Michael Vick to be allowed to resume career...

[dreamz]

good thing or bad thing?

vick was an NFL player who got convicted of running a dog fighting ring where he was one of the main financiers.

In December 2007, he was sentenced to serve a 23 month federal prison term; 3 years of prison time in Virginia on other charges was suspended upon condition of good behavior.

so now he's been cleared to return to playing which i dont think he should've at all

but 2nd question will any team pick him up in the draft? he was a fair decent QB at his peak but i doubt any team would risk animal rights groups protesting at their games for doing so...

[Iain328]

dreamz said:

good thing or bad thing?

vick was an NFL player who got convicted of running a dog fighting ring where he was one of the main financiers.

In December 2007, he was sentenced to serve a 23 month federal prison term; 3 years of prison time in Virginia on other charges was suspended upon condition of good behavior.

so now he's been cleared to return to playing which i dont think he should've at all

but 2nd question will any team pick him up in the draft? he was a fair decent QB at his peak but i doubt any team would risk animal rights groups protesting at their games for doing so...

He's done his time - as distateful as what he might have done was, why should it preclude him from carrying out his "trade"? From your discription what he did had nohing to do with the NFL, drug taking, rigging games or anything else that directly impacted the NFL and could/should reasonably preclude him from resuming his sport.

You could argue "what if he had murdered someone, should he be allowed to play then"? ....and the answer is technically, no reason why not. However, these things tend to be self regulating - if he (or any player) does something that bad that it would deter teammates from wanting to play with him or paying fans from supporting the team (or ,as you suggest attracts unwanted attention from "activists") then he isn't going to get hired/selected/drafted anyway.

I don't think its sensible for the NFL or any other governing body to start trying to be judge & jury over such things. Besides they'd probably be had up for "restraint of trade" or similar if they tried.

[dreamz]

i think thats why they've said ok - but maybe in the hope no team will actually draft him in

[gareth_r]

At least the dogs weren't killed
http://www.badrap.org/rescue/news.cfm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/galleri...

Edited by gareth_r on Friday 31st July 15:54

[Fittster]

If there is no hope of ex-criminals re-joining society why would the reform?

[Russ35]

Somebody will take him. Probably not before the season starts, but as soon as a team has a bad start or lose their starting QB. To take him straight away will probably bring negative fan and media response, but if the team is struggling they may get away with it.

I wasn't happy (along with many other fans) when Blackpool took Lee Hughes on loan from Oldham at the end of last season, but admit to jumping around like a lunatic when he got the equaliser in the 90th minute away at Charlton. I've not looked to see how Notts County fans have taken to their signing of him.

[W333]

I think its only fair, he was a pretty decent QB and there are some teams out there that will need him once they get past the first few games and realise their system just doesn't work. I can't wait for the start of the season!

[skibum]

I think he should definetly be let back to play and get annoyed by the skewed outlook society has these days.

Seeing him on the news and the amount of grief he gets is gobsmacking. Agreed, its not nice what he did and he deservedly got prison time for it.

But when you compare him to the situation with Dante Stallworth - http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d810d8394&... - it makes it look a little silly....

Still, I dont think anyone will pick him up, certainly not as a starter anyway - are there any starting spots open?

[unrepentant]

My view is that Vick has done his time, in fact done quite a lot of time. I doubt he'd have gone to prison here. He seems pretty repentant as well. I used to love watching him play as he could scramble like no QB I ever saw. As a Pats fan I hope they take him as backup to Tom.

[unrepentant]

Just to add a view stateside is that no team will take him because of the adverse publicity / animal rights protesters etc.