Unofficially, Eagles quarterback Mike Vick remains day to day with an aggravated hamstring injury. Officially, he’s doubtful for Sunday’s game at Green Bay.
His status reconfirms that the team won’t put Vick back out on the field until he’s fully healthy. But even if/when he’s fully healthy, chances are he won’t be back on the field — barring injury to Nick Foles.
Per a league source, Vick realizes that the Eagles will now be inclined to give Foles a chance to show that he can be the team’s quarterback beyond 2013. Vick understands that his role, when healthy, most likely will be to serve as the backup to Foles — especially since rookie Matt Barkley has shown he’s not ready for game action.
It becomes one of the most uneventful benchings in recent memory. Though Vick won the job before the season with the idea that he’d have the job all year, his hamstring injury and reinjury combined with Foles’ lights-out performance against Oakland necessarily puts Foles in the driver’s seat. With owner Jeffrey Lurie identifying finding a franchise quarterback as the team’s top priority and essentially omitting Vick from the pool of potential candidates, the presumption now becomes that Vick won’t be back.
Unless, of course, he’s willing to accept his role and a salary that reflects it. While plenty of former starters who refused to admit that they are former starters essentially ran themselves out of a league that needs backup quarterbacks who are content with that role, Vick could enter a new phase of his career in which he’s paid handsomely to hold a clipboard and be ready to play.
If that’s all he’ll get anywhere else, why not fill that role in Philly?