Mike Check: Evaluating Vick's play
Michael Vick came through in the fourth quarter against the Texans when the Eagles needed him. Here's the full breakdown of how he performed as the Birds improved to 8-4.
The Texans blitzed Vick on 11 of 40 dropbacks (27.5 percent). That's more than the Bears, but less than the Giants.
Against the blitz, he completed 5 of 9 passes for 97 yards. He was sacked once and scrambled for 7 yards on another play. The numbers should have been better, but both the Celek drop and the Avant drop came on plays where the Texans blitzed. Vick made good reads on both throws. The throw to Celek wasn't perfect, but he has to catch that ball. The Avant throw was right where it needed to be. The defensive back got in front of Avant, but again, he has to make that catch.
The Eagles were able to hit on a pair of big plays against the blitz - the 33-yard completion to Jackson and the 40-yard screen to McCoy.
In the pocket, Vick was 18-for-28 for 258 yards. The Eagles did a little more of rolling him out by design against Houston. He was 4-for-5 for 44 yards on those throws.
Vick also operated under center more than usual. Under center, he was 11-for-17 for 162 yards. From the shotgun, he was 11-for-16 for 140 yards.
Vick had success off of run fakes, completing 7 of 11 for 123 yards.
This is where we saw the biggest difference from the previous two weeks.
On third down, the Eagles were 6-for-12 (50 percent) after going 4-for-13 (30.8 percent) against the Bears and 7-for-27 (25.9 percent) in the previous two weeks.
Vick had the ball in his hands on 11 of 12 third downs, and the Eagles converted six of those. He was 6-for-9 for 65 yards, a touchdown and an interception on third down. It's worth noting that the Celek drop in the end zone was on a third down.
He ran twice - once for 6 yards and once for 10 yards. The latter netted a first down.
Celek was the most-targeted receiver on third down. Vick looked for him three times and completed two for 39 yards.
The Eagles got back on track in the red zone, scoring touchdowns on four of six trips. On the first drive, Vick hit McCoy for a touchdown. On the second drive, McCoy ran it in. The third red-zone possession is a bit deceiving. The Eagles weren't actually inside the 20 until fourth down when Vick scrambled 6 yards to the 18 from the 24, but it still counts.
On the fourth red-zone possession, the Eagles had drops from Avant and Celek. On the fifth drive, Vick ran it in from 2 yards away. And on the sixth drive, he found Schmitt for the 5-yard score. Maclin continues to be the Eagles' best red-zone receiver. Vick completed 2 of 3 red zone throws to Maclin for 16 yards.
Against Chicago the previous week, the Eagles were just 1-for-5 in the red zone.
Vick was very efficient on the short throws. Obviously, McCoy was a big part of that, but Vick averaged 7.9 yards per attempt on throws that were within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Those are high-percentage plays, and the Eagles were able to pick up big chunks of positive yards.
As I mentioned above, both the Bombs went to Jackson. The Deep completion went to Maclin for 34 yards.
Vick looked twice for Celek Deep but came up empty on both occasions.