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Vick deserves a chance ... to do some good

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Michael Vick has two months left on his sentence for dogfighting. Will we see him in a football uniform soon?

By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 20, 2009

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When should Michael Vick be allowed to return to the NFL?

One of these days, Michael Vick will be back in the National Football League. The commissioner will reinstate him and some team will take a chance that his enormous talent didn't erode from 19 months in Leavenworth federal prison.

The question isn't whether that will happen, but instead whether it should.

It has already sparked extraordinary debate in this land because Vick's crime was reprehensible. But was it worse than what Leonard Little of the St. Louis Rams did? He got drunk at a party in 1998, got behind the wheel, and killed a person in a car wreck. Little did 90 days in jail and is still in the league today.

Or is it worse than the sexual assault Jerramy Stevens of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was accused of while at the University of Washington? Or his multiple arrests for DUI and other offenses? He is about to embark on his third season with the Bucs.

The NFL does love to send mixed messages. Remember the insistence by new Bucs coach Raheem Morris about signing "angry workers" and "violent" players. I know what he meant, but it sounded weird.

So here's the deal, at least as I see it.

There probably should be a place in the NFL for Michael Vick.

I'm not sure any player in the history of the league has paid a greater price for his misdeed than Vick, and he will continue to pay for the rest of his life. I don't have a problem with that. But to exclude Vick from a league that still accepts players who arguably have committed greater misdeeds is hypocritical at best.

Besides, it might be the only way to actually get some good out of all this.

Long road back

Vick is out of prison now, concluding his total of 23 months confinement with two months of house arrest. He still has a long road back to the NFL, though. Once jail is completely behind him, he still has to satisfy NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in order to be reinstated into the league.

My guess is that Goodell will move cautiously with Vick, maybe extending his suspension an additional few months (or a year?) to see how Vick handles his promise to make amends.

Assuming Goodell finally lets Vick back, you need a team owner willing to take a chance on the public relations disaster that signing him will be. PETA pickets will go up outside that team's practice headquarters before the ink is dry on Vick's contract. The locker room will be bulging with reporters seeking reaction.

And when Vick himself shows up … oh my!

They'll need extra security everywhere he goes, particularly in visiting stadiums and hotels. That's what happens when you mess with Fido.

Vick has earned all that.

But he has also earned a second chance. Once his sentence is fully served, he has been deemed fit to rejoin society. That's how our country works.

Dungy influence

Without much fanfare, Tony Dungy visited Vick recently in Leavenworth.

Dungy has made it his life's work to reach out to people like Vick, and while Dungy hasn't talked about their conversation it's not too hard to guess how it went. Dungy is big on personal responsibility and moving forward and that's the exact message Vick needs to hear right now.

It's not about having him make millions again because, frankly, I doubt he'll ever make much more than the league minimum. At best he might have three or four years to play anyway, and only then as a gadget player – maybe out of the "Wildcat" formation currently in vogue.

The notion of cheering his exploits again on a football field seems out of the question right now, but who has a more effective story to tell now about the lure of the dark side than Michael Vick?

He should be required to speak to every rookie class entering the league about just what can happen out there.

He should sit for interviews and tell his story until people are sick of hearing it – and then he should tell it again. Only then might some good actually come from this.

This can't be just about Michael Vick playing football again. If it is, then nobody has learned a doggone thing.

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