Really off topic

[Pookie]

It all comes down to one thing!

[Metal Militia]

What Michael Vick did was wrong, but I believe he has done his time and now hopefully he can get his career and more importantly his life back on track. People make mistakes and Vick made a big one. He paid his dues and now he is trying to teach the community against the wrongdoings of animal cruelty. I was brought up to forgive others if they are truly sorry for what they did and did something to make up for what he has done and Vick has admitted that he was wrong and also is trying to prove to people he is a changed man. If Vick signed with the Chicago Bears (my favorite team ) I would welcome him with open arms. I think Vick could still play and the Eagles now can now run the wild cat offense which Chad Pennington and Ronnie Brown did last year in Miami with huge success. I'm hoping Vick will do well and hopefully get some playing time.

[Luke]

I didn't take the time to read all the posts, but it is obvious this thread is about Vick. I won't make an argument, just valid points.

Vick murdered dogs.

Vick was the ringleader of a national pitbull dog fighting organization, from the financing to the breeding of dogs.

This felony would have been tried differently if he was not an athlete.

The judge warned Vick that if the court found further laws broken, he would be accessed a harsher punishment. Vick then tested positive for marijuana. The judgment stayed the same.

Vick was kept in solitary confinement, safer than general popoulation.

Just look at it this way. Just picture yourself in this situation, I'll use my job as an example:


I'm a marketing consultant. In order for me to be successful in a such a competitive environment, I must consistently perform better than my competition. My reputation precedes me. My name is associated with my body of work.

Now say I finance an illegal ring of criminals. Doesn't have to be dog fighting, any felony applies. I get caught. I swear, as my word as a man, to my boss and manager that I have no idea what the authorities are talking about. I swear to them, I'm innocent. I promise to my boss I'm innocent, and then I confess. I serve prison time for committing a heinous felony.

When I get out of prison, I ask my boss for my old job, and he says, "Sure, but don't do anything stupid".

That would rarely, if ever, happen in a real life business organization.







I

[General Chaos]

A year and a half in jail is nothing to scoff at. There's a public misconception that somehow doing time behind bars isn’t so bad, but that's not the reality. Prison is not a pretty place, and jails can actually be worse than prison because they are usually less regulated and held to fewer state/national standards.

That point aside, I'm tired of professional athletes being labeled as role models and consequently being held to that standard. Athletes are essentially entertainers, and frankly, the more screwed up, pompous and showy they are, the more entertained I am. Imagine watching a gladiatorial battle where all of the contestants were nice, clean cut and respectful of one another. If children and/or anyone else want to view an athlete as a role model, so be it, but that's no fault of the athlete him or herself.

[Luke]

Don't care about the athletes, care about the organization. The NFL has become the NBA, full of thugs and pampered lowlifes.

[General Chaos]

Don't care about the athletes, care about the organization. The NFL has become the NBA, full of thugs and pampered lowlifes.

I don't necessarily agree that the NBA was ever or is now full of either of those things, nor that the NFL is headed in that direction, but even if that were the case why does it matter? How does the alleged integrity of a sports organization/league impact one's enjoyment of the sport in any way? As long as the competition and competitors are fierce and at the top of their game, who cares what they're doing off the field? For that matter, who cares what they're doing in between plays/quarters/whatever.

[the King]

I'm a marketing consultant. In order for me to be successful in a such a competitive environment, I must consistently perform better than my competition. My reputation precedes me. My name is associated with my body of work.

Now say I finance an illegal ring of criminals. Doesn't have to be dog fighting, any felony applies. I get caught. I swear, as my word as a man, to my boss and manager that I have no idea what the authorities are talking about. I swear to them, I'm innocent. I promise to my boss I'm innocent, and then I confess. I serve prison time for committing a heinous felony.

When I get out of prison, I ask my boss for my old job, and he says, "Sure, but don't do anything stupid".

That would rarely, if ever, happen in a real life business organization.







I

I totally understand your point and I'm not really disagreing, just making my own point. In your example or my job pretty much anybody could come in and do that job. Sure, it takes skill and isn't easy, but most of things the skills can be taught and someone will "fit" that role. The talent that Michael Vick has, less than 99% of the population has. All that really matters in the end for most cases is results on the field. I'm not making an excuse or saying it's right, but all an NFL team cares about is if you can play. Heck, Ray Lewis watched his buddy murder a dude and he's one of the faces of the NFL.

[aaron]

^Shock pictures are not a good way of expresing an opinion.

i believe they are when used as a subtle means to reference the reasons for formulating the opinion in the first place. but hey, that's probably just makeup on that dog, right?

[vash23n]

A year and a half in jail is nothing to scoff at. There's a public misconception that somehow doing time behind bars isn’t so bad, but that's not the reality. Prison is not a pretty place, and jails can actually be worse than prison because they are usually less regulated and held to fewer state/national standards.

That point aside, I'm tired of professional athletes being labeled as role models and consequently being held to that standard. Athletes are essentially entertainers, and frankly, the more screwed up, pompous and showy they are, the more entertained I am. Imagine watching a gladiatorial battle where all of the contestants were nice, clean cut and respectful of one another. If children and/or anyone else want to view an athlete as a role model, so be it, but that's no fault of the athlete him or herself.

But he is going to be payed over 1 million bucks to be a roll model for kids. I remember back in the day looking up Von Hayes and Mike Schmidt and being inspired. I do not want my kids looking at Vick in the same way. Again, this is not a spur of the moment, lost my temper type of thing, this took time and effort to carry out. Boo hoo that he spent a couple years in jail, jail is for criminals and if it is rough than I am not sad about it. No matter how rough it is I feel like prisoners these days have it way too easy. Of course, it depends on the crime. I expect that a person doing drugs or carrying out a robbery should have a completely different sentence than someone who turns a dog into hamburger meat with rubber drains sticking out of the four corners of his face (that's what the white things are) so that the excess blood and puss from being tortured can drain from the sub-cutaneous layers of the skin. Be an accountant and commit a crime like this and you will not be an accountant anymore. It seems to work differently for athletes. A person who is not affiliated with law, courts, etc gets to say he seems like he is really sorry so he can play again.