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you can always tell if a team is prepared to win a championship by the other players that surround your star player case in point Vick.If the falcon's want to win a super bowl they better suck it up and players are going to have to perform much better.The receivers need to get there head in the game also.Vick won't be able to start all 16 games with nagging injurines like sunday's hamstring.

Vick's balky hamstring is a concern
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Associated Press
Posted: 38 minutes ago



FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. (AP) - With the game hanging in the balance, Michael Vick headed to the sideline. He ripped off his helmet and slung it to the ground, fully aware that his day was over.

One play later, the Atlanta Falcons were done, too.
When Vick's left hamstring tightened up, the Falcons had to go with backup Matt Schaub on their final offensive play, a last-gap attempt to come all the way back from a 21-point halftime deficit at Seattle.

Schaub threw an incomplete pass, the Seahawks held on for a 21-18 win, and now the Vick watch begins.

Will he feel good enough to play next Sunday against the Buffalo Bills? If not, can the Falcons win without him?

"My gut feeling is he will be OK," coach Jim Mora said Monday. "Knowing Mike, he doesn't like to not practice. He doesn't like to not be part of the plan."

Vick's hamstring began hurting in the fourth quarter after a 32-yard run, and Schaub came on to finish off a touchdown drive that brought the Falcons within a field goal.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta trainers feverishly tried to get Vick ready for one more possession. After the defense held, the Falcons got the ball back at their own 27 with 2:39 remaining - plenty of time to get in position for a tying field goal.

But Vick wasn't the same player.

After handing off and throwing a short pass, he found himself with a chance to break off another long run. A huge hole opened up in the middle as Vick dropped back to pass, but he hesitated briefly, stumbled trying to make a cut and was dropped for a 1-yard loss.

Mora had seen enough. Even though it was fourth-and-14, the coach sent in Schaub to throw the final pass. The Seahawks knocked it away, clinching the victory.

Vick was a disgusted bystander.

"It was tough. He is our guy, he is our playmaker," Mora said. "You could really tell on that third-down snap that he wanted to go, but he couldn't go. That made it a little bit easier to make the decision to put Schaub in for that fourth-down play."

The Falcons (1-1) did some light running Monday - minus Vick, who was scheduled to undergo a precautionary MRI. Mora isn't sure if his star quarterback will be back on the field Wednesday, when the team holds its first practice for the Bills.

"I hope that he's OK. I think that he's OK," the coach said. "If he's not, then we will go on. We'll keep playing because there's nothing we can do about it."

But Atlanta clearly isn't the same team without No. 7.

Two years ago, Vick broke his leg in a preseason game and missed the first 11 weeks. The Falcons slumped to 5-11 with Doug Johnson and Kurt Kittner sharing the quarterback duties - and three of those wins came after Vick returned.

On the other hand, Atlanta has made the playoffs in both of Vick's two full years as the starter, getting all the way to the NFC championship game last season.

With Schaub as the backup, the Falcons feel they are much better prepared to deal with an injury to Vick. But no one really knows.

Schaub, a third-round pick from Virginia in 2004, has played only seven games in his brief NFL career, most of them in mop-up roles. His numbers aren't very impressive: a 46 percent completion rate, with one touchdown and four interceptions.

"It is too early to tell what would change, in terms of our approach, if Matt were the quarterback," Mora said. "I don't think much would change. My gut feeling is that (Vick) is going to be OK. That's my gut feeling, and it is based on nothing."

We all know how good we are without Vick. 4-12 if we could drive the ball a little...lol

Methinks the Falcons have an interesting decision to make this week in regards to the QB position. THey can sit VIck under the pretenses of giving him time to get healthy, so the hamstring shouldn't bother him in January, but at the same time, a hamstring strain (as it is currently believed to be) doesn't heal in 1 week. That's an injury that usually takes 4-6 weeks before a guy is truly 100%, I believe (I could be wrong).

If I'm the coach, and Vick is evaluated by the docs and they say he's 85-90%, I say he plays. If he aggravates it further (and he probably will), so be it. But I'm not going to sit him until he actually can't play.

Mora when he first arrived in Atlanta seemed like the guy that would have taken the hard line and played Vick this week, risking further injury but going for the W. The Mora now, I'm not so sure about. He seems to have fallen under the spell of letting Vick run the show, and would sit him this week because he's not 100%.

But he's unlikely to be 100% for some time, and is Mora willing to start Schaub over the last 2-4 games? I think the margin of error is so slim in this division that going 1-2 or 0-3 under Schaub over the next few weeks would nix any playoff hopes.

Vick needs to keep working out of the pocket anyways. Not to mention he's had plenty of these hammy instances and they've never been anything to sweat about. We usually would sit him but I think the concensus in the FO is that we should go for homefield advantage. I would play him & if he runs too much then I would pull him. Now is not the time to let Vick be Vick. The Patriots will dominate us if Vick doesn't quit being Vick, not to mention he will keep getting hurt.

They keep wanting to compare him to Steve Young, but one difference I've always noticed is that Young never looked like he was trying too hard out there. Part of that is playing on the best team in the NFL (kind of like throwing Vick onto the Colts or Pats), but another part of that is playing under control. Vick got hurt because he was trying to turn a 30 yard run into a 40 yard run, and that is what concerns me. On that note though, he is doing a much better job of taking sacks & playing smart in the pocket so I think it would do him well to play with the hammy.