He reached the playoffs the first time in 2002 as a 22-year-old scrambling phenom and took the upstart Falcons into hallowed Lambeau Field, where no opposing quarterback had ever won a playoff game. And he sprinted back to Atlanta with a stunning 27-7 win, the youngest quarterback in NFL history to win a playoff game.
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Two years later, he set an NFL quarterback playoff rushing record with 119 yards, completed 75 percent of his passes with touchdown passes to Alge Crumpler and Peerless Price, and the Falcons scored a franchise playoff-record 47 points in a 30-point rout of the Rams in the Georgia Dome on the way to the NFC Championship Game at the Linc.
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Michael Vick had already been to the playoffs twice, won a couple postseason games in record-setting fashion, joined Dan Marino and Bernie Kosar as the third quarterback to win playoff games in multiple seasons before his 25th birthday and reached an NFC Championship Game.
?It seemed so easy,? Vick marveled at his locker the other day. ?We went to the playoffs, we won playoff games, we came here to Philly and were within one game of the Super Bowl. I was young, and it just seemed so easy, and you start to think that it?s going to be like that every year, that you?re always going to go to the playoffs. But obviously it hasn?t happened like that.?
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Vick, who will make his sixth career opening-day start on Sunday, has started just one playoff game since that day in 2004 when the Eagles beat the Falcons 27-10 in the NFC title game and reached their only Super Bowl in the last 30 years, and he hasn?t won a postseason game in eight years.
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The Falcons didn?t reach the playoffs his last two years in Atlanta. Then came two years in prison, one year backing up Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb in Philly, a playoff loss to the Packers at the Linc in 2010 and a miserable 8-8 season last year.
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Vick isn?t a kid anymore. He?s 32 years old, the oldest player on the youngest Eagles team in 26 years and suddenly the sixth-oldest starting quarterback in the NFL, behind Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Carson Palmer, Drew Brees and just a couple months younger than Tony Romo.
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Asked what would make 2012 a successful season, Vick ponders the question for a good 10 seconds, staring out into space as he stands at his locker.
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When he answers, he speaks in almost a whisper.
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?Man,? he says. ?I ain?t got no ring on my finger. I ain?t got one. That?s it. I don?t know what else.
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?I?ve been there. Playoffs is playoffs, you know? But that?s the road you?ve got to take to where you want to go. Like every quarterback, I want a championship. That?s it.?
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Two years ago, after his remarkable start following Kolb?s opening-day injury, Vick was the hottest player in the NFL. As of mid-December, the Eagles were 10-4 and on track for a first-round bye, and Vick was making a case for MVP honors.
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Then came that unfathomable, blizzard-delayed Tuesday loss to Joe Webb and the Vikings, a first-round playoff exit to the Packers and then last year.
Vick was 8-2 in his first 10 starts as an Eagle with 19 touchdowns and five interceptions but 7-8 with 20 touchdowns and 16 interceptions in 15 starts since.
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In his only playoff game since the NFC Championship Game in 2004, Vick was 20 for 36 for 292 yards with a touchdown and an interception on a potential game-winning pass on the final play of the game. The Packers won 21-16 on their way to the Super Bowl championship.
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?That playoff game in 2010, we wanted to win, and it was just like it suddenly happened and we were in the playoffs,? Vick says now. ?We just didn?t seize the moment. Now, it?s all about seizing the moment ? getting an opportunity and taking full advantage of it.
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?As a team, we just want to put ourselves in a position to compete. I think that?s where it all starts. Our short-term goals are to be the best that we can be, week in and week out, and that?s how we?ll advance to the postseason.?
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But coming off an utterly unremarkable preseason in which he didn?t complete a pass longer than five yards, Vick goes into the 2012 season with little of the cachet he?s had the last couple years.
He?s nobody?s MVP candidate anymore, nobody?s hotshot.
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?Eats me up,? he said. ?But it drives me. It motivates me, how quickly you can suddenly be overlooked.
?It?s always about your last game. I?ve always said you?re only as good as your last game, and not making the playoffs, you know, it does leave a bitter taste in your mouth because that?s what you?ve worked so hard for and the entire off-season is predicated on getting to the postseason and then when you don?t make it, it feels like it?s all for nothing. You did all that work, all for nothing. You let another opportunity pass you by.?
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The sub-context for this entire season will be owner Jeff Lurie?s dramatic disclosure last week that head coach Andy Reid will not return for a 15th season if the Eagles don?t improve dramatically over last year?s 8-8 disaster.
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?When I heard it, I didn?t need to hear that because I know exactly what we?re facing, what we want to accomplish this season, and if that?s not the goal, then what is it?? Vick said.
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?Our owner, he wants success for this football team, and he put the pieces in place for us and it?s up to us to go out and deliver. We just got to do it.?
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Lurie?s remarks don?t leave a lot of wiggle room for Vick. Vick understands that if Reid isn?t here, there?s a good chance he won?t be here, either.
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So another disappointing season means he could be a 33-year-old without a playoff win in nine years searching for a job, preparing to learn another new system, separated from his comfort zone of Reid and Marty Mornhinweg for the first time since he revived his career.
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?We feel like there is a need to win, and win quickly,? Vick said. ?Coach Reid talked to us [Monday] about staying the course, maintaining our focus, going in there week in and week out and controlling what we can control.
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?We can sit and talk all day until our faces turn blue, but ? we still have to make it happen. We have a lot of things to fight for, every individual in this locker room.?
E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com
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