Vick is exciting to watch

When Michael Vick led the Atlanta Falcons to the NFC Championship last season, he delighted not just die-hard Falcons fans, but even casual NFL fans like me (my knowledge of the game is slightly better than the average American's knowledge of cricket). Vick is a supreme athlete if nothing else, and his presence on the field is enough to pack the Georgia Dome or any other NFL arena. One of his touchdown runs last season, when he was completely upside down at one point, was an extraordinary feat of athleticism even for the NFL, which has some fleet receivers and running backs. Quite a few football pundits (purists) rate the Mannings, Favres and Bradys higher than Vick and perhaps justifiably so, but none of them is quite as exciting as Vick. They're all great quarterbacks, but when you put them alongside Vick, they can appear quite pedestrian, given that Vick is quite unconventional. There is the odd Jimmy Johnson (who, it has to be said, knows what he's talking about) who refuses to accept Vick as a 'true' quarterback, but the fans could hardly care. Vick may not win too many rings, but then neither did Dan Marino (who I'm sure would be rated a pure QB), right? The Falcons are struggling to get into the play-offs this season, and Vick hasn't done as well as last season, but watching him against the Saints Monday night was a delight as ever. To an NFL fan starved of action (it's not easy in India, with the time differences), a dose of Vick was a manna from heaven. - NK