





PHILADELPHIA – Early on Tuesday morning, Michael Vick sat in the office of Eagles coach Chip Kelly and celebrated yet another rebirth.

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Vick told Kelly upon hearing that he will be the team's starting quarterback this season. Then he said this:

"I won't let you down."

There is little doubt Kelly has saved Vick, much the way former Eagles coach Andy Reid saved him shortly after he was released from federal custody in 2009. Back then Reid gave him a lifeline to the NFL. This time, Kelly has given him a reason to love football again.





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The Vick who finished last season with his body broken from repeated hits and his accuracy gone, looked like a man who never wanted to play football again. When he cleaned out his locker following an especially uninspired 42-7 loss to the New York Giants on Dec. 30, he looked distraught. He looked through. Few thought he would return to the city that had embraced him when so much of the country still scorned him. It seemed best he play elsewhere, if he was going to play at all.

Then the Eagles hired Kelly and Vick immediately liked the man with the crackly New England accent and fascinating new ways to run an offense. Kelly offered him a chance to negotiate a one-year contract – a shot at redemption if you will – and Vick seized it. He seemed to understand the new coach didn't need last year's problems. Most men in Kelly's position would have looked at the 24 interceptions and nine lost fumbles of the previous two seasons and slashed him from the roster. He appreciated that Kelly was giving him a unique chance.

And Kelly never judged the past. The coach has said repeatedly that he watched tape of Vick looking for the positives, intentionally trying not to determine if each turnover was Vick's fault. What he found was a quarterback he thought could play, one who might perfectly fit his fast-paced new offense that promises to speed downfield. Keeping Vick was a risk worth taking.

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For the horrible things he has done in the past – the arrogance that made enemies in Atlanta and the dogfighting operation that landed him in prison – Vick has shown a more vulnerable side in Philadelphia. There is almost a neediness to him. When given chances, he has worked hard to please.

Kelly handed Vick an opportunity. The coach brought enthusiasm. He brought new ideas. He brought fun. He brought a conditioning program Vick loved and an emphasis on nutrition that Vick came to respect. And the player who seemed to hate football last fall came to love it again. He smiled. He laughed. As the plays spilled from Kelly's mind and onto the field, Vick seemed to relish running every one.

When Kelly rewarded his perseverance on Tuesday by awarding him a job some might have thought he would never get again, Vick vowed he would not disappoint the man who had given him this chance.

"I just enjoy hearing him talk," Vick told Y! Sports as he walked across the fields at the Eagles NovaCare practice facility. "He talks fast and he makes sense."

Even as Vick walked to Kelly's office on Tuesday morning, unsure what the coach wanted, he said he was happy for the chance to spend time with Kelly alone. It gave him another opportunity to talk football, to learn something, to get a new idea on how to play a position he seemed to have lost his ability to master.

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