I agree but it is PETA who will send thousands to the gates to protest and that is what has every owner terrified of giving him a job. The SPCA is too classy to do that.
PETA is a ridiculous organization. Their credibility diminishes every year. The only thing NFL owners are afraid of is losing revenue from disgruntled fans. Aside from that, they don't want to pay Vick if he can't perform anymore. A bunch of hipster doofuses (doofi?) in bloody dog costumes outside the stadium on gameday is the least of their concerns.
It's going to take him most of the year just to get back in gear, so no real loss here, maybe a few dollars.
Vick has time served for sure. I think a suspended sentence would have been better by the commish. Let him get into a team and start camp and fight for a legit spot. And if he breaks the rules again or gets into trouble you can then drop the hammer and suspend him for a year. He needs to focus on playing. This really puts the breaks on him mentally. He has had plenty of time to think about what he has done. Now it's time to rub elbows with society again. It would be nice for the commish to let him start on week one and let everybody know it now.
The commissioner is a coward. The deal can have Vick playing by week one, but it is also a deal that says we will watch you and we will determine at a later date our decision on your future. It is like he is afraid of what others would say and so he still has Vick at arms length basically trying to make the man beg. Vick has never had any indiscretions with the law until the dog fighting thing and that is not the biggest deal. He has never been arrested or pulled over for drunk driving so what does Goodell think he is going to see?
This is a public relations issue and Goodell is protecting his product. I don't like him at all, but I don't see this as a bad thing. He's basically putting Vick on a short probation period. He did have some trouble w/the law prior to the dog fighting too. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2735061
Why would you want to do that to Roger Vick? He's such a great RB. And if you don't get that, I pity you.
I would rather Roger Vick came out of retirement and the Jets signed him than have Michael Vick on this team.
Vick was suspended before he went to jail and lost two years of his career. That's enough already. He should have been reinstated. Why does the NFL have to levy a penalty on top of his jail sentence? I think the man paid his debt to society. Two years in jail and losing aboutn $70 million is more than enough for his crime. If an NFL team wants him, why can't he play now. This just assures that no NFL will take a chance on him. So the message is that harm other humans - beat your wife or girlfriend, rob houses, be involved with or associated with murderers and murders, kill innocent pedestrians while driving, etc - that gets you 0-4 game suspensions. But Vick's crime warrants huge loss of money, 2 years in the big house, and up to a 6 game suspension? I'd take Vick on my team before TO in a heartbeat. And I never liked Vick as a player.
Another thing you have to wonder is... why is no one appealing the suspension? The player's union has not made a peep.
Yeah, but he gets to go back to his career and make millions more after. Yes it will be less than the contracts he signed before and he has to pay off his debtors first. But he still gets to live in a multi-million dollar home and resume a career making at least $700k a year. Most people ex-convicts do not get the same luxury. If I committed the same crime as he did, the likelyhood I can go back to my same career is zero. I'd be lucky if a supermarket would hire me. Not exactly the great image to deter anyone else, especially other players, from breaking federal law. I know he's done his time and paid his debt to society, but is the NFL really starved to have Vick back in the league?
I tend to fall alongside Plinko's arguments on this. I have zero sympathy for this guy, and I can't for the life of me imagine why so many other folks who undoubtedly work pretty hard for what they have in life condone sending this guy back to his prior life of luxury. Sure, he paid his debt to society... that is why he's not IN jail anymore. But being able to go back to your old life is not always associated with that. Plenty of ex-cons out there end up not being able to go back to their careers. How about those finance guys that get hit for bilking thousands/millions out of people. They don't get to come out and go back to being finance people. Teachers who end up getting caught sleeping with their underage students don't go back to the school systems... So Vick is taking a hit before being allowed back into the league. He should be grateful it isn't worse. It's a private league and they have the right to bar folks, especially those that are a detriment to the product. You really think Mike Vick is being dissed? Go ask Pete Rose. :up:
For all those saying that he has served his time and deserves to be able to play, what if you went to federal prison for 2 years? Would you have a job available at your old place of employment when you were released? Do you think you would have to maybe go somewhere else and take a lower position to work your way back into society?. Let him go through the same shit most everyone else getting out of prison has to.
