Damn it has been a long, long time.  Back in the early days of Us Versus Them we talked a lot of Mike Vick.  He got popped for the worst airport smuggling scheme ever.  Using a water bottle to smuggle weed through the airport is crazy, because water bottles are not allowed.  That is like hiding a gun in your shoe.  Just not going to work.  Then Ron Mexico got popped for the dog charges and we were all deprived of the more exciting QB ever.  But now, more than two years later, he’s back.  He’s out of jail, done with probation and Roger Goodell has said he can play some preseason and might get to play ball again.

So now there are two camps.  One side says that he has paid his debt to society and that he should be able to play in the NFL right now.  No conditions, no restrictions, ready to go.  That is what jail is for, right?  You do something wrong, you pay the price, and your record is clear.  Then there is the other side.  The people that believe that directly and indirectly supporting dog fighting should be a stain that Mike Vick carries for the rest of his life.  He’s an abomination, he doesn’t deserve to play football.  He can’t get a job using his life’s greatest skill.

Yup the PETA crowd is still out there.  By the way, ol girl in the yellow shirt can get it.

Here’s my thing, one version of the people who say that Vick should not be allowed to play football put forward the “I couldn’t get my job back if I was a felon, why should he?”  I’ll tell you why.  Because you are a manager of a store, because you carry and move stuff around all day,  have an office job and there are hundreds of thousands of people who can do what you do.  Why give the job to a felon when you don’t have to?  Pick the next person who walks into the office.  Mike Vick has talent that strikes one in several million.  He’s unique and he has a gift.  You want to know the truth?  If Bernie Madoff wasn’t going to be in jail for the next 215 years, if he got out in two years, you want to know what he’d do?  He would go back to his crib, print up some business cards, make a few phone calls and be clocking loot as a consultant as soon as he was back on the street.  If you were a multinational celebrity with charisma and a following and the expertise and ability to do something special, you’d get your job back too.  Don’t believe me?

Exactly.

So if that is the case, why does Roger Goodell feel like he should be the guy who has to hold the line and stand for everything that is right in sports?  Baseball is full of juicers, they are cheating the game, let’s control guys like that.  If the owners of the NFL actually own their teams let them decide who they want working for them, not you.  Got it?

We’re a capitalist society, let the market decide what he guy gets to do.  Do you think there needs to be an additional level of control because football players get paid a lot of money?  Because people dream about having his job?  Nah, he’s there because he worked hard, has natural talent, and was one of the best in the game and one of the most unique players ever.  Because he can do this:

Barry Sanders, Sweetness, and that guy can pull that off, period.  That is why that guy gets paid.

Here’s my prediction, Vick is going to go to some team with QB questions (Tavares Jackson just got injured in Minnesota) and he is going to get into a preseason game against a bunch of bums trying to make the roster and he’s gonna scorch em, then all of a sudden Team X and their fans are going to be calling talk radio, screaming from the stands and making their own signs.

Damn right.  So Roger Goodell, Man Up and let the man make or break himself on the field.

-Brock