Michael Vick, Ravens Could Be Perfect Fit

(Photo by Steve Helber-Pool/Getty Images)

The Ravens have been down this road before, albeit with a player whose criminal acts took place while actually under contract with the team.

After being charged with murder and aggravated assault in the slaying of two men outside of an Atlanta-area nightclub in late January 2000, Ray Lewis' football career hung in the balance. Perhaps the greatest middle linebacker to ever play the game nearly never was.

After being acquitted of the crime, via a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge, Lewis returned to his Ravens teammates a seemingly changed, inspired, motivated man. Gone were the hangers-on that plagued him and likely placed him in the cross-hairs of federal prosecutors to begin with. So too was the previous incarnation of a girl-chasing Lewis, once regarded as immature and a bit rough around the edges.

In the run up to what turned out to be the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship, Ray Lewis 2.0 became the motivational impetus for a defense that proved to be one of the best the National Football League had ever seen.

That Lewis-led defense was a historically elite unit, one that punished ball-carriers, harassed quarterbacks, and scored touchdowns themselves, even when their offense could not.

That year, the Ravens' offense failed to at one stage so much as sniff the end zone for five-straight weeks, a fact that highlights how truly dominant that defense was. They’d go on to set the all-time record for fewest total points allowed in a season, a campaign that culminated in Tampa with Lewis winning Super Bowl Most Valuable Player honors in a dominating win over the New York Giants.

Fast forward nine years to today, where Michael Vick now emerges from the shadows of the federal prison he called home in Leavenworth, Kan., and begins to put the pieces of his shattered life back together, in an attempt to redeem himself much in the way Lewis did.

Vick still must be reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who plans to meet with the crestfallen former No. 1 pick. The onus will be on Vick to prove to the head of the most popular sports league in the United States that he is remorseful and ready to atone, but most feel confident that Vick’s reinstatement is more a matter of when, not if—that he's paid his dues.

Which begs the unavoidable question: Which franchise has what it takes to bring on such a controversial figure, a man whose littered history essentially includes the funding of animal cruelty for entertainment?

I’d argue the Ravens are perhaps the franchise best-prepared for what Vick brings to the table, and in some ways on the field, might actually need him.

There are some things to consider:

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