First, let me say that I in no way support what Michael Vick did. His involvement in the dogfighting scandal and killing of dogs is disgusting and wrong on so many levels. He is an idiot for even participating in the scandal and associating himself with those involved. Moreover, the fact that he lied to his employer, to the commissioner, and to his fans is reprehensible. He is deserving of the punishment that he receives.That said, he did genuinely seem contrite, embarrassed, disappointed, and apologetic when he spoke yesterday after his guilty plea. Hopefully, he can do what he said and spend his time off improving Michael Vick the person. We'll see if he ever makes it back to the NFL whether it is in 2 or 3 years. It will be interesting to see what he can do at that time and which team will open up to him. The interesting thing is that whenever he comes back, we will have somewhat forgotten about him but at the same time, I'm sure we will all hope to see the same athletic and flashy Vick that we remembered. We'll see what he will produce.
The thing that I find so interesting is how much attention this story has gotten. With all the serious issues this country and world faces, the number one story that we hear about is Michael Vick. As reprehensible as Vick's involvement in dogfighting is, does this story supercede the issues we face in Iraq? Or our economy? Or the number of other more serious crimes that take place on a daily basis? This society is so backwards. Our fascination with stars falling is ridiculous. Why do we care so much about Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, etc. and their drunkeness and stints in rehab? I suppose in some perverse way we like to see stars fall and it somehow makes our lives more interesting but in truth, it's sad. We follow these stories but people don't even understand the basics of what is taking place in the world and here in our country. The President can simply make claims and people will take those claims as truth because the majority of people will not do the minimal about of investigative reading to determine whether those claims are true or not. Instead, we want to hear all about Michael Vick. Again, I am not condoning his actions and believe he is deserving of jail time but this story has gotten worldwide attention and Michael Vick has become public enemy #1.
There is a good article by Jemele Hill on ESPN's site about this whole issue (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/070827).
She mentions that even some of the previous athletes who have committed serious crimes have not been vilified like Vick. Namely, Ray Lewis who was once accused of being involved in the murders of two people or Leonard Little who killed someone while he was driving drunk. Their punishment was minimal compared to what Vick is going through.
The whole Vick story is sad. I do not pity him. Still, it is sad that he potentially threw his career away for nothing. He has embarrassed himself, his family, and his team by his actions. Again, I hope that he can better himself and learn from this mistake and that he can come back one day and be a player. No question he was fun to watch. The only other person I have seen who can single handedly take over a football game the way Vick can is VY (especially in the national title game against USC). Vick is an unbelievably spectacular player. I truly wish him well.
Equally important, I wish that our society could get it straight in terms of what is truly important in this world. Educate yourself. Understand what is taking place in the world. We need to make a return to news and not tabloid news. Sadly, this may be too much to ask for.
24 comments:
If Vick had not lied from the start about his involvement it probably would have had a better ending.
The thing is that he denied involvement and even knowledge of the dog fighting. He turned on his friends and blamed them.
He lied to the commissioner and the fans.
What he should have done is gone in to meet prosecutors and agreed to cooperate. He probably would have ended up with much less of a penalty than he is going to get (perhaps 3-6 months) and the gory details and the extent of his involvement may have remained hidden from the public.
I don't think he should go to jail for 5 years, but would like to see him get 9-12 months. As for him coming back, the commissioner should reinstate him if his actions demonstrate his remorse. Words are not enough at this point.
He should have been honest and forthright. However, I am sure he did not think that his buddies would cave in and that they would stick together.
I am also sure that he was embarrassed by the whole thing and was hoping it would go away and tried to distance himself from it. If he could go back, he would have probably told the truth.
If he had just come clean and worked with prosecutors, I'm sure his punishment would not have been as bad -- both from the government and the NFL (although we don't know yet what the punishment is).
I could care less about the level of embarassment that he has felt and the level of contriteness that he has exhibited. He needs to step up and return the pro-rata portion of the signing bonus for conduct in violation of the NFL rules.
So he appologized to his teammates, his family, the city, and the kids out there. Who cares? A convicted felon should not receive so much publicity. If he really cared for his team, he would start serving his time in jail prior to his sentencing so that he may be able to get out sooner for time served (i.e., he will not be sentenced until 12/10/07). I feel that his reference to him finding Jesus and putting his hopes in God that he will be forgiven was a bit over the top. Emmitt Smith was a big fan of that reference in Vick's speech, which led to him accepting Vick's appology. I'm in Keith Jackson's camp on the ridiculousness of the 4.5 minute appology as if it was supposed to make everything better.
I find it interesting that Marcus Vick's name has not circulated regarding this matter. Remember when he got busted on more than one occassion, Mike was acting pretty mature when stating that his younger brother needed to grow up and that he would help him.
As far as Vick coming back to the NFL, there is precedence for convicted felons to rejoin the NFL, but the chance of him playing quarterback are low. I believe that too much time will have passed and his already weak skills at reading defences would be even weaker. He would be better off playing the H-Back position so that he could concentrate on carrying the ball and running routes. Plus, the quarterback is the leader of the team and I doubt any player will look up to him as a leader again. Further, if Rexy's play on the field teaches us anything, it is that playing quarterback is hard. It's hard to call the play in the huddle, walk up to the line, say the cadence, actually receive the snap, move back from the line, look down field, make a decision on who to throw to, and throw it to the guy with the Bears jersey on. Hard stuff.....
Strong and interesting post.
I actually agree with the Jesus reference being over the top. Kind of felt that was not sincere. Otherwise, I thought it was a good speech.
I also wonder where Marcus was in all this mess. Would not be surprising if he was aware and involved in some way.
I'm a little surprised by the public's inability to simply accept Vick's statement as genuine and honest. The guy admitted to lying to Goodell and Blank. He admitted to killing 6-8 dogs. He admitted to bankrolling an illegal activity, and he accepted his punishment, whatever that may be. In fact, he's already being punished through the media, through public perception, not to mention the financial hit he's going to take. Given the circumstances, I believe his statement was the only thing he could do and he did it well. What's wrong with saying he's putting his life in God's hands now? To me, it shows acknowledgment of his guilt and that this predicament has humbled him.
Let's not forget what we're talking about here. I agree that bankrolling the operation was what allowed the dogfighting ring to exist in the first place. I place full blame on Vick for that. It is quite obvious that this activity probably led to other related criminal activity within the ring by others who were involved (drugs, etc.) I believe we need to put this in perspective. All of the media hoopla that exists around this case and all of the backlash is due to the fact that 6-8 dogs were killed over a 6 year period. No one in the public is admonishing Vick for funding an illegal operation, which in the grand scheme of things is probably the more significant crime.What Vick did to the dogs was a bit perverse and reprehensible, but killing 6-8 dogs over the course of 6 years is all that is at the heart of his crime.
Why don't we get the Feds to investigate the mystery meat in Phuck Yoo's Chinese Carry-Out in the same way? In China people eat dogs like they're going out of style and killing 6-8 dogs is probably something that is done each morning. Maybe I'm ignorant about the whole situation, sort of like Clinton Portis who made it clear that he initially didn't think what Vick did was all that bad. He only came to terms with the crime after he researched the issue and saw just how much people in America love their dogs.
Americans in general have a strange fascination with dogs. We treat them like family members and leave them with trust funds in our wills (see today's news about Leona Helmsley and her gift to her dog). We love our dogs unconditionally when we keep them as pets. At the same time, we are essentially barbaric with dogs. We spay and neuter them to control their populations and we kill them if they bite a person. Such acts are deemed acceptable in the eyes of the public.
I'm a little surprised by the public's inability to simply accept Vick's statement as genuine and honest. The guy admitted to lying to Goodell and Blank. He admitted to killing 6-8 dogs. He admitted to bankrolling an illegal activity, and he accepted his punishment, whatever that may be. In fact, he's already being punished through the media, through public perception, not to mention the financial hit he's going to take. Given the circumstances, I believe his statement was the only thing he could do and he did it well. What's wrong with saying he's putting his life in God's hands now? To me, it shows acknowledgment of his guilt and that this predicament has humbled him.
Let's not forget what we're talking about here. I agree that bankrolling the operation was what allowed the dogfighting ring to exist in the first place. I place full blame on Vick for that. It is quite obvious that this activity probably led to other related criminal activity within the ring by others who were involved (drugs, etc.) I believe we need to put this in perspective. All of the media hoopla that exists around this case and all of the backlash is due to the fact that 6-8 dogs were killed over a 6 year period. No one in the public is admonishing Vick for funding an illegal operation, which in the grand scheme of things is probably the more significant crime.What Vick did to the dogs was a bit perverse and reprehensible, but killing 6-8 dogs over the course of 6 years is all that is at the heart of his crime as far as the public is concerned. If that is so bad, why don't we get the Feds to investigate the mystery meat in Phuck Yoo's Chinese Carry-Out in the same way? In China people eat dogs like they're going out of style and killing 6-8 dogs is probably something that is done each morning. Why doesn't anyone in a global organization complain about that?
Maybe I'm ignorant about the whole situation, sort of like Clinton Portis who made it clear that he initially didn't think what Vick did was all that bad. He only came to terms with the crime after he researched the issue and saw just how much people in America love their dogs. But, the truth is Americans in general have a strange fascination with dogs. We treat them like family members and leave them with trust funds in our wills (see today's news about Leona Helmsley and her gift to her dog). We love our dogs unconditionally when we keep them as pets. At the same time, we are essentially barbaric with these animals. We spay and neuter them to control their populations and we kill them if they bite a person. Such acts are deemed acceptable in the eyes of the public. I believe we have allowed ourselves to become sympathetic to a few animals that had their lives cut short and have lost sight of the larger crime...and for that reason, Vick will not be punished as severely as he probably should.
The guy signed a 10 year, $130M contract to play football and he is putzing around operating an illegal dogfighting league. He is an idiot, but he is not going to jail for being an idiot, he is going to jail because he broke the law.
I agree we need to investigate other things and that there are far more important issues, but that does not nullify his responsibility for breaking the law.
I don't have any sympathy for him. Playing football for millions of dollars is a privelege, not a right. I hope he learned his lesson and can come back a changed man, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Sorry for the jumbled mess with my last post. I think you'll get the point if you read through it though.
Question for all...Should we cut Vick any slack for probably growing up in an area where dogfighting would have been looked at as a normal activity? Should we accept that he may have been naive to the whole situation? I'm sure he understood it was illegal, but going back to Portis, it's obvious that some people from certain parts of the country do not understand how serious the issue is because they've seen it around them for many years.
I think we should be a little more forgiving. No one with that much to lose gets this heavily involved in something illegal unless they don't understand the gravity of the situation. I chalk this up to a lot of ignorance and a little bit of ego. He should be punished. He did break the law after all, but we should also understand that he is human and prone to making mistakes.
Deepie, cut the bleeding-heart B.S. I don't hate Vick. But he cannot be cut any slack. The fact that he is ignorant and grew up around dog fighting (perhaps), is not an excuse.
He is a man who was making millions of dollars. He represented an organization, a city, and the NFL, not to mention all of the companies who used to pay him millions of dollars to advertise their products. He has agents and lawyers who work with him. He has publicity folks who work with him. He should have known better.
There is no excuse for what he did and he must now do the time for committing the crime.
Have to agree with RobsObs (yes, a shocker). There is a fundamental right and wrong and Vick was wrong here. I don't care if you grew up with dog fighting. It is no excuse to hang dogs and drown them and bash their heads against the wall. It was pretty inhumane how he treated these animals.
I can only hope he grows from this experience and truly becomes a better person.
Sheesh. Tough crowd. With that logic, RobsObs, I guess we should throw half of MLB's players in the clink and throw away the key.
Don't get your panties in a bunch. I agree that he broke laws and should be punished accordingly, but in the court of public opinion, we are being way too harsh on a guy who was probably too dumb to know any better. Do you really think his lawyers and PR reps had any idea he was involved with this? Do you really believe that anyone who got him involved with this knew what the potential risks were? Even if his family knew, I'm sure they didn't expect all this and, therefore, they couldn't have warned him...They probably didn't know any better either.
My point is not that there is a legitimate excuse for what he did, but there is a reason why he did it...Two separate things entirely. He should do the time for the crime, but instead of focusing on how horrible a person he his, we should really be wondering why this happened and why dogfighting is so prevalent in American sub-culture. There's a much bigger problem here than Michael Vick. He's admitted his guilt and he will do his time. Hopefully he'll grow from it. The real problem will still exist though...just not with a big name attached to it any longer.
JKD...There is no fundemental right and wrong here. There can't be when you're talking about cultural norms and expectations of right and wrong. If you spend the first 20 years of your life believing it's OK to walk around with one hand down your pants because every other person you knew did it, spending the next seven years of your life around people who do not agree with this act isn't going to change your belief system...Especially if you are never explicitly told not to walk around with your hand in your pants.
You probably walk around with both hands in your pants so this probably makes no sense to you. My point is, cultural norms are not easily forgotten and it is extremely difficult to accept that what you've done regularly in your past is wrong in any way, especially if you continue to associate with that culture.
Deepie, you and I agree on many things but on this I can only ask...are you crazy?
It's not like Vick lived on some island where everyone was involved in dog fighting and then suddenly he made it to the mainland and we live in a totally different culture than he is used to. He had to have known that destroying dogs, especially in the inhumane way he was doing so, was wrong. He is a grown man. On some level, he had to know that this was not normal and right behavior.
You give the example of me walking around with my hand in my pants. If I grew up that way, then maybe it would take me a while to understand it was not right and change. However, living in normal society, going to school, going to work, talking to friends, living as an adult, I am sure at some point I would have realized that walking around with my hand in my pants out and about just isn't normal.
I am sorry that Vick got involved in the dog fighting scandal in the first place. He is a tremendous athlete and had a bright future and he has let down a lot of people. I am not sorry he was caught. We all agree that he is deserving of his punishment. I commend him for his speech. It did appear to be genuine and he seemed to show remorse and embarrassment and I truly hope he can improve himself.
The point here is that society did not let him down. He let down society.
So how do you explain Portis' complete and utter ignorance on the severity of the issue? How do you explain Stephon Marbury saying what Vick did wasn't so bad?
Vick's father said in an interview that when he was young, Vick and his friends would often let dogs loose to chase down cats to see what would happen. It was a very common thing for the kids in the area to do. That to me is an island...The same type of island where an entire city once decided that Ebonics would be the accepted language in schools. What's normal to us is not necessarily true for people in a town 20 miles away.
Don't be so narrow minded. He didn't have to come from a desert island to have a different belief system and a different set of norms. Growing up in poverty is something difficult to understand unless you yourself were impoverished as a child. I'm not saying I understand it completely, but there is a reason why he got himself involved with this and it has much more to do with a simple desire to electrocute and drown dogs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not implying that we should believe he was totally oblivious to the fact that what he was doing was wrong. He was hiding it from everyone so as you said, "on some level," he did know it was wrong. All I'm saying is his core belief system, a product of his upbringing and a product of his peers and surroundings, told him if he got caught, it wouldn't become the situation that it in fact turned into.
I love it Deepie!
"It has much more to do with a simple desire to electrocute and drown dogs." Okay, I am not silly enough to understand how even my peers have grown up much less someone who lived in poverty. I also am aware that I don't know Vick's personal situation growing up and what he was surrounded by in his early years. Sure, their are habits considered the "norm" growing up that may not be accepted by the majority and hard to break as we get older but c'mon.
Electrocuting and drowning dogs and bashing their heads against walls? Not to mention the actual dog fighting and dog fighting training and the dog rape contraptions they had set up. It is just plain wrong. If Vick in any way thought it was right, I am sure he would have spoken about it more openly to at least his teammates, friends, agent, others in his inner circle. The guy knew it was wrong but engaged in it anyway.
You're right in that it shouldn't have turned into the situation it turned into which was one of my points of the original post. Vick has become public enemy #1. I have said that I don't want to minimize what he has done and he deserves punishment but at the same time, there are far worse things going on that should be at the forefront of the news. Read the original post again on my issues with our backwards society.
As far as Portis' comments, all the disturbing facts had not been released at that time. Also, Portis was down at the Redskins Beach Blitz having fun in a party type atmosphere and question was a random one after several questions on both him and the Redskins. He slipped up and acknowledged later that he slipped up.
Marbury is an idiot in his own right. He once said that he didn't care about winning or losing only that he get paid.
Still, I agree with them in one sense. That in the grand scheme of things what Vick did is not that bad. There are far worse atrocities taking place throughout the world and yet, Vick has become worldwide news. It is terrible what he has done but yes, he has gotten WAY too much attention and focus. He will get his just punishment and we should move on.
I think we are in complete agreement. I'm not saying he should have ever thought electrocuting and drowning dogs was ok due to his upbringing. Those acts are disgusting and he should be punished accordingly. He should also come to terms with the abhorrent nature of his actions and learn from his mistakes. If he doesn't, he's a clown.
Vick's past is what lead him to be involved with this. All I'm saying is he probably never felt dogfighting was a really bad thing. Killing dogs the way he did, however, crosses a line of moral behavior and he is definitely at fault for crossing that line.
Let me interject ladies. I understand your point about why he did what he did, Deepie. But, I think you started off with too much of a bleeding heart.
Do we all agree the guy should go to jail for about a year?
Assuming he stays out of trouble and makes amends, do we agree that it would be reasonable for him to sit out another year?
That means he would get to play again in 2009. Reasonable? It is for me.
That's fine. Sometimes you have to ruffle some feathers to get you nitwits to start talking.
1 year in jail + 6 months to 1 year suspension during which time he must do some sort of extensive community service and/or activity to raise awareness to animal cruelty.
He can come back during the '09 or '10 season.
If he does everything he is asked to comply with the government and the NFL AND he genuinely seems to show remorse and such, it would be good to see him back in '09.
Sadly, if he goes to jail for a year, he will miss the '08 campaign and then be suspended by the NFL for a year, he will miss the '09 campaign and won't be eligible to come back until 2010. He will be 30 and out of football for 3 years. Not sure if he would be able to come back at that time. Also, he would have to have a real desire to play because no team would pay up much money to sign him.
It is not sad - he brought it on himself. Don't tell me you have become a bleeding heart also.
Ron Mexico won't need much desire to play. What else is he going to do? I guess he could fall back on the Virginia Tech degree . . . oh wait he did not graduate. I guess he can always go back to hustling with dog fighting if the NFL doesn't work out.
No. It is sad that a young man with a bright future and the world in his palm threw it away for nothing. It is sad any time something like this happens.
It is not sad that he got caught. He made the stupid mistake of engaging in such horrible activity and now he has to pay the consequences for his actions. That is not sad.
What is sad is when a young player with the world ahead of him dies in a tragic plan crash. That is sad because it is outside of his control.
Vick had total control of the situation but brought everything on himself.
I wonder if 23, now 24 comments, is a record for this fledgling blog? Very healthy debate, but my thoughts on Vick haven't changed. One thing has changed though, Deepie I didn't know that you had such a bleeding heart. What's the deal? Don't treat Vick as the Victim.
There is a common tendency found in the analysis of psychopathic killers: There is a high incidence of cruelty to animals. Not saying Vick is a killer, but there are mostlikely psychological issues there for which he needs counseling. Unfortunately, upon his exit from prison, he will first have to have counseling related to the horrors of prison.
I'm glad that Jason Campbell is too much of a nerd to do this stuff.
Post a Comment