Roger and Simone
I was walking down Park Avenue this afternoon and happened by 280 Park Avenue, the Deutsche Bank building which houses, among other things, the head office of the NFL. That block is a frequent home to Falun Gong protests, especially when Chinese dignitaries are staying at the Waldorf Astoria across the street. Today though, if Roger Goodell went into the office, he saw Simone the greyhound. I’ll put pictures up asap. Simone is the first of what I anticipate will be many protesters, canine and otherwise, making themselves heard by the Commissioner, whose office is only two miles as the crow flies from the national headquarters of the ASPCA. Anyone with a strong stomach and curiosity can download a pdf of the Michael Vick indictment at the website of the Humane Society. The site also contains a link to an online petition as well.
The New York Sun has a good article today on the situation Goodell faces in deciding whether, when and how to discipline Vick. In the article, John Goodwin of the Humane Society points out that the Feds don’t bother bringing dogfighting cases unless they are very solid:
“They have done just five or six dogfighting cases, but are batting 1.000.”
July 20th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I’ll go on record, Goodell should do nothing at this time - the Duke case is an obvious case study supporting the need to let the justice system due its due diligence, rather than acting after indictments. Now, given that it is a federal prosecutor involved and not a state guy looking to advance his own career, and given that they have seemed to be very methodical in their investigation of this case, and given the stat attributed to John Goodwin posted above… it’s difficult to imagine that Vick is “innocent”. However, I think Goodell needs to leave this in the lap of the justice system and the Atlanta Falcons (in that order), for now.
Let the justice system have all the access it needs to conduct its continuing investigation and trial - and advise Arthur Blank that its up to him if he wants to play Vick and face the obvious PR crap, or suspend him (very likely with pay) to give him the time and ability to assist in his defense while keeping the obvious distraction from the team to give them the time and ability to try and move past this.
I see nothing to be gained by Goodell suspending Vick now… nothing. This is not Pacman Jones or Chris Henry or Tank Johnson - as Goodell acted within the “repeat offenders” parameters of the CBA in coming down on those players. Early in his tenure, Goodell strikes me as a guy who thinks things through, comes to a conclusion, and then acts decisively and with conviction - as such, I’m confident he’ll realize he can only look bad by having the league suspend Vick “too soon” (in hindsight).
Now, barring some incomprehensible turn of events, Mike Vick is going to have his career derailed by the Feds - and once that officially happens, Goodell can issue an edict from the league regarding Vick’s likely “indefinite suspension, pending a future request for readmittance to the league” (i.e. he’ll be officially kicked out while he serves his jail time, and he’ll have to come to Goodell in person, in the future, and present an extremely convincing reason why Goodell should let him ever play in the NFL again).
In short, I don’t expect Mike Vick to play in the NFL this season (and find it extremely unlikley he ever will again… ever) - but I think that’ll be due to a team suspension (with pay), in part because of the time and energy he’ll need to devote to his legal issues.