Eagles fans! How do you feel about the signing of Michael Vick?

If he has learned his lesson, then fine, I hope he does a good job for the team. However, I don’t root for the Eagles and I certainly won’t root for Vick.

I am not an Eagles fan.. but I share your sentiment. Good for the team’s numbers.. but I cannot stand the idea of this guy making money off football fans. But I guess it wasn’t hard to see it coming.. athletes rarely seem to get anything but a slap on the wrist as far as their sports careers go.

On one hand, i say give the guy a chance. On the other, it’s going to give Philly and the Eagles a weak spot that people will employ, if nothing else than to mock us.

Just once, I was hoping that an athlete would truly experience real life consequences for their actions.

@cak

2 years in jail, a ton of lost money, a monstrous pay cut, and a forever damaged reputation are not consequences?

I am a major Eagles fan. When my husband came home from work tonight, that’s the first thing I told him.

It is sort of hard to swallow. I wish I believed he had changed and now cared about dogs, but as I understand it, he personally killed some of the dogs on his property.

I am sure he is heartily sorry he did something that landed him in jail and took two years of his sports life.

I will be hard pressed to root for him, although I will still root for my Iggles.

@cak: The closest we’ve come to that is Latrell Sprewell, a basketball player with talent, but a huge attitude problem.

The man has paid his penance. It’s time to leave him be and to let him get on with his life.

@Ivan – “Real world people” vs Athletes and Celebrities would have a very difficult time finding a good job after a stint in jail like that – it’s not the same set of rules.

I don’t know that he is truly remorseful. It seems very convenient to me, but hey – I’m not the judge. I’m not the jury. I’m also not the one in the position of saying yes or no to his future.

Glad he’s back and gets a second chance. The “fat paycheck” doesn’t exactly hold water for all the people that do not like seeing him make money. None of his $$ is guaranteed and his contract requires him to be a model citizen to be paid.

@cak

Fair enough, but you can’t blame Michael Vick for the fact that someone was willing to give him a ton of money to play a game.

@Steven0512: What do you mean, none of his money is guaranteed? They’ve posted the terms of his contract? Or was that what the commissioner requires?

@Ivan – No, I really can’t blame him, but I don’t have to like it. ;~) Don’t get me wrong, I do feel like people should get a second chance, it’s just such a different set of standards – it’s a bit bothersome to me.

I’ve always been more concerned about the relationship between Joe Walsh and Don Henley. What instrument does Michael Vick play again?
(snark)

@Mamradpivo: HaHaHaHaHa!

@cak he has different talents than you and his skills are in far higher demand than whatever you, and most of us, do.

there were less than 5 people on the planet that could do Vick’s job better than him before he got arrested, it’s different circumstances.

If you work at a highschool and you get caught slapping your wife/husband around, and you do time for it, you don’t get this “special treatment” because there are literally thousands of other people who can do your job just as well, if not better, so the amount of controversy you’re re hire would potentially cause far exceeds the benefit of you coming back.

That said, there was a hurricane of rumors earlier in the day that said Vick was signing with the Bills, and I was really excited, because he’s obviously talented and that’s why I watch football, to see my team win.

The eagles got an incredible bargain for such a potentially massive talent.

I don’t know how I feel. I remember reading a lot on this, because of how horrific the animals were treated…I couldn’t stop reading and crying. And I remember reading how he just expected to play in the NFL again….and I just don’t think it was fair that he could just go back, when those animals are suffered so much and some probably suffer physically :(

I don’t know. I only like the Eagles when they’re winning…

Everyone deserves a second chance.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 I am perfectly aware of why he falls into that special exception category. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I am not a sports fan, but all things being fair, I would hope that someday Michael Vick gets his genitals chewed off by a rabid dog and he bleeds to death BEFORE he can find medical help.

:::gets down off of soap box:::

It’s not a game, it’s a bustness. Sportsmanship, character, morality and one’s word are irrelevent. Profit is the only important issue even if it means hiring cruel thugs, encouraging drugs and lawlessness. In the end, if people refuse to accept criminals. they won’t be on teams. As for a second chance or learning a lesson, if a grocery clerk committed felony animal cruelty offenses he would find it very difficult to walk right back into his old job and when diesn’t a grown man know that dog fighting is illegal and strangling and electrocuting animals is unacceptable whether you do it personally or provide the means for others to do it.

It is interesting to note that Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life and all he did was gamble.

I guess the relevant part is that he was no longer valuable as a player and not so great in the managerial department too.

It’s all about the bucks.

I just hope the guy is never allowed to own a dog or an animal of any kind again.

I feel pretty sick about it.

Well I lived in Philly for over 20 yrs and was never a real die hard sports fan but there was just something charming and infectious about Philly fans. It’s just not the same here in Mich. And it was kind of fun to root for the Iggles from afar.

But the main reason I’ll be watching now is to see if PETA does it’s job and stages protests at every game and makes his life a living hell the way he did to those poor dogs. It’s far less than what he deserves but at least it would be a start.

There is something viscerally satisfying about the way they used to do things back in the days of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Too bad his punishment couldn’t include tying the carcass of one of the dogs he killed around his neck.

Then he would know what sorry is all about.

Do you guys who think that he has “suffered” sufficient “consequences” believe that a child abuser stops being a child abuser after incarceration? Do you believe that Vick’s “remorse” was even fractionally sincere? The guy hanged dogs by the neck until they were dead. In my estimation he’s a sociopath, and the football community should be in an uproar about rewarding this monster in any fashion. But I guess that’s old-fashioned. If you make money for the franchise, anything goes, right Kobe Bryant?

I would love to be objective and say that he might have learned his lesson. Maybe all the embarrassment he faced changed him. Maybe all the fines and jail time have set him straight. But, I don’t truly believe it. I can’t imagine someone with such a cruel disposition being truly “changed.” He would really have to have gone through a life-changing experience in the last few years to be a different man. And I don’t believe that happened. Sure he might not hold dog fights anymore, but that’s only because he won’t want to get caught again. Inside, he’s probably still the same cruel person who couldn’t care any less for creatures great and small.

I’ll only watch the Eagles if they make the Super Bowl. :o)

Yet another reason for me to continue never watching football, not learning how the game is played, and not caring about the success of my hometown’s (Philadelphia) team.

@pdworkin speaking about Kobe Bryant and Mike Vick in the same light is absurd.

what this all comes down to is “was he punished enough?”

and let’s face it, he did his jail time that was ordered by a court of his peers, and he will be suspended for 6 or more games this year, handed down by the NFL, of course.
The government, and the NFL have both said Vick has been punished enough, so you or I or anyone else hold a lot less water in that argument than a court of law.

And as for being remorseful. you have no idea if he is or he isn’t, to call BS right now is very short sighted to be frank. There are thousands of cases of formal criminals who turn their lives around for the better. Believing in the saying that ‘once a criminal, always a criminal’ is just plain wrong.

Hey—it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 You misunderstand. I have been incarcerated myself for serious crimes in my youth, and I have been a law-abiding citizen for over 40 years. What I said is that abusers don’t reform. They are high-rate recidivists, and the absurdity lies in your imagining that these personality disorders respond to penitential internment.

@pdworkin Vick has surrounded himself with absolutely fantastic support figures, he’s done huge amounts of service work with peta and the spca, and done it willingly and with enthusiasm, and will continue to do so.
The very man endorsing him is one of the most respected individual I’ve ever seen. Tony Dungy does not lie for anyone, and he genuinely cares for his fellow man, as evidence by the extensive prison counseling and mentoring work he’s done over his life. Mr. Dungy was not ordered to mentor Mike Vick, he did it because Vick reached out to him and asked for help while he was in prison.
Micheal Vick has given every indication that he is fully aware that he committed a crime and he knows why it was wrong. On the other hand, he has done nothing since his incarceration that suggests he’s the personality that you describe. To generalize all human beings of a certain context as being the same often isn’t a good idea.

I have determined my official position on Michael Vick playing for the Eagles:
1) Someone was going to hire him anyway, so it might as well be us.
2) Hopefully, he’s just there to intimidate Donovan into working harder and playing smarter and more consistently, so Vick will stay on the bench the whole time!
3) I do believe that one reaps what they sew, so Mr. Vick will get his karmic retribution in due time.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Talk to me again in one year. If he hasn’t misbehaved I’ll apologize and buy you a Coke. In the meantime your are lecturing me in my specialty, just in case you care.

They say that McNabb and Vick are friends and that Donovan was totally on board with this acquisition. They say that there will be this “wildcat” and it will make it even harder for defenses to defense than even with a health McNabb and a healthy Westbrook. I’m sure Andy Reid has some creative ideas about how to use him, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

Andy has always seemed to pride himself on hiring people with the right character. They have to work hard and be dedicated and competitive. He’s believed he can handle difficult personalities, and now it seems like he feels he can handle difficult public relations problems. Everyone is expecting all kinds of protests at the games now.

Maybe it’s some kind of cynical ploy to gain more visibility for the Eagles, a team—lest we forget—that has never won the Superbowl. Maybe they think they’ll make more money with Vick on board.

There are all kinds of issues here. The moral issues, the forgiveness issues, the “paid his debt to society” issues, the belief that he has really reformed and will actually help advocate for animal rights or something, now. There are also football issues.

I think it is a gamble that really depends on Vick’s character and whether he has come to have a much greater perspective on his life. He’s still pretty young. If he can work to help the cause of the Humane Society (who endorsed his return to football); if he can maintain a good attitude, no matter what his role on the team is; if Andy Reid can design a scheme that uses talent without being divisive (and most football players seem to be totally convinced that they are just cogs in the Reid machine, and will be dropped as soon as they don’t work any more); then this could be great.

A lot of ifs, eh?

@ratboy It would be a dog-eat-dog world if it was Vick in the pit with a trained fighting animal and no weapons but his teeth.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 I think it is highly suspicious that only after he was caught and incarcerated that he understood that dogs were family members and it was wrong of him to maime and kill them. If he were never caught, he would never realize he was engaging in illegal activity? Yes people can reform and I really hope Michael Vick has, but when he pretends he didn’t realize what he was doing was illegal, I have to call bullshit. He knew it was because he was sneaking and hiding while holding these fights.

I talked to my mother about this. Her being a huge Eagles fan.
She is one that believes he paid his dues. That he was unaware of the exact treatment of the dogs, but knew dog fighting was happening on his property. He lost everything, millions of dollars, went to jail for longer than some rapists, and his reputation is tarnished.
Now, I have no clue if he knew about the exact torture that happened to those animals, but I do know another football player killed a man while driving under the influence…he got 27 days in jail, and only a year suspension from the NFL. Doesn’t quite add up.

@casheroo Celebrities are above the law. Case in point: O J Simpson.

@chyna Oh I know. If I would have killed a man while driving drunk, I’d be in prison for quite a while.

@casheroo – Michaael Vick apparently personally hanged or electrocuted some of the dogs.

Dante Stallworth hit a pedestrian while driving under the influence, but stayed at the accident to render aid, cooperated fully with the authorities, and served 27 days in jail of the 30 originally given him. Besides jail time, his sentence included two years of house arrest, eight years of probation and other restrictions. He also made a monetary settlement with the victim’s family, which was what the family wanted. On top of that, the man he hit was running across MacArthur Causeway, which, if you are at all familiar with Miami, is rather like running across a multi-lane highway and is unwise at best.

Compare that to Vick’s long-term maintenance of an activity that he knew was illegal. Both men are professional football players, but that is where the similarity ends.

@Darwin I wasn’t aware of all that…like I said in my post, it was my mother’s argument.
To add though, I’ve been googling and cannot find anything that says he actually killed or hurt any animals. Do you have a source?

If he plays poorly, we fans will boo him outta town. If he actually helps us win the Super Bowl, he’s the new hero and a keeper. JMHO…now I am off to the see the Phillies play.

@casheroo – Michael Vick pled guilty to bankrolling the enterprise and participating in every aspect of it, including killing dogs that refused to fight.

The indictment charged Vick with competitive dogfighting and conducting the venture across state lines. The 19-page indictment alleged Vick was highly involved in the operation, alleging that he attended fights and paid off bets when his dogs lost. It said he also was involved in the executions of dogs that did not perform well.

Specifically, the indictment in April 2007 said that “Peace, Phillips and Vick “executed approximately eight dogs that did not perform well in ‘testing’ sessions by various methods, including hanging, drowning and/or slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.” Vick also is alleged to have consulted with Peace before Peace killed a losing dog by electrocution in 2003.”

So there you go. He apparently did actually kill at least some of the dogs himself, and had full knowledge of the deaths of others.

As a Steelers fan, I feel like I should have always hated Philly. But I don’t. I like McNabb. I always have. I always root for the Eagles, unless they’re playing Pittsburgh. But I can’t believe they signed him. I wouldn’t want someone like that on my team. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, he’s a good football player and all, and at least it’s not TO, but mehh, I’d rather not see him in the league.

@deni TO’s amazing ;)