It doesn’t matter who you root for this weekend, the game of the week is going to be the Washington Redskins vs. the Philadelphia Eagles. With a plot good enough for a Christopher Nolan screenplay, this matchup looks to be as exciting as Ladainian Tomlinson’s Electric Glide music video.

Since the first game of the season, these two teams have completely flipped positions.

McNabb and the Redskins started the season off strong with a close win against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night, but are now entering this weekend with back-to-back losses.

On the flip side, the Philadelphia Eagles are now 2-0 after losing their season-opener against the Green Bay Packers, thanks in large part to the return of the Michael Vick show.

With the majority of the media focusing on the return of both quarterbacks, McNabb to Philly and Vick to the starting position, the real question remains which quarterbacks will show up on Sunday.

Will we see the Pro Bowl McNabb or the Super Bowl puke McNabb? Will we see the same Michael Vick that we saw in week two or the frustrated Vick who thinks with his feet?

Despite how they have performed so far this season, we cannot overlook the fact that these two stars tend to lose their shine in the heat of the moment.

Yes, Vick is playing ungodly well lately, but we can hardly compare the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars to a team out for blood. The Washington Redskins, along with Donovan McNabb, will come out of the tunnel with the taste of vengeance on their minds and a fire in their hearts.

Unfortunately for them though, the Eagles are the better team.

With one of the best wide receiver duos in the game (DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin), Vick has transformed into a pass-first quarterback. He is reading the field better than he ever has and checking all of his options before going for the run.

His ability to scramble in and out of the pocket to stay away from pressure is allowing him to elongate plays and tear apart secondaries. And with a strong running back in LeSean McCoy, the defense has to respect the ground game as well.

What all of this means is that the Philadelphia Eagles offense is that they’re tough to stop. That doesn’t mean they can’t be though.

The Redskins know that they have to pressure the Philadelphia offensive line and get to Vick early to set a tone for the rest of the game. If they can do this and upset the timing between Vick and his receivers, then the Redskins have a chance to pull of a road win in front of the one of the harshest crowds in the NFL.

It doesn’t matter if Donovan McNabb has the best game of his life on Sunday. If the Redskins allow Vick to find enough time to set his feet and throw the ball, then the Eagles will walk away from this game with a victory and a great start to their season.

Used with permission of the author.

Logan Rhoades is a Los Angeles-based writer and contributor to Sports Climax. With an extensive knowledge of ESPN topics and celebrity gossip, he is known for mixing sports and pop culture to entertain his readers. Check out his blog and Follow him on Twitter @loganrhoades.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax, LLC

After further review, Michael Vick has been named the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, and it isn’t related to the concussion suffered by announced starter, Kevin Kolb.

Andy Reid, the Eagles head coach, told the media on Tuesday that Vick has shown the team that he is among the league’s leading quarterbacks after Week 2. We have to assume Reid is aware it was against the Lions who own the most questionable secondary the NFL has seen over the past several years.

Regardless, earlier in the week, Reid announced that Kevin Kolb would return to his starter’s role, but Vick’s QB rating, during his time behind center is 105.1, ranking him fourth in the league.

Vick threw for 175 yards, threw one touchdown and ran for 103 yards during the two quarters of a 27-20 season-opening loss to Green Bay. In Week 2 against Detroit, he had 284 yards passing and two TDs in a 35-32 win at Detroit.

Numbers don’t always tell the whole story and anyone watching that game knows that Vick threw several balls up for grabs in desperate 3^rd and long situations and the Lions secondary although outnumbering Eagles’ jerseys just could never come down with the ball.

Another factor in the decision has to be Philadelphia’s somewhat ineffective offensive line. With his ability to move outside the pocket, he can get past the inefficiencies up front. Vick was running for his life most of the Detroit game and despite Vick’s ability to scramble, the Lions still had 6 sacks.

Vick has not been intercepted and shown, even to his detractors that he looks to pass before running. He goes through his options, looks for check-downs and his arm is like a cannon. In his post-game remarks on Sunday, he seemed sincere when he said he wouldn’t resist Kolb’s return to the starting role when he was cleared to play. He said he believes that he is ten times the quarterback he was when he was forced out of the NFL, after his indictment on federal dog-fighting charges.

It was plain to see that in the final months of his two-season deal with the Eagles he could smell the future and it included a free-agent pick up for a team looking for a starter who can lead a team.

Used with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax, LLC

The first Monday morning after the opening weekend of the NFL season usually features the same things –
overreacting to poor/great performances, assessing injuries to key players, obsessing over fantasy football results, reading incessant “WE (sic) won!”-type status updates on Facebook and at least one potential quarterback controversy.

And on cue, we have one brewing in Philadelphia, where there is now a debate over who should start in NFL Week 2 – Michael Vick or Kevin Kolb.  This is great news for sports radio station WIP, whose airwaves have been filled today with callers debating this topic.

Vick replaced the injured Kevin Kolb (concussion) with the Eagles trailing the Green Bay Packers 20-3.  He was 16-for-24 for 175 yards and threw for one touchdown, and also rushed for 103 yards.  (Yes, fantasy football degenerates – more rushing yards than most starting running backs had this week.)  While the Eagles fell short and lost, 27-20, Vick’s presence clearly sparked his team and already riled up the usually critical Philadelphia fans and media.

Head coach Andy Reid tried to restore order today by said today that, “…Kevin Kolb is the No. 1 quarterback.” But since Kolb is still suffering from the effects of his injury, Vick is likely to start in Week Two against the Detroit Lions.  This, combined with the fact that Kolb performed poorly before he got hurt, has all the makings of a looming controversy for the foreseeable future.  Remember, this is the same city which once extolled the virtues of the likes of Bobby Hoying, A.J. Feely and Jeff Garcia.

Looking ahead, if Kolb is still injured in Week Three, Vick would get to face the Jacksonville Jaguars in another favorable match-up.  This would lead to the perfect storm in Week Four: an even-bigger QB controversy coinciding with the return to Philadelphia of – you guessed it – Donovan McNabb and his Washington Redskins.

Even “American Idol” would be jealous of this script, except that Fox doesn’t have a staff of writers on this show.  Here’s hoping this scenario pans out and we’re rewarded with such potentially riveting reality television.  If you can stomach Joe Buck, that is…

Used with permission of the author.

Chris Lardieri covers the Los Angeles Dodgers for Examiner.com and has written about Major League Baseball for Inside Edge, a scouting company that provides content to ESPN Insider and Yahoo Sports. He previously wrote for 1766, the Rutgers Alumni Magazine, and popular blog, ‘The Outer Loop’.  Be sure to follow Chris on Twitter for more MLB and sports observations.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax, LLC