Vick has another stellar outing against Rams' defense
By
Bill Coats
Of the Post-Dispatch
Sunday, Jan. 16 2005
ATLANTA - The Michael Vick Experience was open for business Saturday night at
the Georgia Dome. But this time, he had to share the profits with Atlanta's top
two running backs.
Vick, the Falcons' multithreat quarterback, shredded the Rams for 201 total
yards - 119 rushing, on just eight carries, and 82 passing, on 12-of-16
accuracy.
He threw for touchdowns of 18 yards to tight end Alge Crumpler in the first
quarter and 6 yards to wide receiver Peerless Price in the third period, as the
Falcons buried the Rams 47-17 in the NFC semifinals.
"Vick always come to play," Rams defensive end Anthony Hargrove said. "Whenever
you go against him, you know you're going to get a handful of stuff. He had a
great game throwing the ball and running the ball. So, hats off to him."
The Falcons piled up 397 total yards, and a whopping 327 came on their
relentless ground game. Tailbacks Warrick Dunn and T.J. Duckett bruised the
Rams for a total of 208 yards in 32 carries - an average of 6.5 yards per
attempt.
"Whether it was Dunn slipping in here or there or Vick with the bootleg ... we
worked against it all week, but we just couldn't stop it," defensive end
Leonard Little said. "They really had their thing going."
Dunn rushed for 1,106 yards in the regular season, and the bullish Duckett
added 509. Atlanta's average of 167.0 yards was the best in the NFL.
"It was pretty much just a straight running game," Hargrove said. "It was a
matter of them just lining and running the ball, and us just not being in the
right gaps and not making tackles."
But defensive tackle Ryan Pickett pointed out that the ever-present threat of a
Vick improvisation kept the Rams guessing, which created opportunities for Dunn
and Duckett.
"You've always got to worry about (Vick) taking off with a bootleg," Pickett
said. "You have to play things differently, because his threat to run is so
great. That definitely opens up things for everybody else."
Added defensive end Bryce Fisher: "It takes one more guy out of the box
(between the tackles). You have to be out there on him, because when he gets
the ball out there on the perimeter, if he's got you outflanked, there's nobody
who's going to catch him."
That was evident early: Vick scrambled 47 yards on the third play after
kickoff; two snaps later, he found Crumpler in the end zone, and Atlanta was up
7-0 just 3 minutes into the contest.
Vick also was the catalyst on Sept. 19, when the Falcons spanked the visiting
Rams 34-17 in the second week of the regular season. He rushed for 109 yards in
12 carries and completed 14 of 19 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown.
Witnessing the Vick show a second time apparently didn't offer the Rams much
insight into the secret of keeping him under wraps, despite some unusual
scout-team work last week in practice.
"We put (cornerback) Dwight Anderson back there, and Dwight gave us a great
look at the things that Vick was going to do," Fisher said. "We didn't match up
well with (Vick) at all today, and he managed to outrun a pretty fast defense."
Added Picket: "You could play him a million times and not know how to stop him.
... You could game-plan for weeks, and it'd still be hard."
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