OT: Vick's toast...or is he...

[bakes781]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

He should just plead guilty at this point. He's not going to play this year regardless. At least if he admits to it then he can start the process of forgiveness & possibly salvage his career.

 

[Lloyd_Christmas]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I think Vick is in major trouble. He will be looking at a long prison sentence unless he can offer names of people at his level or higher in dog-fighting. If they can use his testimony to nail more (or bigger) offenders, they may give him a plea agreement he can live with.

Otherwise, plea agreement or trial, he is likely going to do serious time.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I think it all hinges on whether he and his lawyers think there's a chance of saving his football career. If they think he can salvage something with an acquittal at trial, he'll go for it, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the race card will be played early and often in the courtroom. If they conclude that even with an acquittal his NFL career is finished, I'll bet they plea bargain to a couple years in the pen. It'll all come down to $$$. Probably the smart move for him is to plea bargan, do his two or three years while his investments grow interest, then live the rest of his life off the millions he already has. He'll be a pariah the rest of his life, but a rich one just the same if he's socked money away.

Even that may not be an option . . . remember, the Falcons have the right to ask for some of that big, fat signing bonus back if Vick "retires" from the game. And given how big that bonus was ($3.7M/yr for 10 years, starting in 2004) . . . you can't imagine them letting him keep the whole thing, could you?

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

There may be some wrangling over what is recoverable since a lot of his bonus money was initially pegged as roster bonus, but it was converted with his permission to signing bonus for amortization purposes over the last couple of years. He could owe as much as $28M of the $37M he's received in bonus money back to Blank. Obviously he's received perhaps as much as that or more from his endorsements, but a good chunk of that went to the tax man and his legal dream team will run him a couple of million. Some of that may also be recoverable from sponsors like Nike who are still involved with him even though they have suspended any further dealings, depending on what kind of morals clauses they had in their contract with him. And if he gets hit with racketeering charges in the superceding indictment, the Feds can confiscate property and money in any way tied to his illegal activities. Not to mention sooner or later the IRS is gonna start digging around in his last 6 years financials...

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I am starting to do a 180 on this issue. I was originally for suspending him before the court trial due to the bad press he has brought the league. Yet, now I think unless the league has some hard evidence of their own they should let him play and then when Vick has had his day in court take action either way.

What if he did not do it and is found not guilty? Or what if he did do it but is still found not guilty? Jury decisions can be surprising.

You could also make the case that other players have done worse things and weren't convicted before their trials. Leonard Little is a classic example. He killed someone dunk driving yet he plays.

No way in HELL that Leonard Little would play if I was commish. Hopefully, Goodell puts an end to this sort of nonsense. Little belongs in jail. Period.

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I think he's done. I think he's going to plead out and go to jail, with his lawyers unwilling to risk a trial and count on a sympathetic jury. Michael Vick is no OJ Simpson and there will be so much direct, eye-witness evidence against him that no jury will find any wiggle-room for him. Remember, all the evidence against OJ, convincing as it might have been, was circumstantial, no witnesses.

But I think there's another reason altogether that Vick's football career is over. Can you imagine a father taking his son to a Mike Vick game? Can you imagine fan reaction when the Falcons, with Vick, play away games? He's going to be hooted out of the stadium, should he appear.

Perhaps--just perhaps--after serving two or three years in prison....no, not even then. Vick has superglued a dog-killer reputation to his persona. Sixty or 70 years from now, when he dies, his obituaries will prominently mention is crime. He won't be able to go to a restaurant without people whispering about it.

In a way, he has disclosed two fatal character flaws: 1) committing the acts themselves, revealing a missing piece in his humanity; 2) being too dumb to realize the risk he was taking, or the way his acts would be perceived.

What he's demonstrated is a kind of Tyson-esque quality, and once he's perceived that way, there's no way of erasing the impression.

Too dumb...

Or too arrogant...

Or just raised bad.

I have been appalled by this guy's self centered ego tripping since the day he started college.

Whoever would have believed that Mikey turned out to be the black sheep of the family?

 

[BTTA]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

Dog fighting is part of an underworld that includes drugs and gambling, and is based cities much larger than Vick's home turf. Vick's friends may have bargained in return for testimony against others connected with dog fighting but being prosecuted for other, more serious crimes.

In the long run, Vick and his friends may end up helping to put away much more serious criminals than themselves. This may be part of the complexity that caught Vick's attorney's by surprise. But I wouldn't want to be those guys, back out on the streets, after it all comes down, if this is fact what happens.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I am starting to do a 180 on this issue. I was originally for suspending him before the court trial due to the bad press he has brought the league. Yet, now I think unless the league has some hard evidence of their own they should let him play and then when Vick has had his day in court take action either way.

What if he did not do it and is found not guilty? Or what if he did do it but is still found not guilty? Jury decisions can be surprising.

You could also make the case that other players have done worse things and weren't convicted before their trials. Leonard Little is a classic example. He killed someone dunk driving yet he plays.

The standard isn't guilt or innocence in a court of law, but rather behavior that is or is not consistent with NFL policy as stated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement and players' contracts. As I understand it, the commissioner is a jury of one in determining the latter (in this case Goodell has delegated the task to Eric Holder, a very respected and respectable fellow). Then, I think that realistically the commissioner tests the winds of public and sponsor opinion and tries to craft a judgment that is consistent with the CBA and that will "fly" in the court of public opinion. It helps that he is also the sole arbitrator if the accused disagrees with him.

The problem, IMO, is that Goodell has muddied the water with inconsistent statements about standards, beginning with Pacman and the "repeat offender" criterion which fails to address the nature or scope of the offender's "offense," leaving him open to charges of inconsistency or favoritism and ultimately to a court test.

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

Damn..............................

Vick can't seem to catch any breaks these days; Now he's getting sued for 63 BILLION (with a B).

Oh yeah, turns out he's an Al Qaeda opperative too. READ the actual complaint for a giggle.

 

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

Well, Porter got a misdemenor. Not a ciminal felony. Also, Porter admitted it happened. And Porter was fined 3 game checks (over $141K). Also, its been rumored that Porter escaped suspension because the Fins were not happy with having to lose a home game by going to play in the UK so not suspending Porter was some-what of a placation for the Phins.

Vick, on the other hand, appears to have bold-faced LIED to Gooddell because he supposedly told Gooddell he'd never been to the house. A few weeks later, he says that he'd been a few times and now, the feds have arrested him for being there at fights and conspiracy for said fights, with potentially racketeering and gambling charges to follow.

When it comes to players, you also have to consider just how big of a celebrity Michael Vick was. Look at all the sponsorships he's lost. Nike, Reebok Jerseys, Rawlings and Upper Deck Trading Cards. What is Joey Porter? When Porter was at his best, I bet he wasn't even generating a 20th of the sales Vick's stuff did.

Vick is good as gone...

 

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

I think Vick is in major trouble. He will be looking at a long prison sentence unless he can offer names of people at his level or higher in dog-fighting. If they can use his testimony to nail more (or bigger) offenders, they may give him a plea agreement he can live with.

Otherwise, plea agreement or trial, he is likely going to do serious time.

just like OJ did... no. His money will disapear, but he will find some way out of the slammer... somehow.

He is going to really feel it in the pocketbook though...

 

[rabthepat]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

The standard isn't guilt or innocence in a court of law, but rather behavior that is or is not consistent with NFL policy as stated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement and players' contracts. As I understand it, the commissioner is a jury of one in determining the latter (in this case Goodell has delegated the task to Eric Holder, a very respected and respectable fellow). Then, I think that realistically the commissioner tests the winds of public and sponsor opinion and tries to craft a judgment that is consistent with the CBA and that will "fly" in the court of public opinion. It helps that he is also the sole arbitrator if the accused disagrees with him.

The problem, IMO, is that Goodell has muddied the water with inconsistent statements about standards, beginning with Pacman and the "repeat offender" criterion which fails to address the nature or scope of the offender's "offense," leaving him open to charges of inconsistency or favoritism and ultimately to a court test.

I agree with you. I think Goodell has the right intent but I do not think he and the NFL have thought out this issue of disciplining players. It's like when a politician says we are going to get tough on criminals but then they don't build any new prisons.

Four Dolphins players have recently been in trouble. The two stars remain on the team yet the other two are immediately cut before any investigation or trial.

Also, the Commissioner held Vick out of camp because of the indictment. If say Peyton Manning gets indicted for drunk driving or spousal abuse will he be asked to leave the team indefinitely?

 

[JoeSixPat]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

Vick's going to go from Dog Fighting at his home to **** Fighting in the federal penitentiary, at least for some time. Yeah, I'd say he's done. No one's going to want him to QB their team in the future, save maybe Al Davis.

 

[patriot lifer]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

South Carolina Inmate Hits Michael Vick With '$63,000,000,000 Billion Dollar' Lawsuit Alleging Al Qaeda Ties

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293268,00.html

 

[T-ShirtDynasty]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and “used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government.”

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year.

“Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint.

Riches wants $63 billion dollars “backed by gold and silver “ delivered to the front gates to the Williamsburg Federal Correctional facility in South Carolina. Riches is an inmate at the facility serving out a wire fraud conviction.

That may be one of the funniest things I've read all year.

 

[patriot lifer]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

That may be one of the funniest things I've read all year.

I think we all saw it coming.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: OT: Vick's toast........... or is he........

The Fox piece is a rehash is a three week old chuckle...easier I guess than contributing anything newsworthy to their usual "fair and balanced" crapola.

When I heard Michael Silver had left SI for Yahoo!, I figured contrary to spin it wasn't a promotion. This is his very first piece for Yahoo!... It would be pathetic enough if the tortured logic he spews with the caveat he's not really trying to make the point appears to be trying to make, wasn't just the idiotic meateater/hunter/somebodyelseoncedidacrime defense Vick's minions have already played to death. Leads me to believe I'll not be wasting any brain cells on Monday mornings in season reading his future contrarian themed so you will click and read me Yahoo! drivel.

Vick's crimes are of the serial offender nature - he's been committing them continuously throughout his entire NFL career. They're not single mistakes or attributable to an occasional lapse in judgement, they represent a continuous pattern of pathological behavior. He just wasn't arrested or charged with them incrementally. And when he finally was charged with them he bold- faced lied to the commissioner about them. He insisted he was rarely at the property and NO DOG FIGHTING ACTIVITY ever occurred on his property. He made that statement a week after he attended the fight testing of 8 dogs on that property who didn't pass muster and were summarily and inhumanely executed and have since been exhumed right where the informants said they would be.

And while they don't constitute crimes committed against actual humans as Silver feels the need to point out, they were against innocent creatures who were incapable of culpability to any extent, unlike human victims sometimes are.


Morning Rush
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
August 13, 2007

Michael Silver
Yahoo! Sports
Editor's note: New NFL columnist Michael Silver makes his debut with a preview of "Morning Rush," which will appear every Monday during the season.

"The franchise quarterback had just suffered the most crushing defeat of his career and he needed to get away from it all. So the peeved passer headed to the backwoods of Mississippi, where he cleared his head by killing a defenseless animal.

Sorry, PETA, but the gun-toting quarterback in question was not Michael Vick. In fact, it was Peyton Manning, whose aim with a hunting rifle apparently is as true as it is with the ol' pigskin.

In January 2003, a couple days after the Indianapolis Colts' 41-0 playoff annihilation by the New York Jets, Manning went to a 12,000-acre spread in central Mississippi owned by a family friend and got his mind right. As he told me later that year, "You're out there hunting for deer and ducks, just you and your gun. It's peaceful and totally quiet, no cell phones or anything like that. It's a good detox, the type of thing that gets your batteries re-charged."

In other words: Bad news, Bambi.

This is not meant to be a shot at Manning, one of the sports world's good guys and, in fairness, one of the many NFL players who enjoys such recreational pursuits. There are plenty of reasons his behavior should not be compared to the alleged doings of the Train Wreck That Is Michael Vick, beginning with the fact that it was legal.

Some would also argue that it is more humane to put a bullet through an unsuspecting deer than to end the life of a canine in any of the hideous ways that the exiled Atlanta Falcons quarterback and his co-defendants are accused – though I'm not necessarily sure the eight-point buck with the 18-inch spread that Manning had mounted on the wall of his Indy home would see it that way.

The larger point is that, as much as we're tempted to react to the federal indictment of Vick as though it contained the most heinous accusations against a football player since O.J. Simpson's, there's a whole lot of hypocrisy here.

For one thing, animals are put to death on a continuous basis, as I was just telling one of my fellow pet-lovers at a neighborhood barbecue while wiping away the hamburger grease that had dripped onto my suede Pumas.

It also must be noted – and I am not defending the sick behavior of anyone who a jury decides has committed an offense such as electrocuting a pit bull – that there are NFL players who've been charged with having committed deplorable crimes against actual human beings. Some of them have even been convicted, yet most of us manage to let it go when they do good things for the home team or emerge as value picks in the fantasy draft."

Then Silver rehashes the entire Little situation, the point being I guess if he wasn't kicked to the curb 9 years ago when he was sentenced to 90 days following a manslaughter conviction when he drove drunk, or suspended when he was charged with DUI 6 years later, although later acquitted by a jury, how can we now suspend Mike? Gee, I don't know, maybe times change??? Maybe the fact that it's a Federal case with gambling overtones has something to do with it??? Then he points out that lots of people know or intimate they know there are lots more dog fighters in the league, so what's the point - that unless we ferret them all out, including some Titan whose back he observed to contain a tatoo of two dogs fighting, we should give Mike a pass post indictment and likely just pre plea agreement???

This gives added credence to the use of the term sports mediot. That they get paid for producing this level of drivel is just mindnumbing.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AlUu...o&type=lgns

 

[PatsFan-NH]

In one of the articles about Vick and how he has a decision to make by Friday about making a deal or going to trial:

The report is that the deal the prosecutors have offered is for one year in prison with a guilty plea. Vick's team are reportedly trying to get less than a year.

If that is true it makes me sick.

He is supposedly the ringleader and the bankroll for at least that operation. He has been doing it for 6 years, so it is hardly a momentary lapse, or a one time bad decision.

If true and he only does a year that will be a total sham. The only good thing is the judge is not actually bound by the deal, and is supposedly a stiff sentencer. If Vick doesn't turn anyone big over, maybe the judge will throw the book at him.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I don't have a problem with a plea down to a year - it's what the Feds do. I'll be pissed if he gets less. He's a first offender, unlike his co-defendents, and they follow guidelines on these things. What I'm more interested in is seeing that he has to allocute in full as part of his agreement, because that will be the basis of what Goodell does from here on out.

I was pissed at the talk of his side trying to get a deal from the NFL pre plea, but heartened to hear that Goodell said there is no interest on the league's part in negotiating what they will do with Vick's lawyers. They will wait 'til they see what he pleads to before they proceed with whatever action they take.

I agree with what Florio said the other day, that he should serve his time and THEN serve any suspension. It would be meaningless if he is allowed to serve a suspension and his sentence concurrently. Once he enters his plea, the Falcons will cut him based on his inability to report putting him in violation of his contract and clearing the path for them to file a grievance to recover all or part of his signing bonus money that can be attributed to future service. It will not be necessary to suspend him at that time since he will not be a member of an NFL team, nor would anyone else offer him a FA contract pending sentencing. When he gets out he should face a 16 game suspension that will kick in if and when some idiot owner actually offers him employment.

Vick turned 27 in June. A one year sentence would likely not commence until September or October. That would effectively keep him out of the league for at least 2 full seasons, if not permanently. He would not be available for an off season program or TC until 2010, during which time he would turn 30. A now infamous quote of Vick's was that he had 2 weapons - his arms, his legs and his brain. LOL By 2010 he will have but 1 left at best, since he only ever had two to begin with and his legs will be toast by then...

 

[Tunescribe]

When he gets out he should face a 16 game suspension that will kick in if and when some idiot owner actually offers him employment.

What about this talk that Vick would potentially face a lifetime ban from the NFL if convicted? Is that not necessarily the case when a player commits a felony? I'd like to know what league policy is on that.