I have restrained from commenting on the Michael Vick situation. The man is out of prison, he has served his time, and now he wants more than anything to play in the NFL again. In the words of Roddy White, I say free Mike Vick …
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As an Atlanta Falcon fan I have moved on; we now are in the Matt Ryan era. As a father of young boys I have had to deal with the whole role model thing. Or in the case of Vick, lack of a role model. As an owner of a dog I find what Vick did and supported repugnant.
Contrary to what some would want you to believe, the whole Michael Vick situation is not a racial issue. Plenty of his supports are white, myself included. I still have a Vick #7 jersey. My kids still like Vick; in fact they were excited when I told them that Vick is trying to get back into the NFL. I think the league could have looked past the Mary Janes (or whatever it is called these days), the crowd he ran with, and some of the other poor behavior. It just so happened that Vick decided to fund dog fighting. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong crime.
With all that said, and with all due respect to those that would keep Vick out of the NFL, the man has paid his dues to society. He was convicted and served his time.
There are many places in “real life” where Vick as a convicted felon is no longer free to pursue work. Currently the NFL contains no such restrictions. If the NFL decides to further punish Vick they should take a hard look at the rest of the players in the league and decide just what point the league is trying to prove by not reinstating Vick now.
The latest rumors are that Vick will be conditionally reinstated into the NFL, but the catch is there will be some sort of suspension. Double jeopardy? A suspension at the beginning of the year is going to damper Vick’s hopes of catching on with a team. What point would a suspension serve?
After we get the suspension business out of the way, the next question will be who will sign Vick? I think there are very few owners that are strong enough to put up with the carnival atmosphere of the dog loving protesting crap that will ensue by PETA and friends. Of course the PETA crowd deserves its own article, but that is a different op-ed.
For now Vick should concentrate on keeping his nose clean, getting back into football shape, and pray that someone will realize that he has already paid a steep enough price. I say let Michael Vick play.
Well before he was locked up, he was capable of producing at a level at which all but the top dozen or so QBs today can match or exceed.
But after 2 years away from the game and starting again at the age of 29, you can’t expect much from him.
There are other examples of players in various sports who go away for retirement or some other reason and try to return and most of the time, their return performance isn’t quite as good as what they did before.
MJ is a notable exception and maybe Muhammed Ali.
But teams which may take a chance on him would probably be in desperate straits due to injury, especially to pick him up at some point well into the season, without him going through a training camp, not only getting in shape but learning the system.
Say he gets a 4-game suspension and a team picks him up. They’ll probably put him on the practice squad, unless there’s a season-ending injury which opens up spots on the regular roster, and have him practice at least a month before even thinking of putting him in a game.
Even then, it’s hard to imagine playing someone who’s coming in cold over any other options. A team would probably have to lose 2 QBs and then maybe put him behind the guy who was second on the depth chart.
Teams have been in those situations, where their emergency QB, often a WR or kicker who might have played QB at college or high school, become one snap away from having to play.
So in that case, a team might prefer to take a chance with Vick than someone who’s never played QB in the league.
I am not saying that Vick will be his old self, or that his quality will be on par with when he last played. I am not debating those points – as a Falcons fan and a former “love to watch Vick put on a show” fan I have some pretty strong opinions in those areas.
The bottom line is that he has paid the price. Not only the jail time, but at one point he had the highest contract in NFL history. His own mistakes put him in this position, but if a team wants to sign him, I think they should be free to right now. Adding a suspension is just plain wrong.