NFL – Michael Vick’s Return

If you didn’t feel the biting sarcasm in that headline, then you’ve been swallowed up by the hype train that is becoming Michael Vick’s 2009 Saga. The standing ovation was a little over the top, but that’s what you can expect from Philly fans who have gone 49-years without a Super Bowl. But all the other nonsense has to stop. The PETA affiliations, the humane society crap – just let it stop.

Vick made a mistake, but he’s not Peyton Manning who’s a model citizen by comparison and a good spokesperson. What exactly is Vick going to do for the humane society? Is he going to film a public service announcement surrounded by adorable puppies saying, “Man I can’t believe I used to kill these things for fun. DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AS ME, KIDS!”? Does this gain any legs in any green room?

Listen, I’ve written in the past about Vick and athletes in general. I will say about Vick as a football player that I did about Michael Jackson as a singer. MJ was undoubtedly the greatest, single performer of my lifetime and while he was a complete lunatic in his personal life, that wasn’t what I asked of him as a fan. I asked him to sing and dance…and maybe not dangle babies off of hotel balconies. But I mean as long as he wasn’t hurting anyone, what did I care about his crazy personal life?

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We’re as punch-drunk-in-love with Vick as we were with Jackson. He’s a monster who’s trying to “fix” himself, and whether I believe his whole PR angle is a work or not, I’ve stopped caring. I’ve made my point that playing professional sports is a privilege, and that I would’ve preferred to see him hold-out for a year and “struggle with a real job”, but that didn’t happen. Just imagine if that happened in a corporate job for a second:

CEO: “We have a really big problem with Johnson. He’s a really twisted psychopath. Have you seen his myspace page? I mean, who even uses myspace anymore…

VP of Operations: “Yeah, I know what you mean, but he can type incredibly fast. I mean nobody crunches numbers faster than Johnson. And besides, he said he was sorry. Didn’t you get his email?”

CEO: “It’s just that the stuff he did…the photos he posted…they were really messed up. And man, it’s all true. Didn’t you see the police reports?”

VP of Operations: “Listen! He’s a versatile weapon in the company that can type crazy fast, brew coffee better than anybody I’ve ever known, and he is a maniac with that photocopier. don’t care if he’s piss-poor for our corporate image…he’s got incredible gifts which justify his six-figure salary!”

This stuff just doesn’t happen unless we’re talking about mobs and gangs. Not that the NFL is going to be ruined by Vick. He’s a millionaire again. He’s getting out of bankruptcy. He’s helping activists. He’s saying and doing all the things you would expect a screw up to say if you dangled a bag full of cash in front of him. I’m not one for sour grapes, so whatever. You move on.

Now all I can do is see if he can pad a futures bet on the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles are slated as +550 favorites to win the NFC Championship, putting them right on the heels of the +500 New York Giants. When it comes to personnel, the Eagles’ offense is stacked to the nines, and Vick showed that he has shaken the majority of rust that he carried for the past two seasons. Vick’s 4-for-4 performance covering 19-yards was fine. It wasn’t spectacular, but it also wasn’t shamefully bad. So far, so good for the Eagles.

The oddsmakers have pegged the odds for Eagles regular season wins at 9.5 O/U. Aside from the Cowboys and Giants, who take up four games of their schedule, the only other real competition Philadelphia faces is New Orleans in Week 2 and the San Diego Chargers in Week 10. Aside from that, their schedule is a cake walk filled with matches against Chicago, Oakland, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Carolina and Denver. Can you say “10 win seasons are easy”? I’m going OVER with Vick on board. Even if McNabb goes down with another injury, Vick showed that he’s well on his way to shaking the rust off old lefty and can stand in should he need to. Vick and Westbrook in the backfield? That has at least 10-wins written all over it.

For now the Vick Saga will carry on and draw way too much attention to itself. I just wonder who’s going to get more hits on Google this year: Brett Favre or Michael Vick. Why isn’t that a prop bet anyways?