welcome back, my love.


before "julio" heyward ascended to julio status and became the bottom half of my julio/huddy/"julio" oreo cookie sandwich of manlove, there was another.

his name was michael vick.

there are very, very few true forces of nature when it comes to athletes (let's stick with football). there are good athletes that overachieve to become stars (emmit smith, jerry rice, every white professional athlete, especially wes welker, et. al). there are really good athletes that become superstars because they combine a "head and shoulders above the rest" gift with good work ethic to obviously separate themselves from the field (lawrence taylor, barry sanders, randy moss, et al.).

then there are the force of nature types. talents that are so incredibly gifted, athletically, that, when on the field, it hardly looks like they are trying. bo jackson, deion sanders, ...michael vick.

before he went and started electrocuting dogs, there was no athlete on the planet that was any more must-see television than my michael. at his peak, his arm was as strong as i've ever seen. he was the fastest guy in the league, probably by a couple steps. he had quicks and jumpstops and full-speed-from-the-jump like barry sanders, but with all of those attributes he could get one gear higher than my favorite running back ever. It didn't matter who the falcons were playing. i wanted to watch.

like barry bonds or usain bolt or lebron, if you blinked, you truly had the potential to miss the greatest thing to ever happen in an athletic arena every time he took a snap.

and then he got caught waterboarding dogs. i've come to terms with that disappointment. sure, i hate it for the dogs and everything, but, back then, the selfish part of me was just pissed that i wouldn't get to see vick play for quite some time.

for two years, he either sat in prison or a halfway house serving his time for condoning and bankrolling his disgusting dog-fighting ring. Last year, the eagles took a flyer on him, but he was the third string guy and only came in on gimmick-y, wildcat plays.

this year, he would serve as back-up to the quarterback that the eagles handed their franchise to, kevin kolb. week one, kolb got his bell rung and is now having to sit out this sunday.

week two, vick returns. in the action that he saw last week against the packers, he was every bit his old self. Running for 100 yards and a td. Passing for 175 and couple scores. pulling away from helpless defenders as they chased him around the field. week two, vick starts against the lions. as soon as word hit that he would start, i ran to my fantasy league, acquired vick, benched tom brady (who went nuts and led me to victory last week) and plugged my michael into my starting line-up for old time's sake.

brady will probably go nuts again, but I don't care. if kolb can remember his name next week, my michael will be back on the sidelines. for one day, though, this force of nature will have the opportunity to make people remember who michael fucking vick was before he was best known as that nfl quarterback that got caught fighting dogs.

michael vick, i have missed you. you go get 'em.