Michael Vick, now happily ensconced as quarterback for the Super Bowl-ready Philadelphia Eagles, told the Atlanta media yesterday that “the Georgia Dome is Matt Ryan’s house now.”
An impartial accounting of the number of #7 jerseys still in the Dome on game-days might say otherwise.
In his brief, incendiary time in a Falcons uniform, Michael Vick redefined the Atlanta sports scene like no other athlete before him. Indeed, his name transcended sports, to where Coca Cola and CNN took deferential steps backward in discussions of the “Atlanta” brand. And as a marketable sports personality, Vick applied his name to businesses well outside the scope of athletic products and electrolyte drink, signing endorsement deals with Kraft foods, Hasbro toys, and even Air-Tran.
I would compare Vick’s return to Atlanta, playing at the top of his game, to Kurt Warner’s return to St Louis as a quarterback for the division rival Cardinals, but that comparison fails. While Warner was revered in St Louis, he was just one of a pantheon of demigods associated with the Greatest Show era Rams, sharing his Olympian peak with Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt.
In Atlanta, Vick was it. There was no supporting cast worth noting, no one to share the spotlight. (Insert mild apologies to Keith Brooking and Warrick Dunn here.) So the faithful glommed on to him and his jersey in such fervor that they ignored multiple warning signs that he may not be all that they needed him to be. Flipping off the home crowd after a mid-season loss. Trying to smuggle pot on board an Air-Tran flight. “Ron Mexico.” In the local court of opinion, Vick was either excused on a blanket “boys will be boys” ruling, or defended vigorously from attacks by the national media, or both.
His eventual fall from grace for dogfighting, sudden and shocking to the Vick fan base, and not at all to anyone else, created a kind of psychic shock around the franchise.
Vick was their savior, the people’s champion, the one who would finally lead this franchise to glory and complete what Jamal Anderson and the ’98 team had started. Now he was Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
To the rest of the world, he was evil incarnate. But to those who invested their whole sports fandom (and maybe a little more) in Vick, this turn from face to heel had the ring of false theater to it. After the shock wore off, the old defenses came back. He was made an example of because of his popularity, they’ll say. No one else serves the kind of time he did for what he did, they’ll point out. We told you he’d come back, they’ll say triumphantly.
Vick fans in Atlanta been waiting for his inevitable redemption all this time. And though it comes now in a different uniform, they’re ready to celebrate his return.
One man eager to welcome Michael Vick (and get it over with)? Matt Ryan.
You have to feel for Matt Ryan. He has been the good guy who stepped in after the entire city crashed hard, the rebound boyfriend trying to make himself into marriage material. He has been everything Vick hasn’t — a quiet public persona, a model of good behavior, and a good to very-good pocket passer.
Now he has to watch as the cleaned-up ex-boyfriend, the bad boy who trampled all over the hearts of Atlantans, comes back to town. To the house he moved into.
Most exasperating for Ryan is to see that Vick has not only been polished up and forcibly matured during his year of penance in Philly, he’s actually become a much better quarterback, one who can stand toe-to-toe with Ryan and make all of the same throws (and a few more), while making plays with his feet that no other QB in the game can. Ryan can make the fans cheer; Vick can make them swoon.
The Atlanta media asked Vick about this, and he gave a coy response:
Q. Can you appreciate the position that Matt Ryan is in having to follow you in Atlanta and still looking up in the stands and seeing your jersey?
A. I think it’s a plus for me and it’s motivation for Ryan to play better, to be the best that he can be. Make sure that he captures those fans as well. I think he’s done a great job of doing that. Fans are allowed to like as many people as the want, as many quarterbacks as they want. I think it’s a good thing for both of us.
There’s no doubt Atlanta appreciates Ryan for all he’s done. They’ve become a playoff team again, and put together consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. They’re more stable now. Happier, even. But do they love him like they loved Vick? No. And until Ryan gives them something Vick never did — notably, a ring — they never will.
That puts double weight on the importance of winning this game for Ryan and the home team. Not only is it a chance to win back some hearts and minds of those kids raised on #7, but it’s a must-win game for an 0-1 team with thoughts of contention against one of the NFC’s preeminent threats to win the Super Bowl.
You have to feel for Ryan. It might be an impossible task.
