Club shooting could mean the last straw for Michael Vick
OPINION - You just never know, which is why Vick has to be one hundred times more judicious in anything he does for the rest of his life in the limelight...
When Michael Vick decided that he was going to turn a sprawling mansion and the property on which it stood in Virginia into a blood-soaked dog-fighting coliseum, a place where he and his crew would gather to wager cash on which pit bull would kill the other and then electrocute, drown or whatever heinous way these mental midgets decided was the best way to put these dogs out of misery, he wasn’t acting stupid.
He was being stupid.
Still, Vick did his time, and after some prodding from maybe the most respected man connected to the NFL, former Tampa Bay and Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, the Philadelphia Eagles gave Vick a second chance.
And what did Vick do with that opportunity?
Well, quite frankly we just don’t know.
A nightclub shooting where Vick was throwing his 30th birthday party last week was also the place where a former Vick associate was shot. Turns out that the shooting victim was a co-defendant in the dog fighting case that Vick was told not to associate with.
Personally, if I’m Michael Vick, I’m done with these hood rat get togethers. There’s nothing good that can come out of them. They are attended by reams of low self-esteemed groupies dying to throw themselves at the feet of professional athletes, whether or not they have a fiancée, as does Vick, and his hangers on. Most of these hangers on aren’t Vick’s friends but rather associates who specialize in snatching the crumbs that fall from his bountiful table.
Who knows, perhaps there are folk out there dying to challenge Vick. I don’t know, maybe someone whose dog lost a fight with one of Vick’s and now this clown is ready to settle a score with the one-time All-Pro quarterback.
You just never know, which is why Vick has to be one hundred times more judicious in anything he does for the rest of his life in the limelight.
Originally the story offered by Vick’s lawyer was that Vick was long gone by the time the shooting took place. Now, however, a video camera is telling a different story, one that indicates that Vick and his crew left just three minutes before the shooting.
Now, Vick has been described by investigators as a person who might be of interest. And if it turns out that Vick had some involvement in the shooting, trust me, he’s gone.
But this has to be proven first, and right now they’ve got nothing. And in Vick’s defense, maybe he didn’t know that his former buddy — for his sake he better be a former buddy — was at the party. After all, Vick doesn’t have the ability to see into the future. If he did he probably would have spent more time at the race track picking the ponies than acting as the one-time misguided financier of the infamous Bad Newz Kennels. Last night, Vick released an official statement saying, “I want to assure everyone that I had nothing to do with that incident.”
Nevertheless, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is not going to overlook this situation. He didn’t have to give Vick a second chance in the NFL, but he did. Like him or not, he brought Vick back in good faith and gave him a new start, a chance to make more millions after Vick had flushed millions down the toilet.
It remains to be seen if Vick, once the most elusive quarterback in the league, can get out of this one. However, in driving through Philadelphia on Wednesday, where Vick plays, it sounds like the not-so-forgiving locals who call into sports radio have already made their decision on Vick. They want him gone.
Guilty or innocent, the fan base that thought it was a better idea to draft weed smoking Ricky Williams instead of Donovan McNabb almost a dozen years ago would rather see Vick cut. It doesn’t matter what the truth is, but Vick is not going to get another chance like, say, Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, who every six months or so seems to have a new woman claiming he’s tried to sexually assault her. His crime was too high profile, and Roethlisberger has yet to be convicted of anything.
In Philly they are ready to turn the reigns over to Kevin Kolb, the new starter after the Eagles made the dumbest move of the NFL off-season and traded McNabb in the division to the Washington Redskins.
They’ll find out quickly that Kolb is no McNabb. And when that happens this notoriously impatient bunch is going to want to have a quarterback in reserve.
This would perhaps be Vick’s golden opportunity, a chance to complete an incredible redemption story. But he might not get that opportunity because all of his cut cards could very well be used up. And if he doesn’t, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
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