Some idiots actually think the NFL is wrong for giving Vick a 2nd chance.

We give people second chances all the time. If he was a carpenter, killed dogs and served his sentence, no one would possibly suggest that he shouldn't be a carpenter any more. If you did, everyone would look at you like you were a complete nut case for trying to deny the man a right to make a living in his chosen profession. His chosen profession is football.

As for the Eagles, I heard a sports commentator speculating that there is no reason Vick can't come back as an offensive back or receiver.

I do not think that is a valid description of the NFL. I would point out that, instead of 'demanding' anything from young men, there are dozens if not hundreds of people who compete for every single spot on an NFL team.

I would also point out that the league minimum is at least 250,000 dollars a year - and that's for rookies and such. By your 4th year in the NFL the minimum is half a mil per year. I'm pretty sure that most would agree that this is a rather rewarding profession, financially speaking.

Cycloptichorn

How many young men are used up and tossed aside by football before they get to the NFL. It is rewarding if you make it... but most who sell their bodies to try to make the NFL never make it

I was just being ironic, this point isn't that important. But I do think it would be inappropriate for the NFL to ban him.

Yes a carpenter is not a entertainer/athlete that get pay millions and one of the requirement is the public good will.

Let him be a carpenter or a laborer as there will be a lot of "idiots" such as myself that will not go to a game or a movie or whatever because of someone actions that might not even be illegal just immoral in our world view. Dog fighting is both illegal and immoral.

That is our right not to allow a dime of our money to go to pay Vick salary is it not?

I am guessing you don't see many movies, read many books or go to many concerts.

((there is, however, the chance that you have some nice cabinets))

Sure I do but for example I do not spend one dime to see a Jame Fonda movie and that is surely my right not to do so and that is your problem if a large enough percent of football fans do not wish to allow Vick to get their money it will indeed end up hurting the "idiots" who hired him and rightly so.

Time will tell but given that a large fraction of all households have dogs in them and a large fraction of the population does not view torturing dogs for profit and fun a good thing to do.

Right now I am spending a fair amount of money/time to aid four homeless kittens so I can not see myself turning off my feelings towards cats to paid to go see a form of entertainment were a performer was a convicted cat killer/torturer.

I would like to add some more of my viewpoint on this issue I had have dogs in my households but right now it is a all cats household and money and time and love is going towards the cats in my household every day of the year and in return I gain a fair degree of emotional benefits.

Benefits that far outweigh the damage to my furniture or the costs of food and vet care or getting up a few times a night of late to feed kittens or even the very large vet bill coming up tomorrow when I will has four kittens and their mother check out by my vet.

Now given the above why would I pay to see any form of entertainment where part of the cost is going to a convicted cats killer and torturer?

I would not care if the person had serve 500 years for this crime I would not give him a second chance by allowing any part of my funds to end up in his pockets.

That just logic 101.

by the same token, no one should suggest to me that I buy something made by a carpenter who had tortured and killed dogs. The free market allows me to choose to not support a murderer of dogs/people/goldfish - or whatever I choose not to support.

I choose not to buy something made by a carpenter who votes Republican.

The free market is a marvellous thing.

Ah, but how would you know what a tradesman's political views are? Or what he might have been convicted of in times past? That's the whole thing about being a celebrity -- your whole life is an open book if you're a sports star, movie star or similarly noteworthy person. It's unfair. A famous person should have just as much a right to privacy as the rest of us.

To those who have said, 'well, I don't have to go watch someone I disagree with or don't like,' why, that's absolutely true. No one can force you to watch an Eagles game. If you choose to boycott the team because of Vick's presence on it, that's your prerogative. If you don't watch Jane Fonda movies or John Wayne flicks because you disagree with the politics of the stars, again, that's your prerogative. The people I have an argument with are not the ones who hate Vicks, but the ones who maintain that he shouldn't be allowed to ply his trade as a football player.

It seems, to me, pretty idiotic to get all worked up about this topic unless you are a mad animal lover.

I'm not calling for Vick's banning, but I'm also not calling for his reinstatement.

The guy was a criminal thug with incredible athletic gifts. Unlike 99.9% of his fellow Americans, he was incredibly lucky enough to make an enormous amount of money doing something he loves. Did he appreciate the rare gift he had been given and do everything he could to protect it? Quite the opposite.

Perhaps he is a changed man. Perhaps he is truly sorry for what he did, understands why it is wrong, is ashamed he ever did it, and will never do it again.

If so, really really good for him.

However, it is not redemption if it is done with the expectation of reward. He doesn't have a right to play in the NFL.

That he may (he's not been fully reinstated) doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't anger me. If it really, really angers someone, they need only stop watching football.

And this is why it would not have bothered me in the least if the NFL decided to ban him for life.

Football is part of the entertainment industry. Without fans it exists only as an intramural sport. If there are enough "idiots" who will stop watching football because of Vick, the NFL will drop him like the turd I think he is.

If it's the bluster of a small minority, they won't. I'm betting (as I'm sure they are) that they won't.

Personally, I hope he blows out his knee on his first snap, but if he doesn't, so what. He paid his debt to society.

All this shite about poor Michael Vick and his right to make $5 million playing a game is a bit tough to take.

Ah, but how would you know what a tradesman's political views are? Or what he might have been convicted of in times past? That's the whole thing about being a celebrity -- your whole life is an open book if you're a sports star, movie star or similarly noteworthy person. It's unfair. A famous person should have just as much a right to privacy as the rest of us.
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Come on now they are public figures by their own life/career choices and a large part of their total income is from the fact that they are well known.

Vick I am fairly sure was earning off the football field with endorsements something at least comparable to his football salary.

As you earn a living by at least partly being well known then you can not complain that if you do something sickening that the world will know about it.

Vick could have been a laborer for a living and then no one would know or care if he fought dogs and unless he was brain dead he should have been aware of the risks he was running by fighting dogs and killing dogs that would or could not fight.

This is just silly. Cats are evil, and although it might be illegal to torture cats... it certainly isn't immoral.

And besides. Who among us doesn't like to watch a cat fight.

I can't see that Vick's (or any celebrity's) income has anything to do with moral or ethical judgements about their behavior. You say, Bill, "Vick could have been a laborer for a living and then no one would know or care if he fought dogs and unless he was brain dead he should have been aware of the risks he was running by fighting dogs and killing dogs that would or could not fight." And you consider that fair? That a nasty son-of-a-bitch can torture dogs and get away with it just because the man is a labnorer and not famous? What the hell kind of sense does that make?

i'm surprised the NFL let him back in.
i figured the overly image-conscious league wanted no part of him after what he did.

he did his time, let him play...

Vick has proven what I've always contended:

99.03% of all professional athletes who wear their hair in corn rows are anti-social thugs.

E.G.

Latrell Sprewell
Alan Iverson
Plaxico Burress
Bronson Arroyo
Michael Vick
ETC

A poor SOB does not have the lawyers Vick have and could or would as a result likely ended up with a longer term the Vick but you have no problem with it being fair that a poor person is not on the whole going to get as good a treatment by the legal system do you? Is that fair?

That a man who is good at moving a football from one end of a field to another earn more in one year then teachers, firemen, police officers or engineers does in a life time and that is not "fair" also in my world view.

That a football player earn more in a year then most doctors do in 10 years is
not fair also in my world view.

My fairness center on is it fair to fight dogs to the death or to slowly kill dogs or to throw other dogs/cats in with the fighting dogs to be destroy not if good old Vick is having a problem with earning millions afterward!

In any case part of their "job" is not to do anything so bad that it will cause problems for their football teams or the NFL and here Vick did not honor that part of his contract to say the least.

You're muddying the waters, Bill. Whether or not it's fair that a man gets millions of dollars for moving a ball from one end of the field to another has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. (For the record, I agree with you: pro athletes are obscenely overpaid.) But we're talking about whether a man should be allowed to practice his trade after paying his debt to society. It makes no differenced whether that trade is plumber or quarterback.

any of y'all seen some of the financial plans he had to put to the court?

he needs to play five years just to get above water...