Week 2. Eagles at Atlanta

Michael Vick throws a football like one of those things a geriatric uses to throw a tennis ball for a cooped-up, hyperactive dog - a ChuckIt!. I don’t even need to make a joke here about how Michael Vick has never used one of those for you to understand... that Michael Vick killed numerous dogs as a former iteration of himself. Returning to a part of that former self, Vick returned to Atlanta, his first team, to offer his unique and gorgeous array of talent to an accepting Atlanta defense. He picked apart zone blitzes and cover two’s like they were blintzes and chocolate covered almonds. Get it? Anyway he had three turnovers, two very much not his fault, a couple of touchdowns and lovely sack-avoiding-maneuvering before getting knocked out of the game in the second half. No worries, because his replacement is Franz Kafka. I mean Mike Kafka. Kafka is great too, not Mike, Franz. Mike is unproven, but played well actually and looked to be leading his Eagles to a scoring drive when Jeremy Maclin dropped a good pass on 4th down. So Matt Ryan took over with Vick gone and the Falcons won. Excellent game to watch and the Falcons, after lollypopping through a static 3rd Quarter, made a great run in the 4th to eventually jump ahead 35-31.

A thing I really like: LeSean McCoy’s incorruptible perseverance on every run. He refuses to accept a simple running call, for better or worse, by taking steps sideways and even backwards from the line of scrimmage. McCoy was last night, as watchable as he was effective. He rushed for 95 yards on 18 carries, and even with Vick in the game, was the offensive leader. McCoy (and the Eagles generally) play football like fans want it to be played, as though the offensive players are avatars motivated by entertaining as much as winning. McCoy runs self-consciously eccentric. He looks back over his shoulder after a fancy run at the linebacker who tackled him and smiles, as if he did the defender a favor in letting himself be tackled... this time. McCoy is a control freak, utilizing his offensive line as though they work for him, not with him. He is also, somehow either not written about much or extraordinarily underrated. Either way he’s eluded conversation by the announcers and by my friends (dad), until yesterday. I doubt if Vick stays out for another week he will go unnoticed. His game should not be effected negatively by the defensive attention though. Vick and DeSean Jackson are as noticeable as ice cream rubbed all over your own forehead and that doesn’t stop them from excelling game in and game out, in the same, be it extraordinary fashions. If McCoy turns out to be consistently outrageous (I do realize he had a statistically special season a year ago, but leave it, because I didn’t watch any games), this threesome of exploding diamonds might be mans’ best friend. And I mean that in the gayest way possible.