Dealing with Vick

[Fritz]

Maple Leafs FF thread got me to wondering about hometown boy Mike Vick.

The NFL is a reactive league, and Mike Vick gave them plenty to react to. When I look around the league, and especially their division, I don't see any "stop Vick" moves. Have I missed something? Is anyone constructing an anti-Vick defense?

[Anrhydeddu]

I'm trying my best to be anti-Vick. :)

[TroyF]

Fritz,

Tampa did last year. They shadowed him with 2 LB's instead of one. They tried to bracket him in.

You could do that last year because the Falcons didn't have anyone you really had to worry about at the WR position. Contain Crumpler with a short zone and you could man up the rest of their WR.

It'll be interesting to see how effective the 2 spy scheme works when the defense actually has WR to worry about.

TroyF

[Travis]

You missed it. I posted in the FF thread about the Seahawks shadowing Simmons on him, and I know at least one other team did it before them (as it was mentioned in the broadcast) but I don't remember right now who it was. I believe in both situations it worked pretty well at containing him as a runner, though against the Seahawks, we broke down in coverage late in the game letting the Falcons make some big plays through the air to get into the game.

But yes, it worked fairly well, but it takes one helluva LB to pull it off.

[Fritz]

Perhaps I was unclear (as usual)

I understand the techniques teams are developing, but are they making personnel moves because of Vick?

[albionmoonlight]

The Saints have gotten a lot faster on D, though that has as much to do with their having played bad defense all year as it does with having played bad defense against Vick.

[Travis]

I'd give it another year before teams in the division will really go that far. TB and Sea both did a good job of stopping him from beating them with his legs by shadowing (whether it be a 2 man job or 1), though I think a lot of it will come down to whether a Price/Crumpler combination is enough to force teams to use enough cover guys that Vick can win games on the ground alone. If that's the case, if anything I think you'll see some big time corners come into the division so they can man up on Atlanta's receivers and use the 2 shadow on Vick.

[Bee]

I think he needs to show he can actually dominate games consistently before teams will start making personnel moves to address his skills.

[Kodos]

Tampa certainly was successful against him. But then their defense is not your average defense.

[GrantDawg]

Chicago also did a decent job.

[Travis]

So far we're looking at 3 teams with some really good LB's doing a job on Vick, and while I'm not overly familiar with Chicago's DB's, TB and Sea both have some very good cover corner's as well. Should be interesting to see how many teams subscribe to this theory this year, and if Atl can come up with a game plan to either confuse that style D, or simply beat it.

[Radii]

I think Atlanta needs to win something besides a playoff game in Lambeau before teams go making personnel changes based on Vick. But what do I know? :)

[FBPro]

I think that it will be interesting to see how Vick fares against any team this year but particularly those teams that contained him on previous attempts-given that he really had very poor reciever choices before now. By that I am not saying that the Falcons now have the answer at WR, but I'd say they have a much improved wide-out picture now.

If nothingelse, it WILL be fun to watch.

[CAsterling]

I don't think you need a stop Mike Vick defense, with his off-season attitude towards the franchise, he could be doing his own stop the Mike Vick defense by pissing off his teammates.

P.S As you may guess I am anti-Vick, and hope that he has a Randall Cunningham like career.:D

[Tigercat]

Bottom line with Vick is he still beats you with his legs(90% of the time) and he still does it to only one side of the field(90% of the time). Yes hes a freak, perhaps the greatest freak the NFL has ever seen. BUT given the two points above, I think it is possible for a good NFL D coordinator with a good D to construct a plan so that Vick will not beat you. One thing lost last year while Vick was running around was how good the Atl. D was, if they step down from the level they played at last year, and if Vick does have a Sophmore(well redshirt Sophmore at least) slump the Falcons will miss the playoffs.