Michael Vick is one of the rare football players who, when he’s got things rolling, seems to be pulling rabbits out of a hat. On bad days such as yesterday, he looks like he forgot to bring the hat.

It’s lucky for Vick that he was playing against the woeful Cardinals, because it’s hard it imagine him being so slack and sloppy against anyone else and walking away a winner. Vick was 10-of-20 for just 115 yards with no touchdowns and one interception during the Falcons’ 6-3 win in Atlanta.

Vick also ran nine times for 68 yards, which, like most of his rushing stats, looks far more impressive on paper than it did on the field. He lost a fumble inside Arizona’s 5-yard-line to kill one drive, and 58 of his 68 yards came on a bootleg run with about a minute left to play. The run did help to kill the clock, which was about Vick’s only genuine contribution to his team.

Arizona’s quarterbacks Josh McCown and Shaun King were much sharper, combining for 25 of 31 passes for 238 yards. But they constantly saw their drives eaten up by penalties and sacks, and were victimized by a fumble on a crucial possession near the Falcons’ goal line on what should have been the winning touchdown.

One wants to award the game ball to the Falcons defense, but really, the game had far more to do with Arizona’s offensive ineptitude than with Atlanta’s defensive effectiveness.

The Falcons TV team of Tim Green and Curt Menefee, like most TV commentators, fawned all over Vick most of the day, blaming the Atlanta blockers for the inconsistent offense. In truth, Vick did not play above the level of his linemen and receivers, and in several circumstances gave them fits by stopping, starting again, and then reversing his direction each time they tried to make a block for him. At least twice, a Falcon blocker made solid contact with a Cardinal defender only to accidentally push his man into Vick – his own blockers never seemed to know which way his aimless ramblings would take him.

Vick, as nearly every pro football analyst has had occasion to remark, is a splendid athlete, probably the best in football today. He is the leading candidate for the secret title of Great Black Quarterback, the existence of which so many football writers and commentators affirm in private and deny in public. He may one day be a great quarterback, but he is far from that right now.

Because of his much-publicized injuries, Vick has, in this his fourth NFL season, started just 24 games, and his passing numbers are just a cut above mediocre. His career completion percentage is 53%, he has thrown just 24 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions, and in the all-important yards-per-pass stat, he scores an unremarkable 6.85.

As a runner, of course, he is sensational. If he were a running back, his career total of 1,518 yards rushing in just 24 starts – for an eye-opening 7.3 yards-per-carry average – might make him an All-Pro. But running quarterbacks get injured, as Vick has found out several times now; they can also be contained, as the NFL ought to learn from the Arizona defense yesterday.

The Cardinals started by having the down linemen and an occasional linebacker rush Vick wide to take away the rollout. Because he can stop dead while rolling to his right and deliver a perfectly thrown ball almost anywhere downfield, the left-handed Vick is usually deadly sprinting out to either side. What he is not yet, and almost certainly needs to become to be a great quarterback, is a pocket passer who can read defenses. He never read the Cardinals’ defense yesterday.

By pushing the Falcons receivers down the sidelines to delay them, Arizona gave the illusion of leaving Vick the middle of the field to run. Then they brought the safeties up to contain him if he decided to take off with the ball. He did so several times, almost all for negligible gains, and almost always stopped by somebody in the defensive backfield. (Three of the Cardinals’ four leading tacklers are in their defensive backfield – normally a bad sign for a defense, but a good one for Arizona on this day, as that is where they were trying to flush Vick.)

The unusual thing is not that the Cardinals tried these tactics against Vick, but that everybody doesn’t. And though the Falcons are now 3-0, their best start in years, yesterday’s flat performance against a defense that came into the game allowing an average of 413 yards per game doesn’t inspire confidence.

Vick would do well to study Donovan McNabb’s game films. McNabb seems to be evolving into one of the best passers in the NFC by using his mobility to open up passing lanes rather than to scramble for yardage. At the same time Vick was foundering against the Cardinals, McNabb was having perhaps his best game as a pro against the previously unbeaten Lions, completing 29 of 42 passes for 356 yards.

There are those who credit McNabb’s passing success this year to the presence of Terrell Owens. But McNabb seems to be having just as much success throwing to his other receivers, particularly when he takes a step or two toward the line of scrimmage and freezes opposing safeties and defensive backs. All winning quarterbacks in the NFL have been great passers, and as McNabb’s rushing attempts have declined, his passing statistics have improved. It’s a lesson Michael Vick needs to learn, and learn quickly.