Gunzlingr
12-03-2003, 09:27 AM
Merril Hoge watched Michael Vick make his season debut last Sunday against the Houston Texans, and he noted that the Texans hit him hard.
But Hoge, a hard-nosed running back in the NFL for eight seasons and now an analyst for ESPN, didn't see anything malicious.
"I don't think I saw anything out of the ordinary that I don't see in every other game," Hoge said.
It seemed to fly in the face of claims of Falcons players who said that the Texans were intentionally trying to injure the Falcons' star quarterback, who was playing his first game of the season after breaking his right fibula in the preseason. But not entirely.
"Are teams going to focus on Vick, and when you have an opportunity to hit him, are you going to hit him with all you've got?" Hoge asked. "I don't think there's any question that teams are going to be doing that. That's part of anybody's plans."
There is a distinction between attempting to injure a player and what Hoge called "attacking a weakness."
MORE (http://www.ajc.com/falcons/content/sports/falcons/1203/03vick.html)
But Hoge, a hard-nosed running back in the NFL for eight seasons and now an analyst for ESPN, didn't see anything malicious.
"I don't think I saw anything out of the ordinary that I don't see in every other game," Hoge said.
It seemed to fly in the face of claims of Falcons players who said that the Texans were intentionally trying to injure the Falcons' star quarterback, who was playing his first game of the season after breaking his right fibula in the preseason. But not entirely.
"Are teams going to focus on Vick, and when you have an opportunity to hit him, are you going to hit him with all you've got?" Hoge asked. "I don't think there's any question that teams are going to be doing that. That's part of anybody's plans."
There is a distinction between attempting to injure a player and what Hoge called "attacking a weakness."
MORE (http://www.ajc.com/falcons/content/sports/falcons/1203/03vick.html)