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Dan Reeves: Falcons turned their backs on Michael Vick

Anthony Stalter — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:07:21 +0000

Falcon fans will be be forever grateful for what Dan Reeves did for their organization, which included leading them to their first and only Super Bowl appearance, and pulling the trigger on a trade that brought Michael Vick to Atlanta in 2001.

That said, Reeves missed the boat so badly with his recent comments about how the Falcons “turned their back” on Vick that he didn’t even hit water. He never made it to the dock, in fact. He tripped getting out of his car on the way to the dock with the boat 600 yards away, smacked his head on the ground and when he woke up dazed and confused, he foolishly said this:

“When Mike really needed them, they turned their back on him in my opinion. They could have been a big supporter and they let him go. I wasn’t there so I don’t know the organization’s standpoint, but I thought they could have been more supportive and instead they severed ties with him.”

Things didn’t end well for Reeves in Atlanta, so I don’t blame him for being a little salty towards the organization. But he still has a functioning brain, does he not? The Falcons turned their backs on Vick? They could have been more supportive? You’re kidding me, right? The Falcons should have showed Vick more support? Wow, that’s a new one.

First of all, there’s no way the Falcons could have kept Vick following his release from prison. It would have been a PR nightmare and the entire organization would have be viewed as weak for sticking by a quarterback who plunged them into the depths of NFL hell for at least one season. You don’t run a business that way and in the end, the NFL is a business first.

But the bigger point to be made here is that Vick wronged the Falcons, not the other way around. The Falcons didn’t decide to hold underground dog fighting rings in their backyard. That was Vick. The Falcons didn’t break the law, drown innocent animals, or participate in illegal gambling. That was Vick. When questioned about their involvement in the felonious activities, they didn’t lie to his face. Again, that was Vick.

And oh-by-the-way, the Falcons were the ones who rewarded Vick with millions of dollars for his on-filed play despite the fact that he never developed into a leader for them. He admitted as much last year when he told everyone with a microphone that he didn’t work nearly has hard for the Falcons as he does now in Philadelphia. There were also incidents that the Falcons covered up in fear that it would hurt Vick’s reputation, including an issue involving him and his posse stealing a watch at an airport early in his career.

Now, it was the Falcons’ own fault for coddling Vick for six years before he was hauled off to prison. Owner Arthur Blank has said that he mistakenly turned the Falcons into a one-man show instead of building a team. But no support? Someone should remind Reeves that Vick got to keep all of the money that the Falcons paid him, and that guys like Blank wrote to him when he was in prison. When Vick says things like, “I love Arthur Blank unconditionally,” that doesn’t sound like someone who has been unsupported. Blank loved Vick and would have done anything to watch “MV7″ lead the Falcons to the Super Bowl.

In some small way, it’s nice that Reeves is sticking by the guy whom he drafted. And before anyone suggests it, this isn’t about Vick and whether or not he’s paid his debt to society. This specifically is about Reeves’ comments, which are way off base. The Falcons did everything they could to make Vick a superstar in Atlanta. They paid him like a star, treated him like a star, and supported him like a star. And for six years, they sold a lot of tickets and jerseys while Vick ran around the Georgia Dome carpet every week.

But in the end, Vick left the franchise in ruins because he cared more about his hobby than he did about his craft. He also cost them millions of dollars, left them with no quarterback or direction, and stuck them with Joey Harrington for a season (which was his biggest crime if you ask me). Did they land back on their feet? Yes, but it took a lot of savvy moves by GM Thomas Dimitroff to turn the Falcons around so quickly. And let’s keep in mind that when Vick was constantly receiving bad press for his many off-field adventures, he was still a member of the Falcons. Thus, he was making the Falcons look bad with his actions – not the Eagles or anyone else. Now that he’s in Philadelphia, he’s viewed as the poster child for redemption and is the star of “The Dream Team.” Who does that benefit? Certainly not the Falcons.

The Falcons turned their backs on Vick? I think you’ve got it backwards, Dan.

More trouble for Michael Vick?

Anthony Stalter — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:51:23 +0000

The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that Michael Vick is not a suspect in an incident that occurred early this morning that resulted in a man named Quanis Phillips being shot outside a nightclub in Virginia. Vick had been celebrating his 30th birthday at the restaurant/club sometime before the shooting occurred.

The police have stated that they have no interest in Vick, but that doesn’t mean he won’t face punishment from the NFL. When commissioner Roger Goodell reinstated Vick last July, part of the deal was that Vick wasn’t supposed to associate with anyone from his days as a dog fighter. And Phillips was just one of the people that Vick had a close “business relationship” with when he owned Bad Newz Kennels. Goodell also announced upon Vick’s reinstatement that the quarterback’s margin for error was “extremely limited.”

Falcons’ receiver Roddy White, who was apparently with Vick earlier in the night, said that the two of them had left the party before the shooting took place. Said White: “I don’t know what’s going to go on with that or whatever, but we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Not many details are available right now, so we can only speculate about what transpired leading up to the shooting. Maybe Phillips was there without Vick’s knowledge or arrived to the restaurant after the quarterback had left. Who knows?

But the mere fact that Vick’s name is being brought up in relation to another off-field incident is troubling to say the least. It sounds as if he did nothing wrong and wasn’t involved in the shooting. It also isn’t a crime to celebrate your birthday with your friends, although if one of those friends is an old acquaintance that helped you set up an illegal dog-fighting ring, then that’s a problem. And if Phillips was invited to the party, then Vick’s decision-making is yet again up for criticism.

Check back for more details on this developing story.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Cheated on your wife? Fine, just don’t ruin my football team.

Anthony Stalter — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:15:24 +0000

Ben Roethlisberger was accused not once, but twice of sexually assaulting two separate females, while Tiger Woods admitted to cheating on his wife with multiple women, including at least one porn star.

But neither of them hold a candle to Michael Vick in the category of most disliked athlete. The same goes for Al Davis apparently, seeing as how he was found to be the second most disliked sports personality among voters in a recent Forbes survey.

From FOX Sports:

For the second year in a row, Michael Vick topped a fan poll taken by Forbes as the most disliked national sports figure, myFOXphilly.com reported Sunday.

The Forbes survey sampled sports fans and filtered out lesser-known figures like disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis and sports agent Scott Boras, who weren’t known by a lot of fans but really disliked by those who knew them.

In the end, Vick was still held in a lower opinion than Ben Roethlisberger, Tiger Woods and Oakland Raiders’ owner Al Davis, with 69 percent of those polled disliking Vick.

Davis was a surprising second with 66 percent, given the amount of bad PR that Woods (53 percent) and Roethlisberger (57 percent) had in the past year.

Wait, Al Davis was second? So let me get this straight: you can commit adultery or be accused of sexual assault and still be more liked than if you ruined an NFL franchise. That’s kind of disturbing. I know I’m drawing a rather incomplete conclusion based on this unscientific poll, but I wouldn’t think that Al Davis would be ahead of Tiger and Big Ben on the most disliked scale.

I guess it goes to show you how much Americans love their football.

Steroid dealer claims he supplied Vick

Anthony Stalter — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:07:41 +0000

A former steroid dealer named David Jacobs (now deceased) has come out and said that he supplied Michael Vick with steroids when Vick was a member of the Falcons.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Authorities said Jacobs ran one of the largest doping networks in the country before he was arrested in May 2007.

The new document, which summarizes Vick’s interview with investigators, surfaced because of open records requests by media outlets.

Agents told Vick that a DEA informant said that Vick was talking about steroids and human growth hormone with someone at the Falcons party and that Vick was overheard saying he “liked his product.”
Vick immediately denied to the investigators that the conversation ever happened and said he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.

Names, other than Vick’s, were redacted from the government summary, so it’s not clear whether the DEA informant referred to was Jacobs.

But in several interviews with The News that took place in the months before authorities say Jacobs killed himself and his girlfriend in June 2008, Jacobs said that at that 2006 gathering he was with Vick and other players who used his drugs.

Baseball has long been the focal point for performance-enhancing drugs in sports, but it would be naïve to think that drugs aren’t being used in other sports. After all, steroids first gained national attention thanks to the Olympics decades again. I don’t want to make generalized claims without having hard facts, but again, it would be naïve to think that baseball players are the only ones doping to gain a competitive advantage.

Whether the claims that Vick used performance-enhancers are true or false, I wonder if this story will lead to more national attention being paid to drugs in the NFL. The general public is willing to look the other way when it comes to drug suspensions in football because the league is wildly popular, but cheaters exists in all walks of life.

That said, the NFL appears to have a handle on its drug testing. The league has a banned substance list a mile long and players can’t even take cold medicine without having it checked out by team doctors. I’m I suggesting that the league is completely clean? No, but I trust that the NFL has done a better job monitoring its athletes than MLB did in the late 80s and throughout the past two decades.

It’ll be interesting to see if more reports surface in the wake of this Vick story. He hasn’t been convicted of anything, but if there’s one thing we know about Vick is that if he’s guilty of something, he always finds a way to get caught.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Michael Vick returns to Atlanta this week…not that anyone cares.

Anthony Stalter — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:30:38 +0000

What’s great about the majority of sports fans (and maybe the American public in general) is that we have short attention spans. For weeks, a topic can be talked about and debated on sports blogs ad nauseum, then a few months later it’s almost like the situation never happened.

Take Michael Vick for example. He’s making his first trip back to Atlanta this week since tap dancing on many Falcons fans’ hearts by throwing his career away for a sick hobby and yet more people are searching for Tigers Woods’ alleged mistress than Vick’s Georgia Dome re-appearance.

This was someone who was talked about day in and day out over the offseason in regards to whether or not Roger Goodell would allow him back into the NFL. Then when he was reinstated, countless rumors circulated the web daily about where he’d end up.

But now, he’s a nobody – a backup who won’t see much playing time barring an injury to Donovan McNabb or Kevin Kolb. Vick’s been out of the public eye for so long that people forget that he’s even in the league. Considering he almost single-handedly sunk an entire franchise and used to bring 80,000 people to their feet every time he left the pocket (and many more sick to their stomach when reading what he did to those dogs in his backyard), one would think that people would be interested in his return.

But we’re not.

Consider this: Chris Redman will be more significant in Atlanta this weekend than Michael Vick, proving that if enough time passes, we’ll make anyone irrelevant.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Forget Vick – you too Nike.

Anthony Stalter — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:34 +0000

The Washington Post asked me to participate in their NFL blog “The League” for the 2009 season. Below is a recent post I wrote for the site about whether or not Nike should endorse Michael Vick again.

I’m over what Michael Vick did.

That might sound jarring or cruel to some people, but I am – I’m over it.

For the record, I think Vick is inhumane for what he put those dogs through. Reading what transpired on Moonlight Road made me sick and I think the punishment fit the crime.

But let’s move on. What’s done is done and he served his time, so let him rot in Philly as a backup quarterback, Wildcat formation specialist or Andy Reid’s personal dry cleaning assistant. I don’t care – and neither should Nike.

When “the swoosh” got word that Vick was involved in an illegal dog-fighting operation two years ago, they did the only thing they could: They dropped him like a bad cell phone connection.

Just recently, Vick’s agency announced that its client had struck a new deal with Nike, although the manufacturer claims that it has only agreed to supply product to Vick, as it does with numerous other athletes who are not officially under contract with them.

Either way, why should Nike bother endorsing Vick period? Because he used to be an icon? Because he used to make people’s eyes pop out of their head every time he escaped from the pocket? He went to jail – his opportunities of being endorsed by anyone should be over.

Read the entire article at the Washington Post.

McNabb speaks out about Vick

John Paulsen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:00:51 +0000

Over on his Yardbarker blog, Donovan McNabb details how and why the Eagles signed Michael Vick.

I wanted Michael to come to Philadelphia and, in any way he can, help bring a Super Bowl championship to the City. There is no doubt he is a uniquely talented player that can add to our offensive weapons. For him personally, I want to see him continue to grow as a person, spend time with his family and re-establish himself as a leader on and off the field. Due to the nature of what happened and the attention it has received, it may not always be easy for him but he seems up for the challenge. Fortunately, with a tremendous individual like Tony Dungy in his corner, he will have the support he needs.

I just caught a bit of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” where they were discussing the Vick signing. One of the guests was Gov. Ed Rendell who said that we, as a society, preach over and over to inmates when they go to prison that if they serve their time, we’ll give them another chance. One of the other guests — I didn’t catch his name (sorry) — said that all this talk of redemption is fine, but this was a football decision.

Well, duh, of course it was. The Eagles signed Vick because they thought he could help their team. Rendell is talking about rehabilitation and redemption as a way to justify the signing to those who would like to see Vick go and crawl under a rock and never play football again. These are two separate questions:

1) Why did the Eagles sign Vick?
2) How do they justify it?

I consider myself a dog lover, so I find Vick’s history of animal abuse to be disgusting. That said, he has served his time and seems intent on proving to everyone that he is sorry for what he did and that he’s a changed man. While the Eagles’ decision to sign him may piss off a few animal lovers in Philadelphia, they’ll get over it if he’s averaging 7.0 yards per carry in the Wildcat formation.

I just wonder what Vick says about dog-fighting behind closed doors, when it’s just him and his buddies. I hope he’s sincere, but there’s only a select few that know for sure.