Goodell Bars Vick From Training Camp
July 23rd, 2007 by Tank
Pending the NFL’s “review” of the charges. It seems likely to me that Vick’s career as a professional football player is over, and in fact that he is likely to do time. Good.
July 29th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Tank, I’m searching for the right word to respond here… idealistic? Myopic? Reactionary? Or perhaps you’ve been spending too much time with with Gonzo and through some sort of undiscovered osmosis, you’ve inherited some of his ignorant sluttiness.
I concede it’s possible that Vick’s NFL career is over - but I put that possibility as very slight. Mike Vick just turned 27 years old, and although opinions of his QB play to date are mixed, there’s no denying his athletic ability. The justice system will decide his culpability in the current issue at hand, but my understanding is that - at most - he’ll do six years in prison. That’ll return him to society, as a free man, at the age of 33 (give or take). My understanding of the prison system is that weight training will be made available to him to try and keep himself in fairly good physical shape, and he’ll clearly have plenty of time to read up on NFL playbooks.
Course, I personally find it the possibility of him doing max time to be remote i.e. if he does do time, it’ll be less than six years… in other words, he’ll be younger than 33. We often here of the maximum possible jail time in any given case, and rarely do we hear that the defendant (especially celebrity defendants) does the *maximum*.
And some NFL team will be lured by the (possibility of his) athleticism. Look at his brother, just for beginners. As far as we know, he wasn’t involved in dogfighting during his years at Va Tech - but… um… this just in, he was less than a solid citizen. However, he was athletic - so the Dolphins gave him a shot… and I dunno, maybe he’ll be in an NFL camp again this offseason. Lawrence Phillips - a domestic batterer, just for starters, was given *several* chances in the NFL *after* news of his… um… citizenship came out. Ray Lewis was part of a *murder* investigation… still playing. Do I need to go on?
I understand how much our pets mean to us, and I completely agree with the fact that the grusome nature of the charges in this case are beyond sickening… but Ray Lewis was (maybe just indirectly) involved in the murders of two *human beings* - but he’s a terrific talent, he said and did enough right things afterward, and we move on.
We can move onto other sports - beginning with Mike Tyson and boxing - but we don’t need to… there’s ample evidence of NFL teams giving athletes opportunities when moral outrage would seemingly dictate they look elsewhere to fill roster spots. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m saying its reality.
Now, I find it very difficult to believe that (a) he’ll play this year, given recent events, and (b) that he’ll ever play in Atlanta again… but there are 29 other NFL teams (at this writing, who knows how many there will be when Vick’s available to play again). Ass-uming the superceding indictments, along with the existing indictments, do not lead to jail time that keep him out of free society into his 40s… I’m confident in saying that Vick will most definitely suit up for an NFL team again. Didn’t Jeff George get a look from the Raiders last year - and he’s 40, and nowhere near the athlete that Vick is?
Put it this way, the only reason Rae Carruth is not playing in the NFL after he conspired to have his pregnant girlfriend murdered is that he’s doing a life sentence and is unavailable for a non-roster invitation. If he got paroled, and your favorite team needed WR help, his agent would be getting a phone call. And Rae Carruth is not nearly as talented as Mike Vick, and committed a far more heinous crime… as much as we’re all currently disgusted by the recent events that we’ve not experienced before.
I find it interesting that we now take DUI, domestic battery, rape and murder (among other things) seemingly so lightly these days… though it’s not surprising, we’ve been inured to those crimes from repeated exposure. Dogfighting is new, so our reaction is stronger and more passionate than it would be if Vick had “only” raped and beaten his girlfriend, for example… cuz, well, “been there, seen that”.
Unless this is somehow a big mistake, which seems utterly unlikely, Mike Vick (along with his buddies) is a vile human being - but he’s also a tremendous athlete… and in the NFL (like every other big money pro league), the latter trumps the former. Is this news to you?
July 30th, 2007 at 12:14 am
OK, first off, I agree that it is extremely unlikely that Vick serves the maximum (though the promised superceding indictment could well raise that significantly above six years).
However, I think the reason Vick’s case is different than the ones you cite is due to a much better reason than the novelty of the offense, or the widespread tendecy (which I admittedly share) to anthropomorphisize our pets. I think the critical issue is the difference between crimes of passion and crimes with a quasi-rational motive on the one hand, into which the crimes you cite fall, versus the systematic routinization of crimes that advance no interest other than indulging an appetite for sadism, which I think is a reasonable characterization of the Vick case. Or to take your analogy a step further, Vick’s crimes are less comparable to raping and beating his girlfriend, and more akin to drowning, electrocuting, and bludgeoning to death a series of girlfriends. It is the difference between Lawrence Phillips - an uncivilized idiot with poor impulse control - and Hannibal Lechter - someone who has had ample time to consider the propriety of torturing his victims, and had decided they like it.
Seen in that light, I am skeptical that public opinion will permit Vick to return to the NFL. In less than 48 hours, the NFL did an about-face and decided they couldn’t wait for the legal process to play out before distancing themselves from him. In my view, that underscores why Vick’s case is qualitatively different from all the cases above save Carruth’s. But I also doubt that any team would be willing to endure the opprobrium that hiring a paroled Carruth would entail. Thankfully we are unlikely ever to know which of us is right in that case.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Agreed on Carruth, in that we’ll thankfully never know - but we’ll agree to disagree in that I maintain at least one team would give him a look… at *least* one.
Back to Vick, I think the NFL saved Arthur Blank the PR nightmare of suspending Vick indefinitely with pay (which is what they did, regardless of what they call it). I agree with the NFL’s initial stance that (a) unlike Pacman, Tank, and Chris Henry who were subject to the NFL’s “persistent offender” disciplining, Vick was facing his first issue with the law given that the “water bottle incident” was proven to be a stark overreaction (although admittedly, his first issue is a dousy to say the least), and as such (b) Vick was currently innocent until proven guilty. Once they gauged the public reaction, and saw the no-win situation it would put the Falcons in, they stepped in to be the heavy.
When I speak of the no-win situation for Blank and the Falcons, I’m speaking to the fact that there is obviously one side who wants the Falcons to mete out justice immediately on Vick for the dogs before the justice system does its due diligence in ascertaining how much culpability Mike Vick actually has in the issue - and there’s another side who, under the auspices of innocent until proven guilty, don’t want to believe their hero could do such a thing and want/expect the Falcons to back their man. So, if Blank and the Falcons are forced to be the arbiters of Vick’s playing fate for the 2007 season, they will piss off at least half their fan base either way.
With Goodell stepping up to be the heavy, he takes the pressure - under the auspices of “I’m the new sheriff in town and I’m walking tall and carrying a big stick”. But not acting a split second after the indictments were handed down, Goodell doesn’t appear too rash in his decision - but rather appears to have taken time to think through the situation, before then acting decisively (and ultimately, to many in the public, in line with his recent decisions regarding Pacman, Tank, and Chris Henry).
All that said, whether Vick is 100% guilty or 100% innocent or somewhere in between… whether he’s completely exonerated with the apologies of the court or serves the maximum jail sentence(s) or somewhere in between… when this is all over, and many emotions have subsided, he will have the opportunity to say and do all the “right things” to get back in good graces with enough of the paying public such that it will not be a huge PR nightmare to bring him into camp (with the possible exception of the Falcons, who may decide he screwed them once and they will not let him potentially do it again).
In other words, this is America, ladies and gentlemen. We forgive pretty much anybody for anything - as long as they (at least appear) genuine in their contriteness and thorough in their efforts to repay society for their wrongdoing. And this forgiveness is *especially* true for those scant few with the athletic prowess of Mike Vick.
I’m not asking you to like or agree with the premise on its face - but do you at least agree that the stated premise is indeed an accurate assessment of our current society, and its view of wrongdoers (especially those in the public eye)?
July 30th, 2007 at 1:17 am
I think your outlook is perfectly reasonable, and in fact should probably be considered the “default” outcome, given the public’s willingness to believe in redemption, particularly when it happens to mesh with the interests of one’s local sports teams. I am in effect arguing “this time is different,” which justifies a lot of skepticism given how rarely the outcome actually *is* different. And I’m sure Vick will wind up saying the right things as you predict; just as Henry of Navarre declared “Paris is worth a Mass,” so will Vick decide that the prospect of tens of millions of dollars is worth at least feigning contrition.
July 30th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I wouldn’t mind this time being different, but as you note, I’ll believe it when I see it.