Vick to Star in His Own "Longest Yard"

POSTED BY Kenneth England, 20 August 2007

The other shoe has finally dropped in the Mike Vick case with Vick reportedly ready to plead guilty to the charges, although this shouldn't particularly shock anyone. Once the federal government comes at you with an indictment, the chances of getting out unscathed are roughly equivalent of the chances that the Raiders win the Super Bowl this year.

With this, Vick's chances of ever being able to have any sort of positive public image in the future, much less play football are also zero. We all saw the downfall of Simpson years ago after an innocent verdict, imagine the whirlwind of negativity that will surround Vick now. It will make the last few weeks of bad publicity look like nothing, when he at least had the benefit of the doubt from some. This will be a public image crucifixion the likes of which have never been seen before, and will be talked about ad infinitum by a press ravenous for bad news for the next few weeks. As if the coverage hasn't been redundant and incessant enough already.

Reports are that Vick will spend 12 to 18 weeks in jail, which is actually far less than I thought would happen considering what I had previously heard the sentence could be. The depressing part of this story is that Vick should now go from the most overrated athlete in the history of the human race (which he always was, don't deny it) has just become the most despised man in the sports world. That is what should happen, but it doesn't seem to be what is happening. I have heard reports this morning that there is still lots of vocal support in the south for Vick, obviously in Atlanta but also elsewhere who feel Vick is being "picked on" for "just engaging in dogfighting."

It's easy to make this into a "south thing" or a "black thing" but it's neither... its an "ignorance thing." I was born and raised in the south, and have never seen a dogfight (nor would I want to.) So it's not a southern thing. As for being a "black thing," I hope the people who read this blog are intelligent enough to dismiss that on your own, and I'm confident that you can. It brings us to a problem of ignorance and bad parenting... that is the only thing that can explain the callous ability to justify a dog getting mangled for the betting pleasure of a human.

For some reason, no matter how much Vick sucked as a Quarterback (good for nothing more than two to three minutes of highlight footage a year,) and no matter how vile his private life has been shown now to be, there will still be idiots who still support him. Analysts on ESPN are still calling Vick a "tremendous Quarterback," when anyone with an inkling of football knowledge knows exactly how overhyped and untalented of a Quarterback he is. Go figure. Some people just don't understand reality.