Letters to the Editor
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Vick, the 30 year old prospect
King - I love you and all man, but think about what you're saying here:
It's true that Vick won't make much of a quarterback prospect when he's pushing 30 and three or more years removed from his latest game action
This is the NFL.
This is a league where Vinny Testaverde was called off his couch - literally - and was starting a few days later for a team he had never played for or worked out for, even though he hadn't started a game in 2 years or thrown a football in 5 weeks.
Vinny Testaverde is 107 years old.
[need I also point out that comparing Vinny Testaverde's physical skills - at any age, be it 20, 30 or, ahem, 44 - to Michael Vick's is a bit like comparing a Fiero to a Ferrari?]
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Good riddance.
23 months for torturing and mudering dogs seems light to me, but it's something. If it results in ruining Vick's career for good, even better.
I doubt Vick is the only pro athlete who engages in dogfighting. I hope the various leagues will be as strict with their own players the next time such a scandal is exposed.
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I agree with Polian
He has it exactly right. I think the punishment is just, and I don't understand the desire to see someone permanently ruined, to hope that he doesn't get a chance to "reclaim his life". Even though it means a convicted dog killer would immediately make more money than I ever will, I still hope that Vick gets another chance to play football and redeems himself as a person. How can you not want that to happen?
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More intelligent people...
More intelligent people than you King, the commenters at the Atlanta journal-Constitution (a group of rocket scientists if there ever was one), seem to feel that Vick should get another chance, with the Falcons mind you, because he did not do anything wrong. This is all PETA's fault, and people hunt and kill animals anyways, and the Human Society kills dogs don't they, and some murderers get less than 23 months and these were only dogs, and dammit he is the Falcon's only hope ever!
Lets be serious, football fans, owners and coaches would let a guy who molested their mothers and sisters back onto their team if they could help them win.
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Wouldn't it be hysterical if the No Fun League fired all reprobates?
I would like to see the Nanny Football League pass a rule that prohibits anyone with any conviction from being employed by the league or any team in the league in any capacity. Forever.
There, would that make mommy happy?
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NIce Job
Really good article King, one of your best. Talking to Levy and Polian was the capper. Nice to know that what I thought is in fact true, talent trumps everything in the NFL.
I'm amazed at how many people wanted Vick dead, but don't seem to feel that way about people who cause thousands of people to die. I hope this changes Vick for the better, although it's hard to see how going to jail will do that, our prison system being what it is.
Bet that prison football team will kick butt though.
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Test of character
This will be a test of character for Vick. No one knows for sure whether he will return and play professional football again or not. It will depend on how he handles incarceration, whether he retains ambitions to shine on the football field and how sorry he is for his prior actions.
If he truly desires to be remembered by posterity as a great football player and not as a criminal, then this could motivate him to make a come back.
Many people comment on his cruel behavior to animals, and that seems to be what got him nailed, but the whole dog-fighting business is really all about illegal betting which is a problematical area since professional football is also a sport on which many people bet. When someone who is in a position where their performance can influence the result of a sporting event, then they have to be seen to be cleaner than clean, and certainly not to have criminal associates.
Thus the challenge for Vick will be to disassociate himself from his criminal associates on the outside, as well as from the criminal culture on the inside.
This will not be easy for him, but every one who falls from grace deserves at least one chance to climb back up and I have no doubt that all readers of Salon wish him well.
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Good luck with that
Let's recap: he lied to his coach, lied to his team owner, lied to the NFL Commissioner, and lied to his fans, all of whom made him more money than 99% of the population of the world will ever see. He used his pre-sentencing time to break more laws, which anyone with a three digit IQ could figure would be found out. He squandered all the advantagees of his fine university education, with being stupid and cruel. And you folks want him back? Good luck with that. Bill Cosby is right: the black community needs to hold its young men to a higher standard, or the prisons will continue to be overflowing with young (and not so young) black felons. No, I'm sure he is not the only law breaker in the NFL. So what? When is enough enough? He's arrogant. He's dumb. And he wasn't that good *before* sitting out several seasons. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and the NFL can get rid of anyone else like him. Decent coaches and decent owners don't need to go looking for trouble. There will be plenty of non-felon quarterbacks eager for and *deserving* of a chance. Vick has his chance, and he blew it. He can get his second chance at something else that presents less temptation to excess.
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Who cares?
Seriously. What reasonable, moral, ethical person cares about not just the latest NFL thug but the NFL itself anymore?
Live by the thugs, die by the thugs. And good riddance, too.
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"No Fun League"?
Are you actually equating sending a guy to prison for fighting dogs (and the peripheral crimes that go with that) with giving a guy fifteen yards for excessive celebration?
Do the people using the term "No Fun League" really mean "fun" or are they suggesting something more transgressive--like casual crime?
What an interesting revelation.