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Fun google facts to start your day off with.  Did you know that the nickname ‘City of Brotherly Love’ comes from the Greek roots of the city’s name itself?  Compounding Philos or ‘loving’ with Adelphos or ‘brother’ is what brought that city’s well known mantra to be.  Of course, I only tell you this because I’m sure Michael Vick can attest to Philadelphia being the city of anything but love over the last two years for him.  Well and I wanted you to know I’m not just a pretty face.  I’m learned, yo!  But enough about my degree from Clown College, we’re here to talk about Michael Vick and what we should expect from him for 2013 fantasy football…

So in order to talk about Vick’s fantasy impact in 2013, we do have to discuss his contract and it’s particulars.  Sorry, couldn’t be avoided.  The contract includes $3.5 million for a signing bonus, $3.5 million base pay and then another $3 million in incentives.  The incentives range from actually being on the roster out of camp ($500,000), to $1.5 million if he plays 90% of the regular season snaps, to $1 million if the Eagles win the Super Bowl.  That’s $7 million guaranteed dollars even if he doesn’t play a snap this season.  Now before you call out ‘bad contract’, realize the Chiefs own Matt Cassel and average paying him $10 million a year on his contract that was signed back in 2009.  A lot of things have inflated between then and now.  Kanye’s ego, Honey Boo Boo Child’s bank account but most certainly the almighty dollar.  All this to say, this was a low-risk, high reward investment for both sides.  If Vick is successful, he gets to renegotiate from a better standing than what he had coming into the 2013 season and if he fails, the Eagles get to walk away having spent relatively little to see if they can unwrap the enigma that is Michael’s potential.  So what does all this mean for 2013 fantasy football, you ask?  Simple: Michael Vick will be highly motivated.  The last time we had a motivated Vick, he put on quite a show in only 12 games back in 2010.  Now do I think he repeats those numbers?  Eh, probably not.  That 2010 season was quite dreamy and hard to repeat.  However, Vick does now have a head coach who’s quite adept at utilizing athletic quarterbacks and the key thing to remember about Chip’s offense in college wasn’t the playcalling itself.  The key was the speed of the game.  More plays from scrimmage leads to more opportunities while wearing the opposing defense down.  This Eagles offense is being given the opportunity to get more plays off from scrimmage than most other NFL teams and has the talent at the skill positions to make that feat possible and highly profitable.

So now that we’ve covered all those factoids, the fact remains that Vick isn’t even guaranteed the job out of camp and that’s a big rub right now in trying to estimate what he’ll bring to the table for fantasy owners this year.  So my projections below come strictly from the mindset that Michael is the starter out of camp and remains the starter all year.  But just in case he doesn’t, I’ve already given you my two cents about his back up Nick Foles.  Overall, this is a sink or swim situation that we’ll know the answer to by the time the season starts so if you’re reading this in August and want to ridicule me, too bad…comments are closed snitches!  But seriously, long term I think we see Foles as the Eagles QB by no later than 2014.  This 2013 season will either be a gestation period for him to learn Chip’s offense or he’ll know it by heart and be the starter out of camp.  How that shakes out all rests in the hands of Vick.

Projections: 3360 passing yards, 22 passing touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 609 rushing yards, 5 rushing touchdowns