Brady or Vick for MVP?: A Doggone Tough Question!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

Tom Brady for MVP? Absolutely! A no-brainer. Tom Terrific has been all of that and then some this year.

But wait a minute. As much as we may not want to acknowledge it here in New England, there is another legitimate MVP candidate out there and his last name isn’t Manning.

Dog lovers might say that MVP stand for Most Valuable Punk, but Michael Vick is very much in the mix when it comes to consideration for the NFL’s top individual award.

Both Brady’s Patriots and Vick’s Eagles are in first place in their respective divisions. Neither team would be there if they weren’t quarterbacked by those two men.

Let’s look at the numbers for both players:

TOM BRADY: (14 games)                                MICHAEL VICK: (11 games)
Record: (12-2)                                                     Record: (8-3)
299-449 (66.6%) 3561 yds 31 TD 4 INT        208-329 (63.2%) 2755 yds 20 TD 5 INT
28 carries 17 yards 0.6 yds/carry 1 TD           92 carries 613 yards 6.7 yds/carry 8 TD

Brady’s numbers come as no surprise. While they don’t quite stack up to his 2007 MVP numbers, they are pretty damn close. And, let’s face it, we have become so spoiled by Brady that we now expect this kind of greatness consistently.

As for Michael Vick, not so much. Just two years removed from the slammer, Vick has taken his game to a new level in 2010. Were it not for a rib injury suffered in week 4 which kept him out of 3 ½ games, Vick may very well have become the first player in NFL history to pass for 4000 yards and rush for 1000 yards in a single season.

That’s kind of ironic because coming into the season, Vick was penciled in as the Eagles’ back-up behind Kevin Kolb. However, Eagles coach Andy Reid quickly realized what everyone else in Philadelphia already knew during the preseason and that was that Vick represented Philly’s best chance to win the NFC East.

Who knows how the panel of 50 sportswriters and sportscasters will vote come season’s end. Will they play moral judge and jury and hold Vick’s past transgressions against him while casting their MVP ballots or will they simply vote for the player they believe is either the best individual player in the NFL or the one who is most valuable to his team?

Let me state for the record that I am an unabashed dog lover. I grew up with dogs in my house. My first full time job as a teenager was taking care of dogs over the course of two summers at a dog kennel in Boxford, Massachusetts. Needless to say, I found Vick’s actions a few years ago completely reprehensible.

Having said that, I also believe that Michael Vick has paid his debt to society and the NFL for his heinous crimes. And that is why, if I had an MVP vote, I would not hold it against him.

That’s not to say that Michael Vick would get my vote. There’s still two weeks left in the regular season to play this battle out and I believe those two weeks may be needed to determine a winner.

As a Patriots fan, I would love nothing more than to see Tom Brady with the 2010 NFL MVP award. As a football fan, I would love nothing more than to think that those who have been given the responsibility to vote for the award take that responsibility seriously and don’t overstep their bounds when considering the candidates.