HOUSTON — When Michael Vick was a young boy growing up in the Ridley Circle housing project in the impoverished East End neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia, he spent endless hours playing what he called “hot ball.”

“Playing football in the backyard, you’d throw the ball up in the air and you gotta dodge like 12 people,” the former NFL quarterback told The Baltimore Sun. “I got used to playing with no cleats and in tennis shoes and slides and learned to be balanced and time out where people are going.”

It took Vick all the way to the top of the sport and made him a generational star.

His career spanned 13 seasons from 2001 to 2015 (interrupted for two years by his imprisonment over his involvement in a dogfighting ring) with the Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers. Along the way, he was selected to the Pro Bowl four times, became a video game icon and cultural phenom and set the NFL record for career rushing yards by a quarterback with 6,109.

On Wednesday, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson broke that mark, running for 87 yards in a Christmas Day blowout of the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. A 6-yard scramble in the third quarter pushed him past his childhood idol by a yard.

“It feels unreal, to be honest with you,” Jackson, 27, said. “I’m grateful because that’s a record that’s been there for a long time. Michael Vick is one of my favorite players. That’s just dope.”

The man whose mark he was chasing agreed.

“It’s really cool knowing that guys like Lamar looked up to me and so many kids is looking up to Lamar,” Vick, 44, told The Sun. “We’ll always be connected, intertwined. It’s a credit to all his success and how hard he’s worked. Certainly the Baltimore Ravens, who put the right people around him to get the most out of what Lamar Jackson could do, from [offensive coordinators] Greg Roman to Todd Monken now. [Former Jets and Ravens offensive coordinator] Marty Mornhinweg as well, drafting him. I told Marty, ‘You gotta get him!’ I seen what he could become years ago.”

Vick, who held the record for 13 years after surpassing Randall Cunningham in October 2011, needed 143 games to reach his total. Astonishingly, Jackson surpassed him in only 102 games over seven seasons.

Jackson also did it in a season in which he is running less often than in the past with 8.4 attempts per game, the first time he has averaged fewer than nine carries per game in his career. He was even chided by his mother for not running more in a Dec. 1 loss to the Eagles. But on Wednesday, he showed that he can break opponents with quality over quantity. He ran just four times, but his electrifying 48-yard touchdown run on the Ravens’ second play of the second half helped blow the game open.

It was the third-longest run of Jackson’s career and he reached 21.25 mph, per Next Gen Stats, for the fastest speed of any run he’s had in the NFL. It was also his fourth rushing scores of at least 40 yards, tying him with Kordell Stewart for the most by any quarterback since 1950.

None of it comes as a surprise to Vick, who sees shades of himself in the reigning and two-time NFL Most Valuable Player but sees the differences, too.

“I was doing it at a time when you never really seen it,” he told The Sun. “It was the evolution of the position.

“My style was a little more make you miss. I think Lamar make you miss as well, but it’s just different how he gains ground. Lamar, once he gets to that second level, it’s different. I think Lamar’s got better long speed than me as well.”

Yet, that is not the skill set that impresses Vick the most.

“He’s playing the game the way he should be playing it — pass first then be running it,” Vick told The Sun. “I think he’s a better passer than runner.

“Lamar’s always been able to run — that’s a natural instinct. The passing game is something you have to learn, and it has to be coordinated with timing and receivers and routes and you got to be on the same page and thinking on the same page.

“He’s accurate, threading the needle, seeing the field. And understanding what the defense is doing supersedes any throw that you can make.”

In that sense, Jackson is having the best year of his career with highs in completion percentage (.679), passing yards (3,955) and touchdowns (39), with the latter also tops in the league.

He has thrown just four interceptions, his 8.9 yards per attempt is a career-high and leads the NFL; ditto his passer rating of 121.6.

“That kind of speaks for itself,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “Sometimes, I just shake my head and say, ‘That was really a great play. That was a great play.’ I’ve seen a lot of great plays from Lamar Jackson. I told him I was proud of him. I’m not just proud of him just because he makes great plays. I’m proud of him for all the things that go into making great plays and also for all the things he’s overcome along the way.”

And as for who would win in a game of “hot ball” between Vick in his prime and Jackson now?

“I trust Lamar Jackson on a QB run as much as I trust myself,” said Vick, who recently became the head coach at Norfolk State University. “It comes down to vision. What lane are you willing to take, because there’s different paths that you can take.”

Now it’s Jackson’s that everyone else is chasing.

Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.