Michael Vick Won’t Be NFL’s MVP

But he will lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl

Ashley Fox, the great sports columnist for the Inquirer, has seen enough. Her vote is in. Michael Vick is the Most Valuable Player of the NFL this year. She made up her mind after watching Vick lead his team to a miraculous win over the New York Giants at the Meadowlands yesterday.

Fox makes a compelling case for Vick. She points out that the Eagles are 8-1 when Vick starts and finishes a game, that Vick has led the team to several improbable comebacks and has changed the attitude of the team.

All great points, but he won’t be the MVP. Tom Brady will be. Michael Vick will come in second in the voting.

It will play out like a bad high-school movie where the kid from the wrong side of the tracks has more talent and deserves it more, but the preppy rich kid still wins.

[SIGNUP]It’s not that Brady is a slouch. His quarterback statistics are better than Vicks. Brady has completed 66.6 percent of his passes for 31 touchdowns and only four interceptions. His quarterback rating is 109.9, the best in the league. Most importantly, Brady has kicked it into another gear of late, trouncing some of the better teams in the NFL. In a two-week span, New England beat the New York Jets and the Chicago Bears by a combined score of 81-10. Since New England does not lose in Foxborough and will get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, chances are they will be in the Super Bowl. Where they will face …

The Philadelphia Eagles.

You can already see it coming. It’s the Preps versus the Greasers. One team of such precision and discipline that it plays more like one machine than 11 men. One team that pins its hopes on the legs, heart and arm of one man. And that is why Ashley Fox is right. Michael Vick should be MVP, even though he won’t be.

Yes, Brady has more impressive passing stats. But the team is built around his abilities and has been for a decade. Vick took over the starting job this year when Kevin Kolb got hurt, and the team had to learn to play around Vick’s substantial talents. During that learning process, many, many times Vick had to take over and do it himself.  Given that fact, Vick’s 103.6 quarterback rating, 2755 yards and 20 touchdowns to five interceptions is as much a miracle as game at the Meadowlands. A game that Vick won with his legs, as much as his arm. It is the reason he should be MVP.

Vick has rushed for 613 yards and eight touchdowns in the 11 games he has played. If he had played every game, he probably would be over a thousand yards right now and among the top running backs in the league. It is an unfair comparison, but just for giggles, let’s compare Vick’s rushing statistics to Brady’s, who ran 28 times for a total of 17 yards and one touchdown.

The award is for the Most Valuable Player, not the Most Valuable Quarterback. Everything is supposed to be taken into consideration, but that both helps and hurts Vick. Because if you just compare Brady to Vick with what they have done for their respective teams and what they have done on the field, you come to the conclusion that Vick is more valuable and should win the award. When you add his history off the field and the controversy that may ensue if he wins, he won’t. At least not this year.

But remember, this is only Act Two of the story. The third act — and the happy ending — comes with the Super Bowl. In the bad high-school dramas, the Third Act is where the kid from the wrong side of the tracks finally gets his due and rides off with the girl.

If the Eagles beat New England in the Super Bowl, and Vick carries his team to yet another comeback, he will ride off with the MVP that really matters — the Super Bowl MVP.