the 4-8 start last season meant something.
Maybe it meant Sunday didn't become Oakland, or Buffalo, or Arizona. Maybe it meant that players didn't check out, as seemed to be the case so often last season, when the Dream Team went south.
Sunday, nobody bickered. Nobody cast blame.
"You can build with that attitude," Reid said.
"It's about how you fight," said Jenkins, who, last season and this, has become the defense's leader and spokesman. "I think we handled it good."
No one handled it worse last season than DeSean Jackson, who, seeking a contract extension, admitted unprofessionalism. Placated with a big-time deal, Jackson on Sunday quietly caught four passes for 77 yards, effectively served as a deep-threat decoy and even turned defender on one would-be interception.
Afterward, Jackson allowed that, even against a team like the Browns, the Eagles can lose focus.
"We've got to keep facing challenges," Jackson said, "not get complacent."
Well, not anymore.
At least they remained undefeated in preseason.
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