Michael Vick can stop hunting for a part time job because he will get paid! ESPN reports that the Philadelphia Eagles will apply the franchise tag to Mike Vick. Vick will receive a modest increase of million for 2011. Now if only Mark Brunell can get a similar deal for his bankruptcy relief.

The franchise tag is the best possible scenario for Vick and one of the more odd choices by the Philadelphia Eagles I have seen in 30 years of being a fan. If there is one thing I will say about the birds the last few years is that they aren’t cheap when it comes to free agency and spending. They have been in the mix for elite free agents like Randy Moss and Julius Peppers and spent the money acquiring Asante Samuel and Jason Peters via trade. But spending million on a quarterback whose last season throw was an interception in the end zone to end a playoff game seems a bit odd to me.

I am not saying that the Eagles should not have signed Michael Vick. I think the Eagles should absolutely lock up Vick. Locking up Vick for three years or using the franchise tag for million though are totally different things. I don’t know what the hold up on getting a deal done could have been. I think it was fairly obvious by October that Vick was the next franchise QB. Why the need to go the franchise route with a guy you could have finalized a deal with all season is one of those mysterious Eagles questions like how many teams really wanted Donovan McNabb last year.

The obvious question here is Kevin Kolb. There are already reports that the Eagles are entertaining trade offers for Kolb. I don’t think that is necessarily news. Hell I am sure the Indianapolis Colts would listen to trade offers for Peyton Manning but never pull the trigger. I know that some hardcore Eagles fans would like to believe that the Eagles could get a first or second round draft pick for Kolb. I don’t see it. He has only played a handful of games in the NFL and when a seasoned vet like Donovan McNabb is only worth a second round draft pick, how many teams are really giving anything up beyond a three for Kolb? It could happen as long as there are guys like Daniel Snyder or Al Davis around but I’d find it highly unlikely.

I can’t understand why the Eagles would want to trade Kolb at all (and maybe they don’t). The Eagles traded away McNabb with Kolb and Vick on the roster, confident that one or both of them could be starting NFL QBs. Kevin Kolb is under contract for one more year for .4 million. To put that into perspective, Marc Bulger made .8 million last season as a backup and never took a snap! Having a capable backup quarterback like Kevin Kolb under contract for .4 million especially in a season that may be shortened is truly a stroke of genius by the Eagles personnel department.

If there is one thing that NFL fans saw in 2010 it is that the quarterback position is more unstable than ever. Teams like the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys did a tremendous job of having a backup that gave their teams just as much of a chance to win as the starting quarterbacks. Teams like the Miami Dolphins, Kansas City Chiefs, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, and Arizona Cardinals did not. Having a capable backup quarterback is almost as valuable to an NFL team as having a reliable starter at the position.

Is Michael Vick worth million? Maybe not but he is certainly worth a long term contract to the Philadelphia Eagles. Vick had a remarkable season with career highs in yards passing (3,018), touchdowns passing (21), touchdowns rushing (9), completion percentage (62.6) and passer rating (100.2). He went 8-3 as a starter, the Eagles won the division and got a first-round playoff game in a season that most predicted would be more a rebuilding year than a playoff year.

As much as I enjoyed watching Michael Vick play, the offensive line for the Eagles was downright atrocious at times. I think there is less of a chance of Vick starting all sixteen NFL games than Jimmy Clausen winning an NFL MVP award. Not only do the Eagles need to keep Kolb, they need to re-sign him. I know what he says about being a starter but if the money is right, he will likely stay with the team. There is no reason to believe that Vick is going to start every game over the course of his deal so Kolb will have plenty of opportunities to start for the team. He knows the coach, he knows the system, and unfortunately he knows his offensive line. Yet at the end of the day this is the best case scenario for everyone.

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Related posts:

1. The Michael Vick Conspiracy
2. Michael Vick Hurts The Eagles Offense
3. Kevin Kolb vs. Michael Vick? Debate From 2 Regular Philly Guys

CamelCluchBlog.Com

Moon Dance and Fire Burn swap places, but the top 5 remains the same from last week. George R.R. Martin going strong!

1. Shadowfever (Kindle) by Karen Marie Moning
2. Moon Dance (Kindle) by J.R. Rain
3. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble, a Paranormal Romance (Kindle) by H.P. Mallory
4. A Game of Thrones (Kindle) by George R.R. Martin
5. Toil and Trouble, a Paranormal Romance (Kindle) by H.P. Mallory

Fantasy Book News

Here are four more 2011 books that I have just got and have started reading from. All read very well so far and together with the several previously mentioned titles (Morden 2, Locke, Hodder) will hopefully be finished by me in the next several weeks with reviews coming along.

Three of these four are books two in series that debuted in 2010 and were all reviewed and recommended by me in the 2010 summations posts, while Home Fires seems to be another mind-bending winner after last year’s Sorcerer’s House, another one reviewed here and appearing in the recommendation post mentioned.

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While unrelated to The Sorcerer’s House (FBC Rv) and set in a strange but also familiar future, this one starts very exciting with a conversation between the main hero and a “dead woman”, resurrected – for a fee of course, paid monthly as long as Skip wants the resurrected woman to hang around – at his behest as a “gift” for his reunion with his soon-to-return fiancee after relativistic effects made decades pass for him and years for her… If this does not sound mind-bending enough, the blurb for Home Fires which is available right now, offers more goodies:

“In a future North America not quite crumbling but somewhat less than utopian, Skip and Chelle meet and marry in college. But Chelle has to do her term of military service against aliens many light-years away. Twenty-five years later, thanks to the time-dilation effect, she is a still-young but convalescent combat veteran. Skip is a wealthy businessman. And they are still in love. Unfortunately, when they take a Caribbean cruise to celebrate, they run into pirates, politics, aliens, and Murphy’s Law running wild..”

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Another current book and direct sequel to Servant of the Underworld (FBC Rv), I only had a chance to browse the first 5 pages of Harbinger of the Storm since I got it yesterday, but it seemed to still have the magical writing that made me enjoy a lot the author’s debut last year. The same setting and first person narrative and picking up when the first one ends. Here is the blurb for more:

“THE AZTEC EMPIRE TEETERS ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION.
As the political infighting starts within the imperial court, Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, makes a macabre discovery in the palace: a high-ranking nobleman has been torn to pieces by an invocation – and it looks like the summoner belongs to the court itself…”

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City of Hope and Despair is coming in late March from Angry Robot and from the quick browse I did yesterday seems to be a direct sequel to the excellent City of Dreams and Nightmares (FBc Rv) though set somewhat later since the main hero seems to be now part of the establishment so to speak. Another ultra-promising novel to keep an eye on, while if not done so, go and try the first installment which was also the author’s novelistic co-debut in 2010 alongside the superb The Noise Within (FBC Rv) – that’s another one whose sequel, The Noise Revealed, will come soon from Solaris this time and which I will try to get and read it asap…

“A SECOND VISIT TO THAIBURLEY: THE CITY OF DREAMS, THE FABLED CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS.

Dark forces are gathering in the shadowy depths, and the whole city is under threat. The former street-nick, Tom, embarks on a journey to discover the source of the great river Thair, said to be the ultimate power behind all of Thaiburley. Accompanying him are the assassin Dewar and the young Thaistess Mildra. It soon becomes evident that their journey has more significance than any of them realize, as past secrets catch up with them and unknown adversaries hunt them… to the death! “

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Camera Obscura which is coming from Angry Robot in late April is set in the same wonderfully realized alt-Victorian world with “Les Lezards”, automatons and a mix of historical personalities and famous period characters from Jules Verne to Professor Moriarty belonging to the cast, where The Bookman (FBC Rv) made a splashing debut last year. This one seems not to be a direct sequel though since from my quick browse the characters seem to be different; on the other hand it starts very, very intriguingly too, while the blurb speaks for itself with the allusions to other famous period stuff…

“CAN’T FIND A RATIONAL EXPLANATION TO A MYSTERY? CALL IN THE QUIET COUNCIL. The mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter is one of their most valuable agents. A despicable murder inside a locked and bolted room on the Rue Morgue in Paris is just the start. This whirlwind adventure will take Milady to the highest and lowest parts of that great city – and cause her to question the very nature of reality itself.”

Fantasy Book Critic

I recently finished reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson on my iPod Touch, and it was a revolution in reading for me. It wasn’t the first book I’d read on the device – I’d read a few non-fiction books (Rework by 37Signals and HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith, to be exact), but this was the first fiction novel I’ve read in electronic format. With a novel, the expectations are a bit different.

All the things I’ve come to enjoy about reading fantasy literature were contrasted with reading in digital format: the comfort of getting cozy on the couch with a paper novel, escaping to a different world, and the ease with which I can accomplish both. I decided to highlight some of the features I enjoyed while reading on my iPod Touch, and that I’ll look for in the future in any device I decide to read eBooks on.

This is the fifth in a series of Top 10 posts covering the fantasy industry. Last week, we covered the Top 10 Fantasy Video Games of All Time.

Reading Without a Light

I found that reading on my iPod Touch, which is a device with a back light, was a significant advantage over paper books. Being able to read without a light means you don’t have to sit next to a lamp, and for me, being next to a hot light in Brazil is not fun this time of year. Other eReaders like the Nook and Kindle don’t have back lights, although newer color versions of the devices do. Having a back light is a feature that I’ll consider essential when deciding on purchasing a larger eReader in the future.

Reading with One Hand

Probably the most convenient feature of reading on my iPod Touch (and I could see doing this on an iPad or a Kindle as well), is the ability to read with one hand. Its like a Rondo no-look pass in basketball. I was able to dedicate my other arm, which is usually stuck holding the other half of a paper book so it won’t close, to other essential tasks, everything from hugging my wife on the couch to snacking to adjusting the music volume on my stereo. I never thought I’d want to be doing other stuff while reading, but this really just gives me the opportunity to read when I would normally be sitting on the couch with my wife watching some Brazilian novella I have absolutely zero interest in. Bravo, iPod Touch, bravo.

Search

Searching books for keywords is something that has always taken a while with print, especially for me digging through web development reference books. With regard to fiction, being able to search is great for reviewing books here on FantasyBookNews.com – I don’t have to stop every time I encounter a quote that I want to pull for my review. I can make a mental note and then go back at the end of the chapter and search, in order to pull the exact quote. Of course, this feature is tied very closely with the next, which is…

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are like the all-star feature of digital book readers. I can’t count how many times I’ve, in the past, stopped reading, found my notepad, picked up a pencil and jotted down a page number. No more! The bookmark feature in iBooks is fantastic, you can simply touch the bookmark icon in the upper right hand corner and iBooks will remember every page you tag. This is a revolution for me with regard to reviewing fantasy novels. Marge, I think I just tripled my production time.

Pages Remaining

I occasionally flip forward while reading paper books to see how many pages I have remaining in each chapter. With iBooks, you’re able to toggle whether the pages remaining appear on screen or not, letting the reader decide whether this is information they want to see, or whether they consider it a distraction and want to hide it. I played around with toggling this on and off the entire time I read The Way of Kings, if for nothing more than the fun of toggling. Toggle, toggle. No, seriously, this is a really nice feature that I’ll definitely look for in future eReader purchases.

Fantasy Book News

While the web offers a lot of wonderful stuff for sci-fi, fantasy and horror fans, it’s important to remember that there are plenty of print magazines on your local bookstore shelves that deserve your attention. Some of them have been steadily supplying news and features to fandom for decades, while others are [...]
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Hi all!  Every New Year’s Eve, you make resolutions….lose weight, stop smoking, quit biting your nails…mine occurred to me a few days after Jan. 1st when I sat down to work and found myself stuck.  I hadn’t been drawing much with the craziness of the holidays and it took a while to limber up those drawing muscles.  It occurred to me that I needed to draw more – NEED to, if I want to consider myself a professional  artist.

With that, I’m going to draw for myself more regularly.  I can’t do a daily warmup, as my life is a bit too crazy, but I want to do something weekly.  With that in mind, here’s the first in a series.  “Aeronaut” started a s quick steampunk themed sketch but I think it has a lot of promise!

MoonShines

Cherie Priest is not a new writer. She hit it big in late 2009 with the award-winning Boneshaker, but she has ten books to her credit and another three are forthcoming.

One of them is out this week. Bloodshot! What better way to celebrate than to interview the author! Here we go!
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Steampunk has really come into it’s own in the last year, for good reason.  The quirky mashup of Edwardian/Victorian style and culture and Jules Vernian science fiction is very appealing, and I loved seeing each new inventive costume at last summer’s conventions.  With that in mind, meet the Aeronaut, first in a series.

MoonShines

Conventions are a wonderful opportunity to “make new friends and keep the old” as the song says, networking with potential clients, artistic peers while meeting fans and making friends. One of the nice people I’ve had the pleasure to do con sketches for followed up and commissioned a private piece.  This is based on a Legend of the Five Rings character he used to play.  This was originally to be a color figure with no background, but there was too much potential in the early stages of the sketch to not add in the sails of a Japanese junk.

MoonShines

Here are the latest sci-fi/fantasy releases!
Hardcover

The Warlord’s Legacy by Ari Marmell
The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi and J.K. Drummond
All Clear by Connie Willis and J.K. Potter
Brayan’s Gold by Peter V. Brett and Lauren K. Cannon
The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell and J. K. Drummond

Paperback

Much Fall of Blood (Heirs of Alexandria) by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and [...]
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games