Michael Vick will have an MRI on his hamstring Monday after coming up lame against the Giants and leaving the game in the second quarter Sunday. Photo courtesy: Philadelphiaeagles.com
Michael Vick's lasting image in Philadelphia may very well wind up being the 33-year old sitting on the sideline with a towel draped over his head as Matt Barkley came on to relieve him after pulling up lame on his already pulled hamstring.
Vick eerily similar to when he pulled his hamstring streaking down the sideline at MetLife Stadium three weeks ago came up lame grabbing his right hammy along the sidelines in the second quarter Sunday and was pulled one series later in the Philadelphia Eagles disheartening 15-7 loss to the New York Giants.
Afterwards Vick revealed that the injury may be much worse than earlier anticipated.
“I felt good going in," he said. "I felt like I did everything that I was supposed to do to reassure myself that I could go out and play. But there’s just nothing like actually being in the moment and having to move and having to react. When I did that, that’s when I pulled it again. I felt the pop.”
Vick will undergo an MRI Monday to determine the severity of the pull and whether or not he aggravated the injury by playing.
“I just have an unfortunate hamstring injury,” Vick Said. “It happens in football. I hurt my groin twice in the first two games, and I was still able to play. It’s just, this one is of a different magnitude. I can’t question why it happened. I never had a hamstring injury this bad. I really don’t know what to tell you.”
What needs to be taken into account here is the fact that Vick has never suffered a hamstring injury at 33 years of age and his age certainly is a factor at this point as it's no secret that injuries become more difficult to bounce back from as athletes enter the latter stages of their career.
For the Eagles it creates an even dicier situation of uncertainty with Vick possibly on the shelf for an extended period of time.
With Nick Foles still yet to be cleared to return to practice from his concussion suffered in week seven against the Dallas Cowboys, it's entirely possible that Matt Barkley makes his first career start next Sunday in Oakland against the Raiders.
This season alone Vick has missed roughly three games of action, and to a head coach who preaches that durability is the best kind of ability, it's easy to forsee a scenario where Chip Kelly turns to 24-year old Nick Foles or even Barkley as this team's starting quarterback for the remainder of the season simply to provide stability to the most critical position in sports.
“I think we have some instability at the quarterback position,” said Kelly.
“Right now we’re unstable at the quarterback spot and we’re not playing well at the quarterback spot, and we lost our last two games because of it. I think when you’re unsettled at that position in this league, it’s real difficult,”
Vick has provided anything but stability after missing nine of 24 starts the past two seasons.
For that reason alone let alone the results coming out of the MRI tube Monday, Kelly certainly has a difficult decision to make if he truly hopes to stabalize the quarterback position for the second half of this, his first NFL season.
Matt Lombardo is the Editor-In-Chief of Eagledelphia and also an on-air personality on 97.5 FM The Fanatic in Philadelphia. Join the conversation and follow Matt on Twitter.
