Nearly a few weeks from the playoffs and this NFL season has only managed to bore me to date. Being a Raiders fan, I've had very little to be enthused about to begin with. However, what's worse--besides the fact that the loathesome Chiefs have the best record in the NFL--is that I can't say I've seen much electrifing play around the league as a whole. Sure, there are comebacks and upsets galore and lots of premier players who consistently put up pro-bowl worthy numbers, but where can you find a good reason to tune into a game you have no supporting interest in? In a league where parity has led to teams grinding out games for winning records, is it possible to still watch plays thrilling enough to knock a neutral's socks off? h3. Getting Past the Hype I was reluctant to climb onto last season's Michael Vick bandwagon. Everywhere you looked, some analyst or another was going on about how the Atlanta quarterback was revolutionizing his position. Vick certainly was impressive, but the hype machine went so over the top that it was hard to appreciate just what Michael Vick can bring to the game. The NFL is a brutally competitive league--today's wonderman is often tomorrow's has been (just ask Kordell Stewart or Kurt Warner)--where players constantly asked to prove themself. Top defences in the league always come into each season with new schemes and techniques that can stop prolfic offences cold--just ask the woeful Raiders about how defences have learned to upset the West Coast offence. So I figured the real crucible for Vick would come during this season, when every defender in the league would be gunning for the chance to stop last year's most electrifying player dead in his tracks. Unfortunately, a freak leg break, incurred on his lower right leg during preseason, meant nobody would see if Michael Vick could continue to set the NFL ablaze. Instead, the man who can cut and accelerate like no quarterback before him would have to rehab his leg for as long as it took for him to play his game again. I don't think football fans, I among them, could truly realize how much poorer this NFL season had became when Vick went down. This is because when Vick came back last week to start for Atlanta, by now a brutal 2-10 team thay offers him a mediocre supporting cast, he looked like Superman. h3. Welcome Back Michael Vick With the hype answered, I do believe I can now sign up onto the Michael Vick bandwagon. Why? Because Vick is the type of player in any sport than can make even non-fans take notice. ESPN even superimposed a special line of scrimage marker just to give viewers a feel for what Vick works with each time he scrambles or pulls the ball down! He's a playmaker in a time when players of his calibre are sorely lacking in the league. When I played the latest Madden game with Vick as my QB, I was pulling off so many wacky scrambles and sideline to sideline runs that I felt the game balance must have been broken. Yet, I don't think it was. I think a quarterback with Vick's fluid running ability and effortless passing mechanics is to the NFL as what Shaquille O'Neil is the NBA. How many players in recent memory have been able to fundamentally change how we look at a major aspect of the game? Now wonder then that as the league sluggishly moves towards the post-season, Michael Vick is the only the reason I have left to watch the rest of this football season. Aside from a mild desire to see the underated Steve McNair can deservedly guide the Titans to a Superbowl victory over Donovan McNabb and the Eagles, my highlight of the season is probably going to be watching Vick simply make plays for the next three weeks.