Camp tour: Falcons, Harrington dealing with The Situation

Falcons: Five things to know | Prisco

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- At the Atlanta Falcons practice facility, so far north of Atlanta it might as well be in South Carolina, there is little to show that a certain left-handed quarterback who wore a No. 7 jersey the past six seasons is even a part of the team anymore.

Temporary fill-in or not, the Falcons are Joey Harrington's team right now. (US Presswire)

Oh, there's a picture in the offices next to some other star players, and if you look closely into one of those facing the lush practice fields, there's a little Michael Vick figurine on the window sill.

But after a two-day visit to the country feel of Flowery Branch, the feeling you get is this:

Michael Vick is dead to the Atlanta Falcons.

That might sound cruel and nasty and harsh, but the reality is the team has moved on. As Vick tries to unravel himself from the net cast by the federal government indictment for his role in a dog-fighting ring, the Falcons won't even acknowledge his existence.

Visiting reporters are told to ask no Michael Vick questions, which, of course, they don't. Players and coaches refrain from mentioning his name or the pending charges. About all the Vick talk you get is a few jokes by reporters, who just can't help themselves.

This is Joey Harrington's team now. For how long, who knows? But this much you can tell: The players are rallying around him as their quarterback.

During a workout Tuesday afternoon, Harrington wasn't happy with the way the offense was playing. So he took his helmet off and addressed his huddle, not screaming at them, just offering encouragement.

"It shows he's stepping up and this is his team now," tight end Alge Crumpler said. "If he's going to be out there, he has to demand that the guys play well enough for us to win."

Vick still isn't suspended for the season or even any regular-season games, but you get the idea he won't be in a Falcons uniform this year -- if ever. First-year coach Bobby Petrino is treating him like an injured player out for the year. Push him to the side, keep playing, and don't fret about it.

In talking about it, Petrino didn't mention Vick's name. Nobody does.

"I try not to (think about it) at all," Petrino said during an early-morning chat at the team's facility. "I just try and keep going. The thing is when we started practice I didn't want our coaches and players sitting in rooms and gathering in areas to talk about the situation. We have to do what we always do. The guys have done a nice job with that. Players are worrying about their job and not worrying about the situation."

Oh yeah, they call it The Situation. What a way to describe the fact that your franchise quarterback, the player the Falcons relied on to sell tickets and get national recognition, might never play a down this year and is embroiled in a mess that has forever made his name synonymous with "despicable."

What else can the Falcons do? Moan about his absence? Cancel the season?

Football teams are usually resilient, and this one, thanks to its driven head coach, seems to be another of those.

It helps to have a cocky quarterback taking over. Yes, cocky. Sitting with Harrington, you would hardly know that this is the same passer who has carried the label "bust" around with him the past couple of years.

Harrington was the third player taken in the 2002 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions. He was expected to be that team's franchise passer for years to come, but he failed. He struggled to win over fans, struggled to win games and struggled to get acceptance in the locker room.

His Lions stay was an ugly one. The fans, he said, were fickle. They went from loving him when he arrived to hating him before he left.

"I've gone through very extreme cycles," Harrington said. "There was a year or two where I would have to wear a baseball cap to make it to my flight on time. And then on the other end, I'd have to wear one because I was scared to go to the grocery store without a baseball cap because I didn't want somebody to accost me outside the citrus aisle.

"I got that very, very rarely to my face. I got a lot of people who would leave notes. I got a couple of death threats on my voice mail. It got to the point where I had to take my family out of the stands because people were trying to start fights with my mom.

"But I learned to take it in stride. What happened in Detroit is I let other people determine my happiness. When I start letting Joe Fan in row 32, seat E tell me if I'm a good person, I got issues."

Harrington said what others say or think about him no longer matters. The Detroit experience, he said, helped put that type of thing in perspective.

"The thing I learned the most of all is to not let other people's opinions affect who I am and how I conduct myself," Harrington said. "I tried to make everybody happy. I tried to be something for everybody. By doing that, I lost who I was. I tried to conform to what other people thought I should be instead of sticking to who I was."

He might insist other people's opinions don't matter, but his actions say otherwise. During our interview, I told him a story about what one of his teammates said about him a few years back.

It went like this: After Harrington and the Lions beat the Falcons 17-10 in Atlanta in 2004, one of his teammates told me in the locker room that the Lions would never be winners because of Harrington.

After relaying that story to Harrington, he shrugged his shoulders.

"Doesn't matter," he said.

But 45 minutes later, while I was interviewing another player, he came toward me.

"Who was it?" he asked. "Was it Dre' Bly?"
"I can't tell you," I said.
"Come on," he said. "Who was it?"
"I can't tell you," I told him again.

He walked away, but 10 minutes later he came back and had another name.

"Robert Porcher," Harrington said.

Moral of the story: Harrington can say all he wants about things not bothering him, but it's clear they do. How much he limits that could be the key to his success.

But he does sound like he's much more confident. He loves the freedom Petrino's offense will give him, something he said he didn't have in Detroit. In the practices I watched, he looked sure of himself. He went to the right spots with the football, which is more than Vick ever did. Honestly, Harrington looks like a good fit.

"I've been impressed from the day he arrived," Petrino said.

Most view Harrington as a one-year fix. If Vick ever does return, which is unlikely no matter what the Falcons or the NFL say right now, Harrington would be on the bench again. There's also a chance that a young quarterback could be drafted high if the Falcons stink it up, say maybe Louisville's Brian Brohm.

What if Harrington plays well? Can he be more than just a footnote to history, the guy who replaced Michael Vick?

"Says who?" Harrington said of being footnote. "If we won some ballgames, I don't see why I can't be the starting quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons. Winning football games is a cure-all. We don't have a trophy around here. If I can contribute to that, I see no footnote."

Crumpler sort of agreed.

"There are certain things you do that people won't remember at the end of the day once you start winning," Crumpler said. "That's what people remember. There's always a great story at the end of the day in the National Football League. Why can't it be us?"

Michael Vick might be dead to the Atlanta Falcons, but that doesn't mean hope isn't alive and well.