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PHILADELPHIA -- Brian Westbrook did not practice with the Eagles on Wednesday, nor did he talk about why. His coach, Andy Reid, said Westbrook would practice Thursday and that the reason he was held out Wednesday was his ankle, and not the concussion he suffered in the team's Oct. 26 victory over the Redskins. But if you buy that, I've got a South Philly bridge to sell you, too.

The ankle is a red herring. Westbrook's ankle is a chronic problem, for which he's had surgery, and his ankle probably hurts every day. They can put him on the injury report with an ankle problem anytime they want, and nobody's going to bat an eye. This thing with Westbrook is a case of a player, concerned about his own personal future, taking it slow amid a culture that's only starting to embrace the danger and seriousness of concussions.

PHILADELPHIA -- Michael Vick has all but disappeared, since the season began, into the Eagles' multifaceted offense and Andy Reid's secret future plans for it. But he is still MIchael Vick, convicted dogfighter and NFL lightning rod. So when he said in an interview with NBC's Bob Costas on Sunday that he'd have a hard time returning to the Eagles in his current role next year, he wasn't surprised that it became big news.

But on Wednesday, before the Eagles took the field for practice, Vick spoke briefly to reporters in the locker room and wanted to make it very clear that, while he'd obviously like to be playing more than he is, he's still enjoying the Eagles' bench much more than he was enjoying federal prison.

PHILADELPHIA -- You don't think of the Eagles along with the Saints or the Colts or the Patriots in terms of the number, the variety and the explosiveness of their offensive playmakers. Teams like that set the standard, and the Eagles don't feel like they fit into that kind of conversation. And that's fine, because they're not there yet.

But if you watched the Eagles score on big play after big play Sunday afternoon against the Giants, you got the feel that they might very well be there soon. Andy Reid's Philadelphia offense remains a work in progress, but with the number of different weapons he has at his disposal on any given play, we could soon be talking about the Eagles as one of the most exciting and dynamic offensive teams in the league.

PHILADELPHIA -- Mike Alvarez is a lifelong Philadelphian with a Cole Hamels haircut and a vintage maroon Phillies cap who spent his Sunday in a parking lot. Alvarez didn't have tickets to the Eagles-Giants game in the afternoon. He didn't have tickets to the Phillies-Yankees World Series game at night. What he did have was a parking space for his truck, a seemingly bottomless supply of beer and enough slightly slurred wisdom to know that there was no place he would have rather been than this particular parking lot on this particular day, surrounded by his fellow Eagles and Phillies fans.

"They got flat-screens over there," Alvarez said, waving his beer can in the direction of a nearby RV. "Everybody's grilling food. I've made a ton of new friends. What more could you want?"

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- This was to have been the Giants' get-right game. Sure, New Orleans beat them up last week, but the Saints are an undefeated team that was coming off a bye week and playing at home. The Giants spent the week shrugging off that loss and promising to be better this week at home against the Cardinals. The defense promised more blitzing and less trepidation. The offense promised to be sharper. To a man, the Giants were certain they'd come up with a big win Sunday night over the reigning NFC champs...and then they lost.

"For whatever reason, we've had two weeks in a row now where one area has not performed very well," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "So, back to the drawing board."

And back, whether they like it or not, into a three-team NFC East tussle where there's no clear favorite -- not even them.

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Reports surfaced last night that Eagles quarterback Michael Vick had signed a new endorsement deal with Nike just months after completing his two-year prison sentence for dogfighting-related crimes. But Nike moved today to deny those stories, saying it "does not have a contractual relationship" with Vick.

Nike signed Vick in 2001, when he was an NFL rookie, and released several versions of Vick signature shoes. But it terminated its relationship with Vick in 2007 after the quarterback pleaded guilty to the dogfighting charge. Vick has since returned to the NFL -- on Sunday he played in his first regular-season game since 2006 -- and like many pro athletes he apparently still gets his shoes from Nike. But the company claims it has not entered into a new endorsement agreement with Vick.

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After watching the painful tape of Sunday's loss to the Saints, Eagles coach Andy Reid decided Kevin Kolb's performance in his first start as an NFL quarterback was even better than he first thought.

"I thought he did some good things," Reid said Monday. "Can he learn from the interception on the second series of the second half? Yeah, he'll learn on that. But I thought overall he did a pretty good job, after having an opportunity to evaluate it."

NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced his final Michael Vick decision to a group of about 20 reporters in a conference room at the league offices in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon. FanHouse attended the session, which lasted about an hour and a half and covered a wide range of topics that began with Vick and also touched on the Cowboys' video board, the blackout/ticket-sales issues in Jacksonville, the upcoming labor negotiations and several other topics.

But the news of the day was Vick, and Goodell's explanation of his reasoning for reinstating Vick effective Week 3 was interesting. The commissioner said, as he has said before, that he's "looking for a success story" with Vick, and that the goal is to make sure the troubled QB becomes a good and productive member of society off the field moving forward. Keeping Vick out for the first two games of the regular season seemed less like a punitive measure on Goodell's part, rather than one designed to take into account the number of different things Vick has going on in his life right now.

FanHouse reported Wednesday night that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is likely to reinstate Eagles quarterback Michael Vick in time for Week 1 of the regular season. Now the LA Times is reporting that Vick (who's in town to play the Jets tonight) will meet with Goodell in the New York area today to get the official word on any remaining discipline he'll face in connection with his conviction and subsequent two-year prison term for dogfighting crimes. That would mean the Eagles would have an answer about Vick's status well in advance of Saturday's deadline to get their roster down to 53.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a quarterback by any other name might break an NFL rule. The Eagles signed Michael Vick with the intention of using him creatively, at various times throughout their games. The Dolphins drafted Pat White with similar (read: "WILDCAT!") intentions. But the NFL's rules regarding weekly roster construction could create some issues for both teams and both QBs.

The league allows each team to have 45 active players each week. If no more than two of those players are quarterbacks, the team may designate a 46th player as its emergency third quarterback. If that player enters the game prior to the fourth quarter, then the first two quarterbacks on the roster are prohibited from returning to the game at any position at any time. So if the Eagles designate Vick as their third QB, they can't use him until the fourth quarter without losing Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb for the rest of the day.

My question is: who decides what a "bona fide quarterback" is? And the answer, apparently, is the NFL.