On Michael Vick
I live in the ATL, so I would be remiss if I didn’t address today’s hot story, the guilty plea by Michael Vick.
Here is a video of his complete statement.
First, let me give my perspective on some of the context of the Michael Vick story. The Falcons and the New Orleans Saints have historically been two of the absolute worst teams in the NFL. Growing up in Mississippi, I always followed the Saints, and the Falcons had a bit more success during their time in the league. The Falcons had a few bright spots, the brightest being Super Bowl XXXIII, where they lost to the Broncos.
Dan Reeves was the coach when Arthur Blank bought the Falcons, and Blank set out to reinvent the franchise. He gave his approval to orchestrate the switch of draft picks with the Chargers, and San Diego would pick LaDanian Tomlinson in the process. Reeves seemed like the perfect coach to figure out Vick, and his second season under Reeves proved to be his statistical high water mark as he finished 64 yards shy of 3,000 yards passing for the season. Vick never passed for more than 2,500 yards in a season since that 2002 season.
Vick was the absolute face of the franchise in a city that is a strange one for sports. Atlanta is at its core an SEC Football town and secondarily a Braves city. College football has the hearts and voices of its residents, and the sports radio shows talk more about who Georgia or Auburn are recruiting in March than they ever would speak of the NBA or NHL. The city is not a baseball town. When you listen to WFAN and hear Mike and the Mad Dog wax poetically about baseball, you realize that New York and northern New Jersey is really baseball country. Atlanta is really a Braves town when things are going well then indifferent at other times.
Blank and Vick had turned the empty Georgia Dome into a packed house. Blank lowered ticket prices initially, listened to customers, and featured Vick as the star.
Vick wasn’t Eddie Murray, but he was not a player who regularly talked to the media. The Two Live Stews, Doug and Ryan Stewart, revolutionized sports talk radio as the two African-American siblings gained their own show that eventually became a syndicated venture that included regular appearances on ESPN. The Stews often have top African-American sports figures and comedians on the program, but Vick never came on the show in its early years (I haven’t listened much as my commute has disappeared, but I doubt Vick has been on).
Vick had become a controversial figure the last two seasons for the hard-core NFL fans in Atlanta. Specifically, he was not a good thrower of the football. 55% completions in 2005, 52% in 2006. The receivers dropped balls, that was the common mantra of a large contingent of Vick supporters. Clearly the Falcons didn’t have Jerry Rice or Paul Warfield on the team, but Peyton Manning’s receivers probably have dropped a pass or two.
The Falcons had hot starts the last two seasons then finished miserably, going 2-6 in 2005 and 2-7 in 2006 to end the season.Some whispers turned into voices as Vick was compared to Matt Schaub. Was Schaub a better passer? Could the Falcons, Arthur Blank, and Coach Jim Mora really bench Vick and put in Schaub? The NFL has changed dramatically in the last five years as stars are regularly dumped or benched regardless of history or pay, with Brett Favre one of the lone exceptions.
As the Vick story emerged, it has been a bit odd in some ways. Sweetie and I talked a bit about the cultural component of this. I’ve never witnessed dogfighting, but dogfighting and cockfighting are regular happenings in the hills of South Carolina and North Carolina. I’d definitely heard about dogfights when I worked north of G-Vegas, but I had neither the time or interest to pursue it. On my comment that dogfighting wasn’t foreign to Vick and his culture, she replied, “Well, racism was part of the Southern culture when we were growing up, and that has nothing to do with whether it was right or not.”
The volume of coverage about Vick seems to have several contributing factors: an extremely well-known and popular figure in Vick, an uncommon crime in dogfighting, details that are disturbing in executing poorly performing animals, and an extremely slow part of the sports media season.
Vick has always been highly handled, and his statement today saw a glimmer into his handlers realization that they were beginning the rehabilitation of his image. Regardless of how rehearsed he was, he didn’t read his statement but spoke in his own words. He stated that it was how he would speak that people would measure him by rather than the words he said, probably something the handlers had just reminded him before he walked out.
Ultimately, Vick was guilty of two crimes: of wanting to be a big fish in his small pond and of not growing up. It was more important to Vick to be admired and respected by the people he grew up with than by NFL fans, coaches, or corporate endorsers. He called his actions immature and stated that he needed to grow up.
It is very easy to point at Vick, throw stones at him, and be done with it, moving on to Lindsay Lohan or the next known person who steps in a hole and derails his/her life. Yet how different are we; specifically, how different am I? Sitting at a WSOP event and taking away a pot from James Van Alstyne was a very big deal for me this summer. More and more of us spend time playing video games, fantasy sports, online poker, and other childhood ventures who have crept into adulthood as our age has increased with our means. How different am I than Michael Vick? Talent unfulfilled?
It’s a sobering thought.
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August 28th, 2007 at 10:32 am
I enjoyed reading this. It was good to hear from somebody in Atlanta about it. I’d like to add one additional point…A lot of this seems to revolve around the question of how a bad a crime was this. Many have treated this as something far worse than harming a human being. While others consider this not nearly as serious as that. And that’s where the real cultural divide seems to be.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I definitely agree with that point, vinism. I recall a story of my Grandfather, who was living with us when I was eleven or twelve, taking a sack full of kittens away from the house to drown them. He’d probably be arrested today, yet it was commonplace in the rural South of my youth. I have to admit I probably come down on the side of the crime not being nearly as severe as spousal abuse, rape, etc. My wife’s comment to me was that it wasn’t really relevant; he’d knowingly broken the law.
August 28th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Good writeup. I would hope you are a lot different from Michael Vick and respect the rights of all living creatures which he obviously does not. I think the part people are shocked at is the brutality in the killing of the dogs..
I actually think that people like Lohan and Hilton who by the grace of god (assuming there might be one) have not killed people are pretty much equal to what Vick did. Yet they serve like a day and people are screaming for years for Vick.. Interesting..
August 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Great post. I truly enjoyed it. Now I have to go write something about it too. Make me work, CC. Thanks a bunch.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I understand where your wife is coming from CC. And she’s right, Vick did knowing break the law. Where I disagree with her is just how bad the crime is goes to whether the public reaction to this is justified. Society never really got worked up when Jamal Lewis pleaded out a drug trafficking charge, or when Leonard Little killed a woman while driving drunk. Yet I tend to think of these things as worse than dog fighting. I was listening to the FAN one day while traveling, and one radio host there couldn’t disagree more. Someone called up made the same point, and she ran him off the station saying the dog fighting things were much worse. That’s why I find this particular cultural divide so interesting. Thanks for sharing. I’ve enjoyed the discussion.