Usually I find the Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach known as Andy Reid to be stubborn and make odd decisions. But his latest decision of making Michael Vick the permanent starter for team is a touchdown in my opinion. Why? Well for starters the guy that was the starter, Mr. Kevin Kolb, has 4 years experience in backing up Donovan McNabb while Vick has 4 years starting experience and 1 year being around Donovan McNabb. Mr. Kevin Kolb has only started 2 regular season games while Vick has started 52. That's a 50 game difference in favor of Vick for anyone who is mathematically challenged. Michael Vick, using simple logic, should have been the starter going into the season, but good ol' Andy saw something in Kolb from that 1 start he made last year to peg him as his starter going into the season. Long story short Kolb took a shot to the noggin and Vick got his chance which he then seized a ran away with. He still hasn't stopped running, proverbially speaking obviously. Andy Reid saw this and heard the loud cries of the crazy Philly fans screaming to keep Vick as the starter and decided to grant the fans their wish, for once.
Now experience is not the only reason why Vick should get the job over Kolb because everyone has to be a rookie at some point. Vick's resurgence is also not the only reason he should get the job over Kolb because the first game the defense wasn't prepared to see Vick under center and the second game was against the lowly Lions so you could definitely argue his resurgence is really just a fluke. Vick deserves to start in Philly because he fits as the starter in Philly. If you think about, Mike Vick is just a leaner, faster, slightly less accurate, younger Donovan McNabb. If you look at Vick and McNabb's stat lines over the years you will see that they are strikingly similar. The only difference between them was Vick was more of a scrambler and so he has more rushing yards and McNabb is a pocket passer and so he had more passing yards and a better completion percentage. Plus the new Vick has strived to be more of a pocket passer. Case and point last game against the Lions, he only rushed the ball 7 times compared to deciding to get rid of it 34 times. This basically means that Vick is slowly transforming himself into Donovan McNabb when Donovan McNabb could run. The last time the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl was in 2004 when McNabb was 27 and could still run. Now I'm not picking them to appear in this year's Super Bowl; I'm simply pointing out that when the Eagles had a pocket passer who could run they made it to the Super Bowl.
Another reason Vick is the better fit is the offensive line. I look at the offensive line and I only see two premiere linemen in Jason Peters and Todd Herremanns, which to me seems like it will have its problems. Vick hasn't even played 2 full games and he's already been sacked nine times, and before Vick entered the first game Kolb had been sacked three times. While this doesn't bode well for the Eagles, it does bode well for Vick. Vick being the faster and elusive one between him and Kolb, it only seems right to put him behind the center so he can better dodge the defenders that escape the weak line. Vick did so masterfully against the Packers in Week 1 has he scrambled 11 times (I didn't watch the whole game some of these might have been by the design) for over 100 yards.
The bottom line is that Vick is the solution in Phildelphia until he shows that he can no longer run or throw, and considering that he's only played 1 full NFL season and 3 seasons of 15 games that could be awhile. Vick's age might be 30, but Vick's football age is probably about 26 or 27. This means that his body has not taken the beating that a starting QB at age 30 should have. I can see Vick having his excellent speed for another three years and I don't see the drop off afterwards being all that big unless he has a leg injury somewhere in there.
So to conclude, Andy Reid is happy; Mike Vick is happy; and Philly fans are especially happy and I wouldn't be surprised if they're shouting "V for Vicktory!" right about now.
References:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/stats?playerId=2549
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/stats?playerId=1753
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=10480
http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/eagles_files/html/depth_chart_rosters_1.html