Michael Vick isn’t saying that the New York Jets would be a winner with him starting at quarterback. But he does think the team would have won more games if he had started from Week 1. Via NJ.com…
“In my heart, I feel like on any team, I can be the starter, as long as it’s not an Aaron Rodgers or a Ben Roethlisberger,” he said. “I’m not saying that those guys are better quarterbacks. I’m just saying that I’m confident in my abilities. But the (Jets) coaches made the decisions, and I totally understood everything that was taking place. It was all about developing a young quarterback (Smith), mentoring a young quarterback and giving him every opportunity to succeed.
“So me saying that, please don’t get it misconstrued. Please don’t go out and say, ‘Mike Vick felt like if he was the starter, then we would be winning,’ because that’s not what I’m saying right now. I’m saying in front of all these cameras that, if given an opportunity, yeah, I believe our team would’ve maybe won some games. That’s speaking from experience and playing in the league for a long time.”
Vick actually has a point here. The Jets are a pathetic 2-8 this season, but four of their losses were by just one score – and Geno Smith turned the ball over five times in those four losses.
That’s not to say Vick has played great this year – he’s completed a lower percentage of his passes than Smith, and is also averaging less yards per attempt than Smith. The only qualified QBs with a lower rating than Vick’s 75.9 are Smith and rookies Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles. But hey, maybe he would have been able to pull just one of those losses out for the Jets, and they’d be sitting in last place at 3-7 as opposed to 2-8.
[NJ.com]
