Vick's picks are causing problems for Eagles

The question was asked as delicately as possible, but it had to be asked.

Does Michael Vick think he, um, forces passes too much?

"No, I don't," the Eagles quarterback said yesterday. "I think there's times when you've got to take chances, and that's just playing the position. I don't feel like I've forced too many balls. I feel like . . . there's things I could have done better, but I feel I've put us in positions to excel, as well."

Vick's nine interceptions in eight games are three more than he threw in the 12 games he played last season. Whoever said numbers don't lie was, well, prevaricating. To be sure, Vick has had some picks that weren't his fault, balls taken out of receivers' hands, tipped to defenders from receivers, and so on. But Vick also has tried to throw balls through defenders, as if he thought the NFL were an old "Roadrunner" cartoon and the defensive guy would end up like Wile E. Coyote, looking down to see a round hole drilled through his chest, the ball disappearing in the distance.

Vick lasered one of those on the Eagles' first red-zone trip Monday night against the Bears, trying to drill a hole in double coverage and find DeSean Jackson. The ball first found the hands of Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, then nestled into the chest of Chicago safety Major Wright. Was that one of those times when you "have to take chances," down 7-0 early in the second quarter, Shady McCoy just having given the crowd some oxygen with an 18-yard run on third-and-7, from the Bears' 37 to their 19?

Eagles coach Andy Reid, unsurprisingly, didn't have any thoughts he wanted to share with the public yesterday on the risk/reward calculations of his quarterback.

"I don't get caught up in all that. What we do is we just keep working. Are there throws he would like to have back? Yes, there are throws he'd like to have back,"

Reid said, answering a much-less-tricky question that had not been asked. "I don't get into that. What we need to do as coaches is, we need to do a better job at this, and make sure that we're giving him the best options, and we're being smart with it. Then, Michael needs to do his part with it, and the receivers need to make sure that they're doing their part."

Reid went on to say that Vick just needs to "keep playing and being Michael Vick."

That last part might be part of the problem, though.

Since Vick took over the Eagles' starting job last season, much has been made of how different a quarterback he is from the reckless, not-always-completely-engaged talent who thrilled and disappointed in Atlanta from 2001-2006. Vick is different - he studies film, he tries to conduct himself as a leader on and off the field, works hard in practice, sees the field better when it comes to deciding whether to throw or run. But when Vick was in the process of wresting the No. 1 quarterback spot away from Kevin Kolb last season, he seemed intent on proving how careful he could be. Vick threw 210 passes before he threw his first interception.

Maybe some of that amazing streak was just the breaks, maybe there were balls that should have been picked that weren't. Or maybe once he was no longer worried about being replaced, Vick let more of his extremely confident, aggressive style show. In his last 14 games, including the playoff loss to the Packers, Vick has thrown at least one interception 12 times. If you look at his history in Atlanta, it was more like this than not - 14 TDs, 12 INTs in 2004, the year the Falcons lost to the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, 15 and 13 the next year.

This season's 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions through eight games don't really seem to be an aberration. Last year's 21 touchdowns and six picks do.

"I don't play this game based on numbers. I play this game based on wins and losses," said Vick, who didn't need to be told that things weren't going great under that standard, either. "The first half of the season didn't go as planned, but we still have a lot of ballgames left, and that's what we're looking forward to."

Vick might not pay that much attention to numbers, but he knows the only game this season in which the Eagles didn't turn the ball over, they beat Dallas, 34-7.

"Anytime you lose a game, it's because you make more mistakes than the opposition," he said. "I think if we limit that, are able to control that, then we give ourselves the chance to win the game."

What might be at issue here, without getting all Clintonian with the word-parsing, are the parameters of "limit," and "control." You could say the Eagles limited turnovers in losing to Chicago - they lost Vick's pick and Jackson's fumbled punt, a wash when set against Matt Forte's two lost fumbles. This was much better than, say, five turnovers Oct. 9 at Buffalo, vs. one committed by the Bills. But a 2-2 turnover wash wasn't good enough to beat the tough, physical Bears. Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler, generally considered an interception machine, threw nary a pick.

It had to be distressing for the Eagles that the Bears were able to win by dusting off the old playbook on Vick. They kept him in the pocket and dared him to beat them with his arm. He

didn't. The Bears left Jeremy Maclin open on fourth-and-10 from the Chicago 39, on the Eagles' last drive, and Vick's high, hard throw was barely flagged down by Maclin, who stumbled to the ground a yard shy of the first-down marker. Maclin said yesterday that Vick told him he was surprised Maclin was able to catch the throw at all.

Maclin noted that teams are taking away one of the things Vick does best, the long ball.

"Teams are coming out with pretty good game plans," Maclin said. "I don't think it's anything negative about anybody . . . Our opportunities are limited. When we do have opportunities, we have to make the best of them, and we haven't been doing that.

"At the same time, despite the turnover problems we've had, we were winning in the fourth quarter in four of those [five losses]. If we eliminate one of those turnovers in those games, it's a different outcome."