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Jamaal Anderson and his coach, Dan Reeves, stood on the Atlanta sidelines of a game in 2001 on the brink of something neither one fully understood.

The stands weren't anywhere near filled. They hadn't been for a few years as the Falcons had once again bottomed out. Reeves didn't notice. The taciturn old Gamecock was watching the rest of his team go through pre-game warm-ups. Anderson was concentrating on the crowd.

"Coach," he said to Reeves, who hadn't even acknowledged his running back standing beside him.

Reeves grunted, still not paying attention. Anderson never took his eyes off the crowd.

"That Vick guy 'bout to catch me in jersey sales," he said.

And so the Mike Vick era began in Atlanta.

Training camp opened this week across the NFL, and it opens today in Spartanburg, S.C. He won't be in camp with the Panthers today or tomorrow or any other day. In fact, of all the places he could yet end up, the last place on earth is probably not Flowery Branch, Ga., where Vick's former Atlanta Falcons are training, but at Wofford College.

This is the most un-Vick franchise in football. The question, though, is just where Vick could possibly play? If you were to make a list of all the franchises presumably on the list of teams that might consider signing the troubled quarterback, and we assume there is a list, the Panthers aren't even on it. That would include at least 28 other teams and maybe every single one.

For the past week, almost every day, another NFL coach has gone on record disputing reports his team is interested in the released felon who was once the face of the league. And those that haven't addressed it are asked daily. It doesn't even come up in Charlotte. It's not worth asking.

Somehow, outside looking in, everyone assumes it's an issue with every team in the league trying to figure out how to work the talented quarterback into a system, figure out how to appease those who would protest and figure out how much to pay him. Inside looking out, there is no such team. For all the hand-wringing on the Worldwide Leader in Sports, it's entirely possible Vick doesn't play at all this year. It's not out of the question that he never plays in the NFL again.

Despite the advent of the "wildcat" offense somehow credited to Vick, the age of the running quarterback is over in the NFL. It was short-lived anyway, and the imprisonment of Vick didn't end it. The replacement of Vince Young by Kerry Collins ended the last offense in the league with plays designed for the quarterback to run in an offense built around it. Of course, this was how football was designed to begin with, so forget all the talk of it being new. It began to go away about the time they invented helmets.

Vick might fit into a package some enterprising coach might experiment with. But there's not an owner in the league comfortable with it and not a GM in the league willing to get himself fired for signing him. That's where the impasse stands. It has nothing to do with money or PETA or the "wildcat."

In the two years since he's played, his game has been analyzed, his numbers picked over and his effect debated. The unspoken realization among GMs and coaches alike is that Vick wasn't a very good quarterback. He was a very good runner, maybe the best we've ever seen. But in the interim, the game he supposedly invented has disappeared from the NFL.

Vick's arrival in Atlanta coincided with the downfall of the organization. No one who was in ownership or the front office when Vick was drafted was still there in 2006 when he went to prison for his role in an interstate dog-fighting ring. The team built around the speedy Vick was a shambles.

The team that takes him now gets a player who was once the second-highest paid athlete in America (Dale Earnhardt Jr. is first in salary and endorsements) and is now bankrupt and dealing with dozens of creditors wanting to be repaid in addition to three banks and the U.S. Department of Labor.

The team that takes him now will immediately be swept up in a sordid federal financial mess as people wait in line for him to make money so he can pay them back.

The team that takes him now gets him for two exhibitions and then waits out a six-game league suspension until the NFL deems him worthy of even rejoining the league at large. The team that takes him now gets the most toxic player in sports.

Since he joined the Falcons, the organization has changed owners and is on its third general manager. That day in 2001 when Reeves and Anderson stood on the sidelines seemed to hold so much promise for the rookie quarterback and the fans of Atlanta. Ultimately, it was about jersey sales. He almost destroyed the Atlanta Falcons.

Anderson, the franchise's all-time leading rusher, was gone at the end of the season. Two years later, with three games left in the season, Reeves simply walked off the job.

Vick's name, or his game, is not being discussed today by the Panthers. If there's any team in the league willing to give him a chance, it hasn't come forth yet. It's possible one will take the chance in the coming hours, but it's just as possible that Michael Vick will never play another regular-season game in the NFL.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@ news-record.com