Football games become even more important in December with the playoffs looming, but today’s showdown between the Eagles and Falcons was especially important for one player: Michael Vick. Vick marched into the Georgia Dome  on Sunday as a team captain wearing number 7. That’s the same number he wore for six years when he was the face of the Falcons franchise before the dog fighting scandal surfaced.

As most people would’ve anticipated, when Vick took the field for his first play he was met by an overwhelming amount of boos from the crowd. He took direct snaps in the wildcat formation and racked up his usual six yards or so on his limited touches. It looked like this would be another disappointing game for Vick in what has been a disappointing season as the former all star hasn’t had quite the impact in Philadelphia that people thought he would.

But then the Eagles found themselves with a 3rd and 1 from the Falcons 5 yard line. Vick came into the game to do what he was signed to do: give the Eagles another option in short yardage situations that they struggled in so badly last season. Vick took the direct snap and made some moves to get into the end zone for his first score as an Eagle and his first rushing touchdown since 2006. Vick was noticeably fired up and all of his new team mates looked equally as excited as they came over to congratulate him. Even Andy Reid joined in on the celebration and gave Vick a big hug. I think it was Reid’s first smile in public since 2004.

In a game that was already dominated by the Eagles, the Falcons kept showing how much they missed Matt Ryan and Michael Turner by letting the Eagles defense run them into the ground. Following Vick’s rushing touchdown, Sheldon Brown jumped a curl route on the left side and took it to the house for a pick six. On the next drive, Chris Gocong got some pressure on Chris Redman, forcing a bad throw that was picked off by Sean Jones.

Team/Player Photos: Philadelphia Eagles Team / Player Photos on Jul 24, 2010

With a comfortable 27 point lead in the fourth quarter, the Eagles found themselves in the red zone once again and it looked like they were going to honor Vick by letting him finish out the game as the quarterback. Vick took advantage of the opportunity and threw a cross body touchdown strike to Brent Celek to give the Eagles a 34-0 lead. It was the 11th time in his career that Vick rushed and threw for a touchdown in the same game.

Unfortunately for Vick, he injured his thumb on the play and gave way to the normal backup quarterback, Kevin Kolb, for the rest of the game. Atlanta rallied to score a fluke touchdown in the closing seconds of the game but regardless, the Eagles got the win they needed to stay competitive in the playoff hunt and Michael Vick got the big homecoming game he was hoping for.