Michael Vick Doesn't Take Much From Preseason Opener, Should We?

As I noted in the previous post, Michael Vick and the Eagles played six snaps against the Steelers. He completed 3 of 4 passes, the offense went three and out twice.

"There are going to be times in the season where we may go three-and-out two times," said Vick. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish. Obviously it's a preseason game, but we would have loved to have gotten back out there and made some plays. We play Pittsburgh in the regular season and we'll have them for four quarters. The preseason is cool but it's also tough at the same time because you can't get into a rhythm."

First off Mike, the preseason is not cool. Second, I agree. It's hard to take much from a game where the offense plays 6 snaps. They possessed the ball for about 3 and a half minutes.

In any other game, we wouldn't care if the Eagles offense started off with a pair 3-and-outs. That is, provided they did something good afterward. We'd look at the game as a whole. In preseason, that's not an option. Still, let's not pretend that 6 snaps and 3.5 minutes tells us all that much about a team.

This isn't to say we learn nothing from preseason. Because you certainly will hear fans claiming the preseason means "nothing," which isn't true. Vanilla playbooks can only explain away so much. Performances in a practice game mean something, but it all has to be in context. Two series doesn't say much, but if they're followed by 3 quarters of underwhelming play next week? Well, then there's something to talk about.