Try NFL Sport Channel Seach:
Selected searches:
NFL Football Players Draft Injuries Rookies Season Superbowl
Items by
As Fans, Should We Let Vick Back In?
Published: July 30, 2009
No Comments
As far as the NFL is officially concerned, Michael Vick is allowed to resume his career as a professional football player. Roger Goodell has set the terms including a suspension and the assignment of a mentor (Tony Dungy). Teams are free to contact him, evaluate him, and ultimately sign him.
But as a fan—as a society—should we let Michael Vick back in? Should we support a franchise’s decision to bring him into camp, or should we protest it?
Professional athletes are role models for our children and they are idolized in our society (justifiably or not). Do we want someone who has engaged in dog fighting, or any other serious criminal activity, to achieve such status?
But we can’t forget: we live in a free and capitalist country. If an organization decides to invest in someone, and there is no restrictions placed on that person, it is free to do so. This is both under the NFL’s terms and in terms of US law.
From Vick’s perspective, “professional football player” is the only thing Vick has on his resume, so telling him he free to the pursuit of happiness and then telling him he is not, however, free to play professional football, would be a contradiction. We simply don’t have a right to prevent him from playing football to earn a paycheck.
The NFL has this power—within it’s closed-circuit socialist regime—by blacklisting him, but there are other professional football leagues (CFL, UFL) where he can make a living (albeit he won’t make as much).
Losing Vick to another league isn’t in the best interest of the NFL, and even with the special status sports leagues are given to rule over their constituents, it’s gray whether the NFL would be violating Vick’s constitutional rights by banning him after he had paid back his debt to society.
What it really comes down to is how NFL franchises forecast the local and national public reaction to a Vick signing but some organization is going to play the Guinea pig with this one.
In some places it will play better than others, but certainly the more teams show interest in Vick the more comfortable we’ll all get with the idea. So time is in Vick’s corner right now.
And what then? Do we turn our backs on a franchise we’ve supported all of our lives? Or do we stomach the national scorn that will persist for at least a couple of seasons, maybe longer—especially if he wins?
How would the average fan react?
If history serves us, this will not be a really big story in 2010 either way, and teams know that. Ultimately, we’ll get used to the idea and this will lose it’s relevance.
The Book on Jason Peters: From a Buffalo Bills Fan
Published: April 25, 2009
No Comments
Congratulations Eagles fans. You’ve got yourself one hell of an athletic tackle there. He moves very well (he was a TE when the Bills brought him into camp). He’s obviously ambitious (more on that later). He has tremendous upper body strength and he blows people up when he gets his hands on them.
On one play in 2007 against the Houston Texans he literally managed to get a triple-pancake. Now you might ask yourself how such a feat is even possible…
Well, the Bills had a QB by the name of J.P. Losman who was very fond of a little, oh I don’t know, we’ll call it “a play-action maneuver” where he would go on what I would like to describe as a rollout, but not really.
Anyway, Peters planted the same Texans lineman (I can’t recall his name so sue me) on his back three times on one play.
I was pretty much sold on Jason Peters at that moment.
I would have said going into the 2008 offseason that he was definitely a top five tackle, and worthy of top five tackle money.
Then he held out. He didn’t report to camp. He joined the team the week before the first game.
He then gave up 15 sacks in 2008—the most among LT’s in the NFL.
He was still physically dominant, he was just getting beat by the more experienced pass rushers like Joey Porter (on one play that cost the Bills a win). And he wasn’t getting to his block, he was lunging.
It was clear that missing camp affected his game.
Then came this offseason and well, to boil it down to a single theory I like to call “the truth”: He wanted to leave Buffalo!
He turned down the offers Buffalo already had on the table, which were not far from what Philadelphia finally offered and his firm demand of being the top earning offensive tackle in football was apparently only a condition for the Buffalo Bills, not the Philadelphia Eagles.
And what he said in that interview about having a RT contract while he was playing LT? According to Buffalo Bills.com’s Chris Brown, there was verbiage in his contract governing such a switch. Peters signed that contract, he should have had some idea of what was in it.
So, big deal if he’s typical when it comes to NFL players who want to get paid and are willing to use whatever leverage they have to get their way.
More power to them. Just don’t treat us like we’re ten year olds. We understand.
Enjoy!
