Falcons get Vick-timized

Doesn't the scrolling ESPN Bottomline just rub you the wrong way sometimes? Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely in favor of getting scores from it, but when it comes to news that could change my mood entirely, I would rather have a live human being do the reporting.

My beef stems from a late Saturday night/early Sunday morning a little over two weeks ago. All typical Saturday night activities had been completed and the Patriots had just won their second preseason game over the Redskins, so one could say I was at peace before bedtime. But my peace was rudely interrupted as I flipped on the tube, only to catch "Vick out at least six weeks with broken fibula" squeezed somewhere between standard game scores.

What washed over me then could best be described as confusion. I mean, the NFL's newest marketing tool and the all around football Superman was seriously injured, and the best the worldwide leader in sports could do was inform me via barely readable script. I needed video of what had happened, a doctor on the screen, anything that could give me some answers. I went station to station, trying to find anyone who could shed some light on this devastating tidbit I had just received.

Once I finally got the suffocation of this story that I yearned for, I found myself reacting very selfishly. I am a fan and I also once played football so I respect what Vick can do on the gridiron more than anyone I've ever had the privilege to witness. And this was the year I was going to catch as many of his exploits as is humanly possible.

My housemates and I recently discussed ordering NFL Sunday Ticket, where you can catch every NFL game for a small fee. Now that Vick is down, we should move to get it at a discounted rate, because Vick is basically the reason I wanted the service in the first place. The Vick phenomenon is somewhat new to football, which has for the most part sold the team and the logo on the helmet rather than the players under the helmet. Such individual treatment was often reserved for basketball. It was once thought that only in hoops could one player take over a game, and that football was the ultimate team sport. Then Vick last year proceeded to take a team with a suspect O-line and mediocre receivers to the second round of the playoffs. The rules had changed.

I guess six weeks isn't that bad. It's just an estimate, based on the fact that Donovan McNabb, a quarterback with a similar style to Vick's, was out the same period of time with the same injury last season. But my long face over the news probably doesn't compare to what Falcons fans are going through. Forget the junk the Falcons themselves are feeding the fans, saying that the team can do great things with Doug Johynson filling in. I wouldn't buy it as a supporter. But crazier things have happened, such as the Drew Bledsoe/Tom Brady scenario we saw play out two years ago.

But Vick and the Falcons not only have to ask what could have been, but what can be? The basis for this is the fairly new "Madden cover jinx", which has stricken not only the player who has graced the front of the box but the team with which he plays. With Eddie George, Daunte Culpepper, and Marshall Faulk as cases in point, the intrigue behind this curse is enough to make people weary. It is about time John Madden dragged out his bushy eyebrows and straight up ugly mug and threw it back on his game.

The only ones quietly applauding the Vick injury are his NFC South opponents, who face the possibility of not having to face him twice this season. Actually, check that, everyone but the Buccaneers, who love facing Vick like a fat kid loves cake.

So for now, we'll all suck it up and root for our own teams until that day, hopefully about four weeks from now, when I will be at the Georgia Dome with a dozen flowers singing, "Welcome Back."