There's something disturbingly troubling about Michael Vick. The more he is paid, the more he suffers a siege of injuries, which undermines the "Dream Team" and the Philadelphia Eagles in flourishing among the most unpredictable NFC East contender.
In the aftermath of Vick's diagnosis, he sustained a bruised right hand and not nearly worth the $100 million that Jeffery Lurie lavished to his superstar with flaws in releasing the ball as quickly as possible to avoid the monstrous blow.
It's a game where hard contact is deadly, where pass throwers bear the abuse from brawny defenders who have no sympathy for the man committed to a team sport of physicality, brutality and extreme force.
The problem here is Vick has become the superstar to blame for suffering the hand injury by holding onto the ball too long and trying his hardest to defy the unthinkable. It's the price he pays for trying to be the star and dust by defenders, and though he has the quickness and agility, he is prone to injuries.
When it comes to Vick, he is normally believed to be invincible and untouchable, a godlike hero of many attributes. But it was all never true, even though he seemed like the fastest man on earth, even though he ran and dashed his way into the end zone on a series of plays no other player could replicate, proving that he is just as much as human as every other player in the league.
Without Vick, the Eagles are a vulnerable football team. With him, Philly can likely win a Super Bowl, but as long as he is absent and debilitated by injuries to sideline him, the Eagles won't prevail. The flurry of hits Vick takes is from over scrambling and dancing in the pocket too long, a superstar who takes the beating more than other quarterbacks.
This week, just as of last week when he suffered a concussion and had to leave the game on a Sunday night in the loss against Atlanta, he is the blame for the apparent late-hits. Now, in consecutive losses, Vick is irate and whining about the no-calls, grumbling of not getting late-hit calls from referees in the Eagles' 29-16 loss to the Giants.
What he honestly feels, though, is that Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady receives fair treatment from the refs, a perception he is insisting on refusing to admit and his simplicity of holding on to the ball too long before delivering a pass into the arms of his wide receivers. When he started talking nonsense, absolute drivel, at the podium after the loss, Vick cried about the lack of protection and fairness from the referees.
This was Sunday, and in a stunning defeat against the Giants, he shamefully blamed the refs without even discussing his mistakes or where he could improve. He's not motivated but he's inconsistent, bullied and harassed each week in what he thinks is unfair since he has not gotten the calls he wanted after suffering injuries.
It's not beyond Vick's capacity to popularize football, a star everybody watches closely, a television star more than a franchise quarterback for a promising team on quest to reach the Super Bowl. But he seems like a spoiled brat not fully having a good state of mind to master the game of football, not fully healthy to be deemed as one of the greatest quarterbacks this season.
It seems like the Eagles pampered Vick, and now he is asking for the refs to give him preferential treatment, all because the name on the back of his jersey, all because he's the million dollar man who really has not proven to be a franchise star.
It's even possible he expects refs to blow the whistle on every call, just somebody -- any player -- that maybe mitigates contact. But what he must realize is football is a contact sport, and as long as he is explosive or even stands as centralized threat to any team, he'll be taking some beatings.
There is something weird here, and it happens to be Vick -- not blaming himself. It's only fair for Vick to blame himself.
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