NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t wait long to take action on Michal Vick.
Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended the Atlanta Falcons quarterback indefinitely without pay, just hours after Vick filed a plea agreement that portrayed him as less involved than three co-defendants and guilty mainly of poor judgment for associating with them.
Vick acknowledged bankrolling gambling on the dogfights, but denied placing bets himself or taking any of the winnings. He admitted that dogs not worthy of the pit were killed “as a result of the collective efforts” of himself and two co-defendants.
Goodell wasn’t moved and didn’t bother to wait until Monday, when U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson will formally accept the plea and set a sentencing date likely to land Vick in prison for one to five years.
The commissioner said Vick’s admitted conduct was “not only illegal but also cruel and reprehensible.” Even if he didn’t personally place bets, Goodell said, “your actions in funding the betting and your association with illegal gambling both violate the terms of your NFL player contract and expose you to corrupting influences in derogation of one of the most fundamental responsibilities of an NFL player.”
Goodell freed the Falcons to “assert any claims or remedies” to recover $22 million of Vick’s signing bonus from the 10-year, $130 million contract he signed in 2004.
We won’t know till Monday how much time Vick may have to spend in jail. As far as ever setting foot on a gridiron again, it may not matter.
Vick might be out of jail in time for the 2008 or 2009 seasons. But the NFL commissioner made it clear that Vick’s involvement in a dogfighting ring and bankrolling that operation were far too reprehensible for a simple post-prison “you’ve served your time, you can go back on the field now.”
So Vick misses 2007 and likely will spend at least a portion of 2008 incarcerated. He is expected to get at least a year and perhaps more from U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson when he is sentenced.
Next season? Forget it. Goodell won’t allow it.
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To the NFL, Vick’s acknowledgment that he bankrolled gambling on the dogfights is even more serious. If anything terrifies the folks who run sports, it’s gambling. Witness the problems for the NBA with the admission by a rogue referee that he bet on games.
“Even if you personally did not place bets, as you contend, your actions in funding the betting and your association with illegal gambling both violate the terms of your NFL player contract and expose you to corrupting influences in derogation of one of the most fundamental responsibilities of an NFL player,” Goodell wrote Vick.
You can argue that some of this is rhetoric, but most of it isn’t.
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What will aggravate Vick’s situation when and if Goodell clears him to play is that the public clamor will remain — centered on any team that even thinks of signing Vick, who clearly has seen his last game in Atlanta.
Beyond that, he will be 30 years old, his skills eroded by three years of inactivity. Yes, he will try to keep himself in shape. But few players come back in the NFL after missing three years, especially players who depend on speed and quickness.
Maybe someone will take a chance (Oakland?). And maybe Vick will return with some of his skills intact.
But it’s a big maybe.
I still think it’s possible for Vick to redeem himself in the eyes of the public, but it won’t be easy. It’ll take real penance, including some form of restitution, and a strong commitment to helping others stay off the path he went down. It’ll also take the realization that a nontrivial number of people will never forgive him no matter what he does, but that he still needs to work towards being forgivable anyway. And finally, it has to be about becoming a good person, not about aiming for an NFL comeback, whatever the odds of that may be. The minute people sniff a financial motive for Vick’s actions, they’ll file him under “scum” again.
One other thing he can and apparently will do is work with the feds to bust other dogfighting rings. Whether or not that will help in his redemption I couldn’t say, but it can’t hurt.
I can’t say I care about whether or not we’ve seen the end of Vick’s football life. I hope for his sake he can repair the rest of his life, and that ten or twenty years down the line, we can look back at this and say that something good did eventually come out of it. That’s all up to him now.