And now, here comes Spread Eagle

What you'll be exposed to at Lincoln Financial Field today isn't just the start of another chapter of Michael Vick's career.

It's also the future of the NFL.

Vick isn't going to be running the Wildcat offense that you saw last week against the New Orleans Saints or Monday night when the Miami Dolphins controlled the ball for more than 45 minutes before losing to Indianapolis.

"When Michael Vick is at quarterback, I don't think it's the Wildcat," said former NFL coach Jon Gruden, who now works as an analyst for ESPN's Monday Night Football. "It's the spread option."

No, it's the Spread Eagle.

Gruden is right, though. It's much different from the Wildcat offense that incorporates direct snaps to tailbacks and wide receivers. On the other hand, it's similar to what you see from the country's top-ranked college football team down in Florida every week with quarterback Tim Tebow.

Provided Brian Westbrook's sprained right ankle has healed enough to let him play, Vick will be working his way down the line of scrimmage and deciding if he wants to run or give the football to his star running back. Of course, Vick also has the ability to throw the football down the field, an option that isn't feasible when Westbrook, DeSean Jackson, and Ronnie Brown are taking the direct snaps.

Gruden loves the Wildcat offense in Miami because he thinks it gives backs like Brown and Ricky Williams an extra blocker to run plays the Dolphins are used to executing anyway when the quarterback is on the field. It worked well Monday night, when the Dolphins racked up 106 yards on 12 Wildcat plays.

"Everybody has a power-right 96 where the right guard and the right tackle double down and they all have a power-left 97, and that's what the Dolphins are doing without the quarterback," Gruden said. "They take the quarterback out, spread a wide receiver out, and he has to be accounted for."

Gruden said the Wildcat had spread since the Dolphins first started running it during a stunning upset at New England last season that served as a springboard to a stunning turnaround season in which they went from 1-15 to 11-5.

"I see Jacksonville doing it with Maurice Jones-Drew and the Jets doing it with Leon Washington," Gruden said. "We wanted to do it last year at Tampa Bay with Warrick Dunn, but he got hurt."

If the Vick experiment goes well this season, the Spread Eagle should catch on throughout the NFL. Even if it doesn't go well, there's reason to believe you'll see similar offenses in the future.

The main reason?

It's the way kids are being taught to play football these days.

"One of my sons plays high school football down here in Florida, and I went to one of his seven-on-seven camps," Gruden said. "There were 75 high school teams, and 74 of them had the quarterback taking the snap out of the shotgun.

"A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to coach the Senior Bowl, and we were trying to get the quarterbacks to take snaps from under center and they couldn't do it. One of the quarterbacks said, 'Coach, I've never done this before.' This is the way kids are being coached in high school and in college."

Tebow, of course, has shown that a quarterback can take a hit, but at least right now he's somewhat a freak of nature.

"He's an exception to all the rules," Gruden said. "He's built like Brandon Jacobs, and I don't think anybody has ever seen a 240-pound man like that before. He can withstand the pounding you take when you run between the tackles."

That said, Gruden sees an NFL future where Pat White is running the spread option in Miami and Vince Young is running it in Tennessee and Brad Smith running it with the Jets.

"And when Tim Tebow comes into the league, you're going to see some form of it with him," Gruden said.

Of course, all the majority of fans who enter the Linc this afternoon will care about is how this Spread Eagle is going to work this season.

"If you're an opposing defense, you have to worry about Vick, you have to worry about the Wildcat, and you have to worry about McNabb," Gruden said. "I know if you have somebody like McNabb or Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, you want to get the ball in their hands every play, but if you have Michael Vick on your football team, you're logically going to cater to the things he can do, too. I can show you some of the scars on my body from all the years we played against Michael Vick in Tampa Bay."

Read Bob Brookover's Eagles blog, Birds' Eye View, at http://go.philly.com/sports

Posted: 5:28 a.m. Thursday

By: Jeffmacnow1234

"I, for one, am absolutely giddy with excitement about what this offense might look like with all of these weapons on the field with Vick now included. ABSOLUTELY SICK!!!! I can't wait to see what AR comes up with for Sunday."EndText

at 215-854-2577 or bbrookover@phillynews.com.