FanPost

Does Michael Vick Have Accuracy Issues?

[Note by JasonB, 09/14/11 11:52 AM EDT ] Did you know that there are more ways to learn about a QB's accuracy other than completion percentage? Most national did not know this, fortunately EaglesandRavens fan does.

Let's get one thing out of the way first. I love Vick. Anyone who did the BGN draft over the summer knew this when I took him first overall. I believe he has a skill set that is unmatched in the NFL. I mean really, what other quarterback in the NFL makes you completely change your defensive approach to a game. A lot of our drives were sustained this weekend by the talents of this man, yet power rankings have him listed as the reason for them not being ranked higher. Lets discuss this after the jump.

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via media.philly.com

8. Eagles (No. 9; 1-0): Mike Vick says he played "lights out." His completion percentage suggests he meant that literally. PFT
4. Philadelphia Eagles (LW: 5): The "Dream Team" came through in Week 1. QB Michael Vick completed less than 50 percent of his passes but that's acceptable when he nearly hits the century mark on the ground. SBNation
4. They did some nice things, but Mike Vick has to stay in the pocket more. Now he starts in Atlanta against his former team, which will be big. CBS Sports

Now for the most part I try to ignore certain comments in the media. Everyone thinks it's cool to try to call a player out. Whatever. As a big fan of this man though I felt I had to actually look deeper into his performance than just looking at the stats like these guys appear to have. Now understand, I hate the ways quarterbacks are rated. Completion percentage, quarterback rating, etc etc. There are just entirely too many intangibles to an NFL game to be able to compare QB's by this stat. You take 2 QB's of equal talent and put them against the best and worse defenses in the NFL and BAM, you have completely different stats. Michael Vicks stats from this week don't come anywhere near describing the performance he had. Was it "light's out"? Debatable..... Was he wildly inaccurate? That's what I'm here to find out.

Originally I planned to go play by play and discuss what I felt truly occurred on each pass. It became extremely long and boring. Instead I decided to use a chart to showcase my findings.

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To bring you up to speed on what this all means:

  1. Completions are obviously completions
  2. Bad passes were what I felt were passes that were either thrown off target or into traffic. Could be a good pass, just risky.
  3. Throw Aways are basically Vick getting rid of the ball when a play is going no where
  4. Obvious drops are obvious
  5. Excused are passes I felt were incomplete for a damn good reason

Ok so lets look at this. The first thing that bothered me was that last year Vick was scolded because he was causing his own sacks by holding onto the ball to long. Also was scolded in the preseason for forcing things. This game when something wasn't there he actually got rid of the ball, which contributed to his incompletions. Really people, what do you want from this guy. Every pass is not going to be a completion, yet you don't want him to force it, run it, or throw it away? This man just can't win. Next we look at the Excusables. In this case the instances were a pass interference call, a batted pass, and I nice throw and catch to Avant where he just couldn't keep his feet in. When you look at the drops in this game you may say that there were really only 3, which is true. But if you think about what the 2 drops by DeSean could have become, that's what makes the difference. Really a 187 yard 2 touchdown performance could have become a 260 yard 3 TD performance AT WORSE. I think that on the second drop by DeSean if he would have sacrificed his body a lil more he could have had it. Rewatching the game it looked as if he tried to brace his fall with his arm kinda, and it jarred the ball loose. Either way, water under the bridge.

When given time, and under pressure, Vick's completions were beautiful. His spirals were tighter than the happy place of my first conquest, and I lost my virginity at a young age... That back foot fade away TD pass to DeSean was so money.


On the flip side his incompletions ranged from bad to forgivable, to don't do that again. He had a worm burner and a high pass on 2 plays I remember off the top. The forgivables were the passes where he was trying to get the pass off milliseconds before being absolutely destroyed by defenders busting through. The don't do it agains are the plays where Vick sees that flicker of daylight and tries to zip the ball into a tight window in double/triple coverage, and every Eagles fan worldwide simultaneously holds their breath. Exhale ladies and gentleman, Vick escaped pick free. Really, of all the incompletions he threw on the day there were only a handful that I would truly call inaccurate. It has to be taken into account that when given a clean pocket Vick was outstanding. Inaccuracy under duress is understandable.

So to sum it all up, when we use my new Adjusted completions/attempt calculations ( removing penalty passes, drops,bat downs,etc) Vick was actually 14/21 for an adjusted completion percentage of 66.7% Anyone who truly took the time to watch Vick's performance should take this away from it. This man is talented. Solve the dilemma of the safety blitz (I remember someone mentioning how the bunch formation is a liability, and I agree 100%).Get SS on the field and spread the defense out. You give Vick a clean pocket and he will make defenses pay. I don't know who this guy is that these "analysts" are watching, but the quarterback of MY team is a guy that I have alot of faith in.