People For Ethical Treatment That Michael Vick Deserves

By Drew: (as seen on www.sortsofsports.com , leave comments here or on that website)

Unfortunately for all of you Sorts of Sports readers out there, I have been out of commission for a few weeks due to work.  Tonight though an article written last Tuesday was brought to my attention entitled “People for the Ethical Treatment of Michael Vick” by Matt Trancone. Matt and I both happen to be from the “Philadelphia area” (South Jersey to be exact), but clearly our views on sports and ethics are very different.

Before I even get into poor Michael Vick and the second chance he deserves, let’s look at this issue from the football side of things.  Matt wrote the following statement: “The Eagles are loaded with cap room and you would be hard pressed to find a front office that runs its business better in ALL of sports.”  Matt must have intended this statement to have some very sarcastic undertones (at least I hope so) because I fail to see how an organization that has wasted its star player’s talent for the last decade runs a good business. 

For years the Philadelphia Eagles have been serious contenders in the NFC, mainly due to their terrorizing defensive schemes masterminded by the late Jim Johnson. Yet the Eagles front office refused to spend money and sign a top wide receiver to give Donovan McNabb a weapon he could do some real damage with, and instead, let him try to make a Super Bowl with James Thrash and Todd Pinkston as his No. 1 and 2 receivers.  Is it a coincidence that McNabb’s best season just happened to be the only year he had a prime time wide out, Terrell Owens?  And in case anyone forgot, the Eagles also made it to the Super Bowl that season.

Speaking of Mr. Owens, why didn’t the Eagles with all of their cap space make a play for him this off season (or re-sign the heart and soul of the team, Brain Dawkins)?  I mean the Birds are all about giving people second chances apparently, so where was his?  But why sign TO, I mean he’s only been scoring 10 plus touchdowns and gaining over a 1,000 plus yards since 2000 – but who needs him and all of his baggage. 

Now that I think about it, weren’t Anquan Boldin and Tony Gonzalez both on the market by their respective teams this summer?  But who wants those guys, with 21 touchdowns and 2,000 yards between them?  Not me, I mean I’d much rather have a QB who hasn’t played football in two years and when he did, had an average QB rating of 75, 53% pass completion and 18 more touchdowns than interceptions. 

But hey, Vick could really run his ass off two years ago, so let’s give him a helmet.  Taking all that in, maybe Matt’s right, the Eagles sure do know how to run their business. 

Now let’s look at this thing from the “off-the-field” angle.  Did Michael Vick serve his time over the last two years?  Yes.  Does he deserve a second chance to make a life for himself? Yes.  Should he be able to do that making millions of dollars (and yeah I know for this year its not even $2,000,000) playing football? Absolutely not. 

If Mike Vick wants to go out and work at minimum wage job like everyone else in the world who has been convicted of a crime would have to do then that’s fine. The fact is that if any of us were to have made the same heartless, disgusting choices in our lives I can guarantee our former employers wouldn’t be taking us back and I doubt Mike Vick will care how we’re going to make a living for the rest of our lives since it won’t affect his in anyway. 

And you know what Mike Vick, no one wants to hear your sob stories about the unhealthy environment you grew up in where butchering defenseless animals was as common as having a catch in the backyard.  That’s one of the reasons you get to go to college for free and get to make millions of dollars to play football, so that you can use those advantages to move away from and help change that environment for younger generations. 

But not Michael Vick; instead of working on that 75 QB Rating or “stellar” TD to INT ratio in the off-season, he was to busy using his free time drowning and electrocuting dogs with his bare hands.  To quote Philadelphia Metro Sports Writer Angelo Cataldi, “the idea that someone could preside over the murder of dogs for six years is unimaginable.  There is no cure for a mind that sick.”

We can sit here and look at all the facts and numbers Matt so kindly provided about PETA and ALF all we

want, but none of that changes a classless and offensive decision made by the Philadelphia Eagles organization to sign Vick.  And yes, I think when the entire sports world runs a pool betting on which day the Dallas Cowboys or Oakland Raiders would end up signing Vick that it makes the signing a pretty classless move. 

As far as Andy Reid and Jeffrey Lurie’s “second chance” spiel or campaign or whatever you wan to call it, it’s a load of crap.  How soon all the pro-Vick and “second chance” supporters forget that the Eagles front office fired a disabled security guard, Dan Leone, because he criticized the team’s decision not to re-sign Brian Dawkins in the off-season on his facebook page.  I didn’t see any mention of him in Matt’s article, but I guess because Dan doesn’t run real fast, score touchdowns and sell jerseys that his second chance doesn’t matter as much as a deranged murderer’s does.

Now you can call me a fare-weather fan all you want for not supporting the Eagles in this decision, but in this town, 90 percent of the fans are fare-weather and just don’t want to admit it.  We all remember the dominance of Brad “Light-Out” Lidge last season, all the cheering and loving the man as he struck out the final batter to win the Phillies its first World Series in 25 years.  This year, though, forget about it – the guy has blown almost 10 games for the Phils so let’s feed him to the wolves and write about how bad he is on facebook statuses and our twitter pages. But that’s not being a fan-weather fan. 

Or how about this – I was at the Eagles-Jags preseason game last week and within a seven minute span I witnessed more than half a stadium give Vick a standing ovation for three completed shovel passes and one 8 yard completion, rain boos down upon McNabb for throwing a meaningless pick in a game that has no significance and begin “we want Vick” chants and then praise McNabb with love on the next offensive series for completing a 12 yard gain on a run and begin “He’s our No.1” chants.  That’s not fan-weather either though I guess.

So will the Eagles winning a Super Bowl or failing to even make the playoffs make their decision any more right or wrong.  Of course not, it is what it is.  But to all the Eagles fans out there who have already accepted Vick for what he is , let me ask you this – would you still believe so strongly in his second chance if he wasn’t going to be wearing a green and white uniform?  I have a pretty good feeling that 80 percent of you would say no.  As for the other 20 percent that think they’d still welcome Vick back to the NFL with open arms, this Eagles fan as three words for you — just stop it.