Michael Vick deserves a lifetime ban

Why should a convicted felon be allowed to play football on the grandest of stages?

It’s the middle of February and that means that the NFL free agent market is beginning to take shape. The big story: quarterbacks. San Francisco needs one and so does Minnesota. Seattle may be in the hunt for one and Detroit just needs everything.

We know the names available. Kurt Warner is probably the free agent market’s big fish, but my gut tells me it’s Arizona or retirement (and if he comes back, could Leinart be available)? We’ve recently learned that Jeff Garcia will not return to Tampa Bay, and now that Matt Cassell has been tagged as a franchise player, the Tom Brady trade winds have picked up to a light breeze.

Oh yeah, and some guy named Vick.

The former NFL superstar turned convicted felon will be 29 years old when his 23-month prison sentence for dogfighting expires in July. He wishes for a return to football, but the Falcons say it won’t be with them as they are currently shopping his contractual rights to other teams.

Well that’s great and all, but it takes two teams to make a trade, and I can imagine that there are 31 general managers whose “Michael Vick pro/con” list is heavily weighted toward the latter side. Odds are, the Falcons will be unable to trade the quarterback and will release him.

Of course, Vick’s NFL future all depends on whether commissioner Roger Goodell reinstates him when his prison sentence is over. Barring Vick pulling some unbelievably stupid stunt upon his release, he will most likely be granted his reinstatement, but should he?

Last week I blogged about Michael Phelps and the immense scrutiny that he has recieved — unjustly in my opinion. I cited that Phelps is 23 years old, and while his action was illegal and did demonstrate a severe lapse in judgement, he did not deserve to be penalized in the fashion that he was.

Michael Vick, however, is an entirely different story. A countless number of twenty-somethings have been caught smoking pot, but only a handful have been caught in a six-year-long dogfighting operation. Yet, with all the people playing Phelps’ “role model” card and calling for his head, why are the same people willing to accept Vick’s imminent reinstatement?

You want to talk about a bad example? Nearly every child’s dream is to be an NFL quarterback — to throw the game-winning pass in the Super Bowl — to be Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and to the children of Atlanta a few years back, yes, even Michael Vick.

If Vick ever takes the field as a professional football player again, what does it say to our children? That their dreams can still remain intact even if they run an illegal dog-executing operation for six years?

This stems beyond a lapse in judgement. Michael Vick knowingly participated in a discpicable organization for an extended period of time, and although he will have served his time in the eyes of the law, why give him a free pass in the NFL?

Take a look at the 2008 installment of the NFL Personal Conduct Policy. It clearly states that criminal behavior can and will be punished, and while Goodell did suspend Vick indefinately, he could have given him a raise and it wouldn’t have mattered as long as the quarterback was confined within the walls of a Kansas penitentiary.

What penalty does he recieve after he gets out? Sure his reputation will be tarnished and he will never achieve the stardom he was on track for before his sentence. Some may argue that that is punishment enough. I disagree. If the NFL truly seeks to promote “lawful, ethical and responsible conduct,” also stated in the policy,  it needs to show that behavior such as this will not be tolerated. Period. Nothing good can come from reinstating Michael Vick, and for what he did, he deserves a lifetime ban.