Dr. Jason Johnson

Professor of Political Science. Politics Editor for The Root. Latest Book: Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell

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Michael Vick

Philadelphia Eagles Fire Head Coach Andy Reid after 14 Seasons… This Fan Exhales

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Please allow a moment of silence as we sprinkle a big greasy Cheesesteak sandwich on the ground for the newly unemployed Andy Reid. The long term coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, the longest serving coach on any team in the NFL was fired today, after a pathetic 4-12 season, which was the culmination of two straight years of missing in the playoffs and the first two consecutive losing seasons of his 14 year career. Reid’s career will be dissected by analysts and commentators for days, but as a fan, I don’t care about that, because this firing finally answers the question that every Eagles fan has been quietly asking themselves since 2010: Was Donovan McNabb propping up the poor coaching of Andy Reid, or was Andy Reid covering for the questionable skills of Donovan McNabb? It took almost three years to get here, but we finally know our answer.

You can’t discuss the firing of Andy Reid without discussing former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. Reid drafted McNabb 2nd overall in 1999 despite protests from the notoriously vulgar Eagles fans who wanted running back Ricky Williams instead. From 1999 to 2010 when McNabb was traded to the Washington Redskins the Reid / McNabb combination led a wildly successful Eagles squad. They repeatedly won the NFC East in an era when it was considered the toughest in the league. They went to five NFC Championship games (three of them were at home) and one Super-bowl. From 1999-2010 they had the third highest winning percentage of any Coach / Quarterback combination in the league. The only combinations with higher winning percentages than them during that decade were Tony Dungy/ Peyton Manning and Bill Belichick / Tom Brady. Not bad, until you consider that the first two duos each appeared in multiple superbowls during that same time period and won at least one a piece. And therein lies the question that has always hung over Andy Reid. Why couldn’t he win the big game? Was it him, or Donovan or both of them?

The high scoring exciting nature of the Reid / McNabb era helped mask their debilitating flaws as both player and coach. Donovan and Andy both complemented and covered for each other. Donovan McNabb was athletic and had a high football IQ, so for years he could improvise and cover for Andy Reid’s horribly predictable play calling and legendarily bad clock management. At the same time, Andy Reid organized his entire team around McNabb, giving him running backs who could catch short screen passes and defenses that provided turnovers, which made up for McNabb’s inaccurate throws and inability to sustain long drives down the field. Their loyalty to each other paid off for years. McNabb took all the heat for the T.O. debacle, not to mention horrible clock management and play-calling in the Superbowl and the painful 2008 NFC Championship loss to the Cardinals when both situations could’ve been fixed with better coaching. On the flip side, Reid constantly fended off attempts to trade McNabb and removed other quarterbacks or players that challenged McNabb’s tenuous leadership on the team (Jeff Garcia, Kevin Kolb and believe it or not A.J Feely at one point.)  This helped create the myth that Reid was a great game day coach, even though he was terrible at half-time adjustments. This helped create the myth that Reid was a great quarterbacks coach, even though no quarterback Reid ever drafted or traded for besides McNabb was ever able to keep a starting job.

When the Eagles traded Donovan McNabb to the Redskins in 2010 pundits lauded it as another example of Reid cutting ties right before a player lost a step. But as a fan I knew better. The clock was running on Reid, he no longer had Donovan as a cover for his poor decision making, lack of preparation and lackadaisical game planning.  He had a great young offensive team, a quarterback he had drafted high (Kevin Kolb) whom he’d groomed for years. If McNabb thrived on another team and Reid failed we’d have our answer. If Reid thrived with another quarterback and McNabb failed we’d have our answer. Either way, the clock was ticking. But anyone who’s followed Andy Reid knows he was never that good a clock management.

Donovan moped his way through a season and a half with the Redskins and Vikings before finally realizing his heart just wasn’t in the game anymore. Reid would’ve flamed out just as fast but McNabb left him one last cover to extend his coaching career: Michael Vick. McNabb had lobbied for the Eagles to pick up Vick after his two year stint in jail, as a bit of a rehab project in 2010. When Kevin Kolb turned out to be a horrible bust of a player Vick stepped in and kept Reid in a job for another season with his dynamic play. But eventually Michael Vick proved to be fool’s gold, the New Coke to Donovan McNabb’s original recipe. All of the talent and fizz but none of durability, football IQ or substance. After scrambling around and firing people and laying blame and trotting out Nick Foles Andy Reid is finally done and Philadelphia and we fans got our final answer.

Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb were both frustratingly borderline talents. They were tantalizingly really really good without ever being great. There are a lot of reasons Andy Reid got fired, his inability to manage a defense after Jim Johnson passed in 2010, his poor drafting, and his off the field troubles with his children all played a role. But in the end Reid, like Dan Reeves, Mike Shannahan and Jeff Fisher before him, was exposed as a mediocre coach who couldn’t get it done without his star quarterback.  Andy will go on and sucker some other team into hiring him, and Donovan will work his way up the NFL analyst ladder, but neither of them will ever reach the heights they saw in 2000’s again. Thanks for the memories Andy. The confidence of knowing we had football in January, the annual “I swear I’ll never watch Philly again” rants, the depressing Mondays and my pathological desire to find an Eagles bar no matter where I lived. I couldn’t think of a better more mediocre coach to spend the last 14 years with.

This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.

Eagles vs Falcons: The Most Important Game in Michael Vick’s Life

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Some athletes are very good in their sports, establish an incredible legacy off the field, enter the Hall of Fame for that sport and are completely unrecognizable to 60% of the U.S. population. The main reason being that unless you are a Hockey Fan, or were a major football and baseball fan in the 1990s, you probably couldn’t recognize Wayne Gretzky or Bo Jackson if you saw them at your local grocery store. Then you have the athletes like Jose Canseco, now Lance Armstrong and yes now Michael Vick. Athletes whose stories transcended the sports field (for good or for ill) and made it into popular consciousness. In the case of Vick, his dog-fighting-to-prison-to-NFL again story had all of the elements of an American redemption story, violence, race, sex, and sports. But on Sunday that story may end. On Sunday at 1:00 we may see the final chapter of the Michael Vick saga and it will not be pretty either way the story ends.

Michael Vick is much bigger than sports, he has become, over the course of the last 7 years or so a touchtone for every racial, financial and cultural discussion regarding the National Football League. When you think about memes in sports, that move from the sports bars on Sunday to the metro bus ride to talking to your friends and your Mom on a Sunday night, which one doesn’t he hit?

–  The “Running” vs. “Pocket” highly racialized quarterback controversy, where Vick’s physical skills were lauded and his mental capacity for the sport diminished

–  The “Spoiled Athlete” meme, where Vick being scoring essentially the biggest contract in NFL history when he was with the Falcons only to blow it all for off the field behavior

– The Dog Fighting Scandal – Nuff Said’

–   The Good vs. Bad Black story – When Vick was picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles to back up Donovan McNabb he entered one of the most racially polarized sports cities in America. Where the ‘authenticity’ of the city’s premiere QB Donovan McNabb was constantly questioned with ex-felons like Vick used as an example of someone with more ‘street cred’

The list goes on and on. I don’t think there is one athlete in the NFL who has had more ink spilled on him in the last 7 years that isn’t named Terrell Owens. And while everyone has their opinion on whether or not Michael Vick has redeemed himself from Dog-Fighting, or whether he is truly sorry, or whether he is better than Donovan McNabb, one thing remains abundantly clear: His performance on the field has not lived up to his first year hype. After ripping the Eagles starting QB  job out of the hands of perpetual back-up Kevin Kolb in 2010 Michael Vick looked every bit like the superstar that many wanted him to be during his lack-luster days back in Atlanta. He was rewarded with a huge contract, and then he proceeded to make the entire team and organization look like fools. Not for his off the field conduct, which has been exemplary (given than most NFL players aren’t in trouble with the law anyway), but his on the field performance has been terrible. He was constantly hurt in the 2011-2012 season which cost the Eagles a pretty clear path to the playoffs. This year he’s become a turnover machine, and has somehow reduced one of the most talented rosters in the league to next to last place in scoring average. And now the biggest challenge remains.

The entire Philadelphia Eagles organization hangs on the precipice of the most dreaded word in professional football: “Re-building”. In football terms that means your team is bad, and you’re about to face anywhere from 5 to 10 years of desperately trying to find a coach, or a quarterback or both that will return your team to relevance. Some teams can delay this, the Titans went from Steve McNair to Vince Young who managed to keep the team afloat for a few years. But usually you end up like the Miami Dolphins, or the Denver Broncos or the Dallas Cowboys, all franchises that spent almost a decade trying to find another signal caller when their former franchise guy retired or lost his game. The team is now 3-3, and on Sunday will face the 6-0 Atlanta Falcons, Michael Vick’s old team in a game that will more or less define the future. If the Eagles lose, their playoff chances look pretty dim with half the season gone. This will likely be the end of Coach Andy Reid, the longest tenured coach in the NFL. Not during the season mind you, but with 100 million invested in Vick and mediocre seasons since McNabb left Reid will likely see his last year on the Eagle’s sideline. If the Eagles lose, Michael Vick becomes just another example of the over protected black athlete who had god given talents but never had the work ethic. If Vick loses to his former team, a game that he should be up for more than ANY other, everyone will have been ‘right’ about him.

Of course the reverse is true as well. The Falcons are 6-0, and are ripe for a loss since going undefeated is challenging in today’s NFL. A Vick victory may give his career and the Eagles a new chapter. It may be the redemption story that springs him into another level, from thug to hero, to star to comeback-kid. But we won’t know that until tomorrow at 4:15 p.m. Either way, one of the longest running cultural and racial stories in the NFL will have a new chapter, we’ll have to see if that’s the end of the story, or a cliff-hanger to an all new series.

This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.