Apparently Doug Gottlieb decided to let his intern write questions for him because this conversation went south pretty quickly with such barn burners as Doesn’t it keep you up at night that Michael Vick is a Super Bowl MVP now and while you coached him he only went to 3 Pro Bowls? Doug then goes Jim Rome mode, smugly needling Mora by basically implying that he didn’t get the best out of Vick and that’s why he’s no longer coach of the Falcons (catch that smirk in the video), and even asked Mora to tell fans how they should feel about Donovan returning to Philly.  Isn’t that what we all hate most about sports pundits?

Look I’m not about to say the guy doesn’t look great out there, he absolutely does.  But to Coach’s point, he was already a big deal when he was in Atlanta, and it HAS only been 2.5 games; certainly a little premature to be annointing Vick the new king of the NFL.  Hindsight is 20/20, my friend, but any underwhelmed Falcons fan worth his salt should know EXACTLY who to blame for Vick’s glass ceiling in Atlanta.  And it is a coach.  Just not a Falcons coach.  That’s right, I’m talking of course about John Madden, circa 2004.  Vick might be the single greatest catch that the Madden Curse has ever made.  Sure, Marshall Faulk injured his ankle and went from Super Bowl MVP to a sub-1000 yard runner in 2003, but after Vick appeared on the cover the following year, he broke his leg, played just 5 games, started fighting dogs, and the rest is history.

It’s also entirely possible that the reason Vick describes himself as more patient and mature than he was before isn’t because he had the wrong coach in Atlanta, but because he spent 19 months in prison doing whatever the hell athletes do in there that doesn’t involve partying, slamming hookers, and then running over people in your Bentley on the drunk-drive home from da club. Just sayin.

Whatever it was he did in there, it probably involved a lot of working out and introspection – pretty good ways to make a man better at whatever he’s trying to do on the outside.  And isn’t that the point of prison?

Follow Mike on Twitter @mickeyvee and read his ramblings on other topics at Wannabe Genius.

Comments are closed.