When the NFL’s top players take the field for the annual Pro Bowl in Honolulu on Sunday, no NFC team will boast more representatives than the Atlanta Falcons. Despite their disappointing 8-8 season, which saw them miss the playoffs a year after winning the NFC South at 11-5, six Falcons were named to the NFC squad. When it comes to the Falcons, there is a disconnect between public perception and on-field reality, and no player exemplifies it more than quarterback Michael Vick.

Vick joins Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck and Carolina’s Jake Delhomme on the NFC roster even though his completion percentage and yards per pass attempt ranked far below the league average. Vick threw just two more touchdowns than he did interceptions. While Vick enjoys Hawaii, a number of better NFC quarterbacks are left at home, including two who led playoff teams, Washington’s Mark Brunell and the Giants’ Eli Manning.

The defense of Vick’s poor passing numbers has always been that he is a winner whose leadership and clutch playmaking abilities are not reflected by statistics. But that defense evaporated when the Falcons went 2-6 during the second half of the season, and Vick finished the season ranked 25th in quarterback rating, 29th in completion percentage, and eighth in interceptions despite attempting far fewer passes than most starting quarterbacks. By the final week, even many pundits who had long defended Vick from criticism began to turn on him, suggesting that perhaps he really doesn’t have the skill set – or worse, the mindset – to succeed in the NFL.

Many fans have blamed Vick’s struggles on the “West Coast Offense” installed in 2004 by offensive coordinator Greg Knapp. ESPN analyst and former MVP quarterback Ron Jaworski, however, disagrees. “The problem isn’t that Atlanta’s offense is founded on timing and rhythm,” Jaworski said. “Every passing game is founded on timing and rhythm.” According to Jaworski, Vick’s problems all come down to fundamentals.

Watch Vick from the end zone angle on coaches’ film rather than a television broadcast, and his problems become clear. On some plays he will drop back diagonally rather than vertically, running into his blockers and, in effect, creating his own pass pressure. His rollouts are flat, making it easy for defenders to spy him while remaining in zones. Often, when his initial receiver is covered, Vick won’t even try to find a second option, preferring to pull the ball down and look to scramble, going into what Jaworski and his compatriots call “action figure mode.”

Vick’s fundamentals are poor in part because he spent just two years in college and then entered the NFL as an immediate superstar, hailed as the man who would revolutionize the quarterback position. The late draft guru Joel Buschbaum was eerily prescient in his 2001 draft guide, stating that the sooner Vick moved into a starting role, the less incentive he would have to learn to play fundamentally sound football. Instead, Buschbaum warned, Vick would simply do the things that made him famous, but didn’t necessarily win games – especially in the NFL.

Vick did lead the Falcons to the playoffs in 2002, but then stagnated; he is actually worse now than he was then. It could be that he is not getting good coaching, or that he simply does not want to change his style. The good news for Atlanta is that there is still time to address these issues, and history says nobody should write off Vick’s career just yet.

When he entered the league, Vick was commonly compared to Hall of Famer Steve Young, who like Vick was a left-handed quarterback with a rifle arm and astounding speed as a runner. Vick critics have scoffed at the comparison, saying there is no way that the inaccurate and mistake-prone Vick could be compared to a smart and disciplined legend like Young.

But look at the numbers, not just yards and completions but age and experience, and it turns out that the best comparison for Vick is, in fact, Steve Young – before he was smart and disciplined.

The most similar season to Vick’s 2005 campaign is Young’s 1986 season, his first full season in Tampa Bay after spending his first two years in the upstart USFL. The 25-year-old Vick completed just 55% of his passes, averaging 6.23 yards per attempt while gaining 597 rushing yards on 102 carries. The 25-year-old Young completed 54% of his passes, averaging 6.29 yards per attempt while gaining 425 yards on 74 carries. The only major difference between the two seasons is that Vick was actually better than Young, with twice as many touchdowns.

Young is not the only future MVP whose early career resembled Vick’s. The second-most similar season belongs to Steve McNair in 1997, his first season as a starter for the Tennessee Oilers. Fifth on the list is Rich Gannon with the 1990 Minnesota Vikings, 12 long years before he developed into an MVP with the Oakland Raiders.

Of course, the list of similar quarterbacks also includes cautionary tales, quarterbacks who were never able to improve their accuracy and decision making to match their raw talent: Kordell Stewart with the 1998 Steelers, Charlie Batch with the 2000 Lions, Dave Brown with the 1996 Giants.

This is the fork in the road where Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons now stand. Unlike Young, Vick is not going to be traded to San Francisco where he can spend years learning from Joe Montana. Unlike McNair, Vick did not wait until his third year to become a starter, serving a two-year apprenticeship during which he could hone his craft.

The Falcons must realize that Vick’s performance will never match their investment in him until he learns to be a professional quarterback rather than an athlete who happens to line up behind center. And yet, there is no way they will bench or discipline him if he ignores coaches and continues to make the same mistakes. Vick has to find his own motivation to improve and ignore the millions of fans who praise his freelancing on the field, ignore his mistakes, and find excuses for his poor performance.

Judged by fame and fortune, Vick is already a spectacular success. Judged by championships, he is not. Vick himself needs to decide who he wants to be. Kordell Stewart had the funky nickname, but Steve Young has the ring.

Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.