Which Vick will Eagles get this season?

THE EAGLES will open training camp today at Lehigh with Mike Vick as their starting quarterback. If you're an Eagles fan, that should make you a little nervous. Excited, but also nervous.

It should make you nervous because, well, there's still an awful lot we don't know about Vick.

Yes, he played very well last year. Had career-highs in passer rating (100.2), completion percentage (.626), touchdown passes (21), total touchdowns (30), interception percentage (1.6) and yards per attempt (8.1).

But the 2010 season was a tale of two Michael Vicks. There was the early-season Vick, who came off the bench in Week 1 after Kevin Kolb suffered a concussion, and set the NFL on its ear, throwing 11 touchdown passes and no interceptions and putting together a league-best 115.1 passer rating in his first six games.

And then there was the late-season Vick. The one who had just an 84.4 passer rating in the Eagles' final four games. The one who had just a .586 completion percentage and seven touchdowns and five interceptions in 140 attempts in those four games.

The one who made that poor late-game decision to throw an up-for-grabs pass to rookie Riley Cooper in the Eagles' still-winnable playoff loss to the Packers, even though he had LeSean McCoy running free underneath. Tramon Williams intercepted the pass and the Packers hung on for a 21-16 win.

I'm not trying to be negative here. Vick came a long way last year in his development as a quarterback. A lot farther than I ever thought he would. Particularly when you consider how inconsistent the Eagles' offensive line was. Hell, he made the Pro Bowl.

But as defensive coaches gathered film on Vick and had a chance to see what worked against him and what didn't work, he wasn't nearly as effective in December and January as he was in September and November (he missed three games in October with torn rib cartilage).

Most of his improvement last year was the result of the hours and hours he put in last offseason with offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who taught him, really taught him, how to play the quarterback position.

Vick would've benefitted greatly from another offseason like that, particularly since, as the team's No. 1 quarterback, he would've been taking most of the reps in minicamps and OTAs, which wasn't the case last year when Kolb was taking those snaps. But the 136-day lockout kind of put a crimp in that plan.

"As a quarterback, you're always a work in progress," Vick said yesterday after reporting to the NovaCare Complex. "I just look forward to learning each and every day. I'm ready to take it to the next level. I've been looking at a lot of the plays I was successful at last year. Been watching a lot of film. The learning curve never stops. It's an ongoing process."

A year ago at this time, the plan was for Kolb to be the Eagles' starting quarterback and for Vick to be his backup. Now, Kolb is sitting at home in Texas waiting to find out where he's going to be traded and Vick is headed to Lehigh as The Man.

"Pressure comes with being a quarterback, and being a great one," Vick said. "There are certain things you have to go through and be able to withstand in order to maintain greatness. That's what I'm going to press for. "

We will find out soon enough how sold the Eagles are on Vick. They were sold enough to put the franchise tag on him in February and start shopping Kolb. But the real test will come between now and Sept. 20, which is the deadline for signing players with the franchise tag to long-term contracts.

Do the Eagles believe enough in the 31-year-old quarterback to commit to him as their starting quarterback for the next 4 or 5 years? Or, like me, do they need to see a bigger sampling?

"My main priority right now is to be the best football player in practice that I can be and let that carry over to the game and let things happen when they're supposed to," Vick said. "That's been my approach.

"If you play good enough, play well and impress the people that expect a lot out of you, then good things will happen."

This is a different Mike Vick than the pre-Leavenworth one who played for the Falcons and thought he could skate by strictly on his rifle arm and catch-me-if-you-can legs.

That Mike Vick seldom put the work in to be great. This one does. While he couldn't talk with Mornhinweg during the lockout, or work out much with his teammates beyond those mostly useless throw-and-catch sessions in South Jersey, he watched a lot of film the last 4 months.

He watched what he did well last season and he watched what he didn't do so well. He watched what defenses did against him in September and what they did against him in January.

"I watched a lot of film," he said. "Technology is so great, you can put all your games on a DVD. There's no excuses. I want to be the best in the classroom that I can be, just as well as being great on the field."

We'll see how that goes.