According to NFL executive VP of football operations Ray Anderson, Michael Vick could play as early as Week 1 of the NFL season this year.

Ray Anderson, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, tells NFL.com senior columnist Thomas George that Michael Vick could find himself suiting up in Week 1 of the regular season “if all goes well” and that commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to conditionally reinstate the quarterback shouldn’t be viewed as a six-game suspension.

“Personally, I am glad that Michael Vick has a chance to have a real say in his opportunity,” Anderson said. “As a former agent who represented players and as a former club executive with the Falcons who knew Vick personally, I think this decision smacks of real fairness in all corners.

“This is a step-by-step process that goes up to Week 6; it is not a six-game suspension by any means. If all goes well, he could be playing anytime from Week 1 forward. Roger listened to ownership, NFL employees, friends, relatives, players, counselors, people from animal rights groups. In his typical fashion, he sought input and listened to all before acting.”

What exactly does, “if all goes well” entail? What, if Vick sells enough Girl Scout cookies by the end of August he can play in Week 1? Anderson is being incredibly vague here, which I guess means we’ll just have to wait and see how the league handles this situation.

Personally, I’m calling shenanigans if Vick is able to play in Week 1. I understand he served 23 months in jail, but that really has nothing to do with the league. To me, he still hasn’t served his league suspension yet, just as Pacman Jones, Chris Henry and all the other malcontents have done in years past. Whether that’s four, six or 16 games I don’t care, but Vick has to be suspended.

According to a report by ESPN.com, Michael Vick was conditionally reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday and could play in regular season games as early as October.

Vick can immediately participate in preseason practices, workouts and meetings and can play in the final two preseason games — if he can find a team that will sign him. A number of teams have already said they would not.

“Needless to say, your margin for error is extremely limited,” Goodell said in a letter to Vick. “I urge you to take full advantage of the resources available to support you and to dedicate yourself to rebuilding your life and your career. If you do this, the NFL will support you.”

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to commissioner Goodell for allowing me to be readmitted to the National Football League,” Vick said through agent Joel Segal. “I fully understand that playing football in the NFL is a privilege, not a right, and I am truly thankful for the opportunity I have been given.

“As you can imagine, the last two years have given me time to re-evaluate my life, mature as an individual and fully understand the terrible mistakes I have made in the past and what type of life I must lead moving forward.

“Again, I want to thank the commissioner for the chance to return to the game I love and the opportunity to become an example of positive change.”

If Vick so much as jay walks across an empty street, he’s probably going to be suspended indefinitely, so he better take what Goodell says to heart.

Not surprisingly, Michael Vick isn’t welcomed to stop by Atlanta Falcons headquarters anytime soon. With Vick’s release from federal prison on Wednesday, Atlanta owner Arthur Blank made it clear that his former franchise player will never play for the Falcons again.

“The Falcons maintain Michael’s contractual rights for now, but he will not be playing for us in the future. In the event NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell decides to reinstate Michael to the NFL, we feel his best opportunity to re-engage his football career would be at another club.

“From a personal standpoint, I will continue to be supportive of Michael in any way that would be positive, constructive and helpful.”

Blank made plenty of mistakes during Vick’s playing time in Atlanta. For starters, he and the Falcons coddled Vick too much and turned a blind eye when the quarterback started to make off-field headlines for the wrong reasons. They didn’t want to upset their star player and even went as far to protect him at all costs, which wound up hurting them in the end. I always thought the time Blank pushed Vick onto the field in Dallas in a wheelchair after he broke his leg was way overblown, but the situation did show that Blank got too close to his star.

That said, Vick flat out lied to Blank several times and abused his relationship with the owner. Blank gave Vick a mile and Vick took another 74 more miles. While it’s true Vick made Blank a ton of money, he also cost him millions more after the dog fighting scandal reached its pinnacle. Blank never deserved the humiliation that Vick put him through and I think it’s a testament to who he is as a person that he continues to support his former quarterback on a personal level.

But as the man said – no way will Vick ever be welcomed back by the Falcons. That franchise was put through hell by Vick and Bobby Petrino and now have a great thing building with Thomas Dimitroff, Mike Smith and of course, Matt Ryan. In the end, karma paid Blank a visit and made things even.

Let’s just hope that Blank doesn’t make the same mistakes with Ryan as he did with Vick, because no player should ever be put above the team.

Michael Vick has officially been released from federal prison.

Vick is due to return to his Hampton, Va., home and serve the remainder of his federal sentence on house arrest. He spent the past 19 months in prison after pleading guilty to bankrolling a dogfighting ring.

Vick, once the NFL’s highest-paid player, is expected to take a construction job at $10 an hour while he serves the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. He will be handed a new set of rules when he begins serving three years of probation after his expected July 20 release from federal custody.

Vick’s agent said Tuesday that the quarterback “will place football on the back burner” during his immediate home confinement and that there are no meetings scheduled with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss reinstatement for the 2009 season.

“Michael’s looking forward to reacquainting himself with his family, his fiancée, Kiafa, his children and his mom,” Joel Segal, Vick’s agent, said. “When he gets home, that’s his priority, along with reinserting himself into society and being a positive influence in his community. This is going to be a special time for him, just being around family.”

Goodell has said he would wait until the end of Vick’s sentence to consider reinstatement. He has said Vick will have to persuade him and the public that he is genuinely sorry for his crime, that he has been changed by his experience and that he is committed to leading a different life.

Unless Segal was just playing to the media and wasn’t being sincere, I think Vick “putting football on the back burner” is a great idea. His life is in complete shambles right now and he needs to take one day at a time. Perhaps the most beneficial thing for him is to distance himself from anyone who had a negative effect on his life. Several reports have stated that he’s too easily influenced and if that’s the case, then he needs to surround himself with positive people. Considering he has immense financial debt, football should be the last thing on his mind.

(If anyone else wants advice about their lives or financial situation, please call my hotline at: 1-800-I-Sound-Like-Dr.-Phil-In-This-Article.)

A judge told suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick to come up with a reasonable bankruptcy plan so that he can start getting out of the enormous debt that he owes from bad investment deals and legal fees. But apparently Vick’s plan wasn’t good enough because the judge rejected it.

Judge Frank J. Santoro called Vick’s plan unworkable Friday, saying it would leave the suspended NFL star with up to a $9 million “hole” on top of the payments he would have to make to his creditors. As of December, Vick had $16 million in assets and $20.4 million in debts, court records show.

The judge added that some of Vick’s plans to make money once he gets out of prison are speculative — including a $600,000 proposal for him to star in a documentary. And Santoro suggested that Vick should consider selling more of his assets, including one of the two houses he wants to keep for himself and his mother in Virginia.

“I am going to give you one more chance to come up with a workable reorganization plan, but that is your last chance,” Santoro told Vick, who wore a gray suit and white dress shirt to the two-day hearing. “I think it would be important for you to make the best of it.”

Santoro ordered a hearing on the status of Vick’s next bankruptcy plan for April 28. Vick’s attorneys, meanwhile, complained they have been handicapped in working with Vick because he has been imprisoned in Leavenworth, Kan. They asked Santoro to allow him to remain in a local jail here until the April 28 hearing. Santoro said he did not have the authority to do that but would consider ordering his appearance at the April 28 hearing.

If you read the entire article, you’ll get a good sense how unbelievably careless Vick was with his money. Hopefully making six cents an hour working as a prison janitor or $10 an hour working construction will teach Vick the value of money. But considering he thinks he’s going to do a documentary for $600,000, it’s clear he still has a warped sense of reality.

Greg Doyel of CBS Sportsline.com blasts suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick after several media members have written that Vick has paid his dues.

That’s a question for Roger Goodell to answer in the next year or two, but in the meantime Vick is being defended, sort of, by the two columnists mentioned above. Moore says Vick has been humiliated enough and took issue with the image last week of Vick having to arrive at the Sussex County (Va.) Courthouse “shackled at the wrists and ankles.” Knott says Vick has suffered enough, that his 23 months in prison combined with his staggering loss of wealth should quell the fury of “the most vitriolic animal rights supporters.”

Writes Knott: “It’s time … to move beyond the matter of Michael Vick.”

Writes Moore: “Just let it go, people.”

All due respect, fellows, but your opinions make me ill. Michael Vick is a slime of nearly the worst order, as last week’s plea deal demonstrated (again). According to new court papers, Vick “thought it was funny” to put family pets into the ring with pit bulls and watch the pets get ripped apart. Dogs that didn’t fight well enough were drowned, by Vick, in a bucket of water.

I’ll never move on from that. I’ll never let it go. Let God forgive Vick. Me, I’ll hate the man forever — and I’ll urge Goodell to feel the same way.

You have a problem with my anger? Tell someone who cares. I own two dogs. They sleep on my bed. They lick my kids’ faces. Their entire goal in life is to make the people around them happy.

Vick’s entire goal was to see dogs tear each other to shreds.

Forgive that? You have to be kidding. I’ll defend Iverson and Marbury before I’ll write a single conciliatory word about Michael Vick.

I think Vick’s crime was so disturbing that people like Doyel could never forgive what he did. But in terms of whether or not Goodell should allow him to play again – what about Pacman Jones? He never fought dogs, but he was involved in a situation where a man was paralyzed and a woman was shot in the ear. And yet, I could have sworn I saw Jones covering receivers earlier this season. He’s on his 400th chance so to say Vick doesn’t deserve an opportunity to play in the NFL again is a bit hypocritical.

That said, I think Vick is a turd. I keep reading and hearing how he’s sorry about what he’s done, but is he just saying and doing all the right things so he can play again? Some people go to jail and they turn around their lives for the better, while others come out virtually the same person. I wonder which category Vick fits under.