National Football League

Vick-Manning buildup leads to letdown

Published Nov. 7, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Fans came to see the marquee matchup of two well-known quarterbacks on Sunday in Philadelphia, but what they received were mostly mixed results.

The Philadelphia Eagles narrowly escaped with a 26-24 win over the visiting Indianapolis Colts, but the score shouldn’t have been that close.

Philadelphia quarterback Michael Vick made a bunch of must-see TV type of plays, but there were plenty of plays he left out on the field.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but either Vick wasn’t going through his passing progressions well enough or the receivers were not consistently getting open.

Vick simply ran the ball way too much. The veteran quarterback did his best Houdini act at times while under pressure from the Indianapolis pass rush, but he seemed to leave the pocket too quickly on many of his runs.

The key for a quarterback to run the West Coast offense efficiently is to let plays develop instead of looking to leave the pocket if he doesn’t see his first passing option getting open.

Vick did a much better job of going through his progressions during earlier wins this season on the road at the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars. But we need to give him credit for not turning over the ball. He has yet to throw an interception in any of his four starts. Considering he missed two years of play while being incarcerated on dogfighting charges, the Eagles have to be ecstatic with the mostly solid results they’re getting from him.

As for Peyton Manning, he did what he could while being shorthanded. The Colts dressed four receivers for the game, but lost second-year pro Austin Collie in the first half during a brutal collision with two Philadelphia defenders.

Thankfully, Collie wound up with a concussion and nothing more serious because the injury looked much worse.

Undrafted free-agent receiver Blair White, who took over the No. 3 role for Collie late in the second quarter and the entire second half, has good size but he doesn’t work the middle of the field as well as Collie. Manning clearly missed having Collie as a go-to passing option.

The bottom line is the Vick-Manning matchup didn’t live up to the hype.

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