Unless you were just reanimated by a mad scientist in the span of the past five minutes, you are undoubtedly aware that Mike Vick has completed his sentence for operating a dog-fighting ring and is set to meet with Roger “Watch Me Climb Mt. Rainier” Gooddell this week to discuss his reinstatement to the NFL.
Every time I flipped past ESPN in the past two days, I heard a different analyst discussing all of the reasons that it is next to impossible that Vick will play a single snap in the league this season.
To which my response is: wanna bet?
Now, my reluctance to gambling is well-documented among my friends. Specifically, I hate to bet when the source of the wager is blind chance. However, if I can base my guess on something concrete - an understanding of people, a team’s tendencies, or outright cheating - it changes my outlook. So I’m not particularly interested in throwing money down on roulette. But if you want to bet me something like whether at least 5 people will die prior to the five-minute mark in the opening scene of “Death Race 2000,” that’s a different story. (This was the last bet I took. Not coincidentally, I won. The correct answer is ‘yes’ by the way.)
So when we get into a discussion of whether or not Vick will be signed by an NFL franchise at some point this season, we start dealing with variables that I have some level of comfort (and more importantly, realism) about. Those things are as follows…
1) The Survival Rate of NFL Quarterbacks
The National Football League, (c) Ron Jaworski, is well-documented as the most vicious team sport in the world. (You heard me, rugby. I don’t care how many ears you rip off, you’re still not inflicting the same volume and quality of damage on your players as the modern-day NFL. Anquan Boldin got 7 titanium plates and 40 screws inserted to hold his FACE together after a helmet-to-helmet demolition last season…and the motherfucker missed a grand total of TWO GAMES.)
Because of the sheer gladiator-like violence of the sport, it’s universally accepted at this point that you need to have at least two decent quarterbacks on your roster, because the odds are that your #1 guy is going down for some length of time this season. To drive that point home, 14 teams - 44% of the league - started at least two different quarterbacks last season due to injury or weak performance. 4 of those 12 teams used at least three QBs. 2 of the 12 had to use four different guys under center to limp their way through sixteen games.
Of course, one of those two quad-QB teams was your Cleveland Browns, but that’s a post for another day.
2) The Quality of NFL Quarterbacks
If we accept the proposition that you need at least two decent quarterbacks on every NFL roster, that gives us a total of 64 spots. Now, we get into subjective analysis here, but if you look at the list of QBs who started at least one game last season, I’m willing to bet that you will find at least ten players whose credentials should throw into question whether or not they deserve a starting job. We can also agree that some portion of those guys - say, Bruce Gradkowski, Ken Dorsey, Charlie Frye, and Trent Green - should never realistically see NFL playing time. (I’ll ignore the fact that three of those four names came through the Browns system and just keep moving.)
In other words, any objective analyst (i.e. anyone who isn’t either a racist, a member of PETA, or married to someone who is one of those two) would agree that at least 1/3 of last season’s starting quarterbacks are less talented than Michael Vick. And that may be a conservative estimate.
Remember, Vick has been named to 3 Pro Bowls. We can argue all day about whether or not he’s the best type of quarterback, or even whether he’s a comparatively “good” quarterback when stacked up against the other big names of this era. I’m personally not a huge fan of his as a player. Give me a choice between Vick and Manning, or Vick and Brady, or Vick and Carson Palmer, and I won’t take Vick in any of those head-to-heads.
However, give me a choice between Vick and Sage Rosenfels, or Vick and Kyle Orton, or Vick and Gus Frerotte…you see where I’m going. It’s not a coincidence that every one of the past three or four seasons some team has taken a cursory glance at Jeff freaking George around Thanksgiving. Which leads us into the third point…
3) The Importance of Winning Game$
If our economy took a physical form right this second, it would be some kind of satanic blend of raw sewage, afterbirth, and hobo cadaver. Even though the NFL has firmly supplanted MLB as the favorite sport of Americans, everyone who owns a franchise is still going to be concentrated on doing anything and everything in their power to turn a profit.
Winning is what sells tickets and merchandise. Not players. And certainly not principles. So if those owners have the option of a three-time Pro-Bowler or JT O’Sullivan, you bet your ass they’re going to take a long hard look at Vick…especially when you consider Vick’s current market value.
Vick just did 20 months in prison for a cruel, reprehensible, inhumane crime. There is undoubtedly a portion of any fan base who would go into convulsions if they heard their team had just signed him. He’s a PR challenge, to say the least.
That said…this is also the cheapest that anyone will ever be able to get a guy who is currently only behind Randall Cunningham and Steve Young in most rushing yards by a QB. The economy is hot garbage. Franchises around the league are in cost-cutting mode. Vick’s reputation is toxic. He understands that any team who signs him is taking a huge risk and he’s going to have to earn his way back. He has zero - I repeat, ZERO - leverage and knows it. Unless your franchise’s lead negotiator was provided by the state or recently lobotomized, there is no reasonable cause for anyone to pay Vick more than the league minimum salary. For Christ’s sake, the guy just got done working a construction job for $7 an hour! He’ll jump through flaming hoops with a gasoline can for a six-figure contract.
4) America Loves Redemption
It’s true. I dont’ even feel the need to elaborate, aside from saying that if Vick can at least ACT as if he’s truly contrite for what he did, he will get a second chance in the minds of most football fans. Again, I’m disgusted by the dog-fighting thing…but it’s still just dogs. He’s not a rapist. He didn’t kill anyone. Nobody lost money but him. If he’d invented derivatives or something, I’d say he’s really up against it. But chances are fairly good that by week 8, most people who regularly watch football will already find him to be more likeable than TO.
5) Time Period (The Antarctic Corollary)
I once heard a story from one of those scientists who goes to some Godforsaken Antarctic outpost to do research for 13 months at a time among a crew of twenty other unattractive nerds. This guy was adamant that the most important thing to do when you’re assigned to that situation was to - and I quote - “Go ugly early.”
To clarify…It’s a basic fact of human nature that if you stick a small number of people into a tiny space for months at a time with no access to anything else, they’re going to start pairing off and banging each other. It’s just science.
But even though everyone who will be living / working at this Antarctic base is unattractive, there are still levels. The sooner you accept the fact that you’re not going to hold out like a monk for a year, the better off you’ll be. Because the least ugly member of the opposite sex may be unattractive on an absolute scale, but she’s a hell of a lot more attractive than the LEAST attractive member of the same crew. And if you deny reality for too long, 30 days into the mission may be too late for you to be left with anyone who doesn’t look like a species requiring its own team of investigators.
The parallel here is this: Mike Vick looks like a bad option right now because A) the season hasn’t started, and B) he literally just finished his sentence a few hours ago. The off-season is a time of great optimism because it’s inherently unrealistic. If your team sucks, you can believe in all kinds of improvements this summer because no one is currently beating their skulls in with a blunt object every Sunday. So if you’re an owner or a fan, it’s also a great time to cite “principle” as a reason not to add Vick to your roster. Let’s see how principle looks in October after the pecking order of the league is staring everyone in the face. I know where my money’s at. Where’s yours?
-T
(view comments)
