Offensive linemen Julian Vandervelde (left) and A.Q. Shipley are players on the bubble to make the Eagles roster or practice squad.

If you are a player on the bubble of making an NFL team, there aren’t enough preseason games to play, if you are a veteran star, the regular season can’t come soon enough.

It is the same scenario every year.

The struggle for greatness is and endless story that is as intriguing as it is irresistible to watch.

It is a big reason we love to watch and follow sports.

Mike Vick is back on top of the NFL. This preseason – a prequel to the season that lacked an offseason – he has been the tackling dummy for an offensive line that has rookies at center and right guard and a huge question mark at right tackle.

If it’s not going to count Vick is getting clobbered with not much to show for it.

After practice Saturday, Vick said he would be ready for the real games to get underway.

“I am ready for the regular season,” Vick said with a smile. “I’ve been in this game for nine years. Preseason? Ehhhh! Regular season? Let’s go!”

After a few seconds, Vick barked a statement as reporters walked away from his locker.

“It’s (regular season) a whole new level.”

Vick can only hope his teammates on offense will be at the top level against the Rams on September 11.

Wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, apparently recovered from a serious illness in the offseason, has not played a snap of preseason football or even practiced until last week.

Newcomer Steve Smith, a top receiver who arrived from the Giants a week after the lockout, came to the Birds injured and has just started to practice.

Add in the draft picks who still have not lost the deer-in-the-headlights look in their eyes, and Vick must privately take a deep breathe when he thinks about the season opener.

Rookie right guard Danny Watkins has not wowed anyone so far. Certainly a big part of that is the lockout. Like all rookies, standout lineman out of Baylor had no classroom work until late July, no offseason training with team…not even a playbook to study. For him and rookie center Jason Kelce, it has been a work in progress.

On Saturday, Watkins sounded like he wanted to play against the Jets Thursday in the preseason finale.

“My whole thing is the more reps, the more experience, the better,” Watkins said. “I guess it’s just going to be up to the coaches.”

Kelce, who is looking more and more each day like the opening game starting center, wouldn’t comment either way. “I don’t know. Coach Reid said the young guys might get some reps in the fourth game,” Kelce said. “So I imagine I might see some time.”

Andy Reid was asked what he is trying to accomplish with the final preseason game, when starters usually do not play.

“We’ll see, we’ll see who plays and who doesn’t play,” Reid said but really didn’t say. “I can tell you the twos and threes will have an opportunity to play, which I haven’t told them that, in particularly the threes, the last couple of games so there were only a few of those guys that had the opportunity to play. I’ll tell you exactly what I told them, and that’s it’s an opportunity when you have a chance to get in there to show and to get your play on tape and that’s very important. The ones are expecting to play, the twos are expecting to play, and the threes are expecting to play.”

Reid was asked whether the fourth preseason game is different from previous years because of the lockout.

“I think, it might be different for each team as they look at it,” Reid said. “Really, I’m just going to evaluate where we’re at when we get through this week. To answer your question, is it different than years past? I think it’s situated according to each team. I’m going to just take this week, I’m going to evaluate the players, we’re going to practice hard this week, and we’ll just see where guys are at. I know I want to make sure I get out of this game an evaluation with some of the guys that haven’t had a chance to play in the last couple weeks, along with getting better at certain positions. So we’ll see how it all works out.”