Micheal Vick- What a player!

[swatter555]

In that Eagles offense, he was unstoppable on Monday night. If there was a small opening, he threw it in there. If the recievers were covered, he ran for a first down (or a touchdown). I watched the first quarter twice, that was definately a treat for non-Redskin fans. Of course blowouts get pretty boring, but the first quarter was awesome.

I had a gut feeling he was going to come back and be better than before. There is something about being torn down and lifting yourself back up; it brings a sense of humility that high talent players need at times. It sort of reminds them of what is important. I am not judging whether Vick is a good or bad guy, but he is one hell of a QB.

[fliptalianstallion]

So he's gotten involved in dog fights, whoopty flippin doo, my people eat them and practically get away with it. He's not a bad guy, he was just a frustrated QB during his days with the Falcons. But of course, everyone in PETA as well as die-hard dog lovers hate his guts. Wonder if Randy Moss would gain this sense of humility if he were to be put to jail in his early years?

[RamFan_Til_I_Die]

CRazy thing is he is better this season than he ever was before. He's always been a good runner, but suddenly he learned to pass, and dang he's doing it well. I too am big into 2nd chances and wish him the best.

[jmk321]

He's looked unstoppable this year. Sort of like when people used to use him in Madden back in the day where is was just unfair but now it seems like it has transferred to real life. He has only done this for half a season but it is scary to think about how good he can be.

[Keenum]

I have never seen a QB dominate like that (rushing and passing) ever. What surprised me was just how scarey accurate he was with his passes.

He's got my vote for NFL MVP right now. I'm rooting for him to do well, he's become one heck of a 2nd-chance story.

[Bralidore(RAMMODE)]

As a guy who did not (and still doesn't, because of Bradford) want him as the Rams QB. I concur that he has had one hell of a rejuvenation. I never really disliked the guy. I was honestly not all that torn up about his dogfighting scandal as I've seen way worse things than two dogs fighting each other. However, I never thought the guy would get over his passing efficiency and accuracy issues that has plagued him from the beginning of his career on up into this year.

He has seemingly took the time he's been able to sit out to heart and is playing better than any QB in the league. Its always been said of Vick that if he simply learned how to pass he'd be the most dangerous guy on the field consistently. It seems he's done that and woe to anybody the Eagles face with this guy at the helm. Eagles are undefeated when Vick starts and finishes the game and Monday was a big reason why. The guy is just fun to watch and he's really good for the NFL as long as he keeps his issues in line. Good luck to the Eagles.

Glad they aren't on the schedule for the Lou quite frankly..

[AlphaRam]

"We were like pit bulls ready to get out of the cage,"
~ Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, after Michael Vick's 6 TDs against Washington Monday night.

Should Michael Vick be forgiven? Condemned forever? Something in the middle?

November 16, 2010
Bill Plaschke
LA Times

While Michael Vick was screaming toward the sky, a black pit bull named Mel was standing quietly by a door.

On this night, like many other nights, Mel was waiting for his owners to take him outside, but he couldn't alert them with a bark. He doesn't bark. He won't bark. The bark has been beaten out of him.

While Michael Vick was running for glory, Mel was cowering toward a wall.

Every time the 4-year-old dog meets a stranger, he goes into convulsions. He staggers back into a wall for protection. He lowers his face and tries to hide. New faces are not new friends, but old terrors.

While Michael Vick was officially outracing his past Monday night, one of the dogs he abused cannot.

"Some people wonder, are we ever going to let Michael Vick get beyond all this?" said Richard Hunter, who owns Mel. "I tell them, let's let Mel decide that. When he stops shaking, maybe then we can talk."

I know, I know, this is a cheap and easy column, right? One day after the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback officially becomes an American hero again, just call the owner of one of the dogs who endured Vick's unspeakable abuse and let the shaming begin.

Compare Vick's 413 total yards, four touchdown passes and two rushing touchdowns against the Washington Redskins to the 47 pit bulls who were seized from Bad Newz Kennels, his interstate dogfighting ring. Contrast one of the best three hours by a quarterback ever to the 21 months he spent in prison.

Cheap and easy, right? Not so fast. Vick's success is raising one of the most potentially costly and difficult perceptual questions in the history of American sports.

If he continues playing this well, he could end up as the league's most valuable player. In six games, he has thrown for 11 touchdowns, run for four more touchdowns, committed zero turnovers and produced nearly 300 total yards per game. Heck, at this rate, with his Eagles inspired by his touch, he could even win a Super Bowl, one of the greatest achievements by an American sportsman.

And yet a large percentage of the population will still think Michael Vick is a sociopath. Many people will never get over Vick's own admissions of unthinkable cruelty to his pit bulls — the strangling, the drowning, the electrocutions, the removal of all the teeth of female dogs who would fight back during mating.

Some believe that because Vick served his time in prison, he should be beyond reproach for his former actions. Many others believe that cruelty to animals isn't something somebody does, it's something somebody is.

Essentially, an ex-convict is dominating America's most popular sport while victims of his previous crime continue to live with the brutality of that crime, and has that ever happened before?

Do you cheer the player and boo the man? Can you cheer the comeback while loathing the actions that necessitated the comeback? And how can you do any of this while not knowing if Vick has truly discovered morality or simply rediscovered the pocket?

If you are Richard Hunter, you just don't watch football.

"When you look at Mel," said Hunter, a radio personality from Dallas, "you just don't think about how Michael Vick is a great football player."

A couple of years ago, Hunter and his wife Sunny were watching a documentary on Best Friends Animal Society, the Utah sanctuary where the court sent 22 of Vick's 44 seized dogs. It was after 1 a.m. when the show featured a Vick victim that had been so badly abused, it refused to move, behaving as if paralyzed.

"My wife said, 'Get out of bed, get on the computer and e-mail those people, I want one of those dogs,' " Hunter recalled.

Nearly 18 months later, they became one of six people to adopt one of the dogs. The process included a home visit by caseworkers, an extended visit to the southwest Utah sanctuary, home monitoring by a dog trainer and a six-month probation period.

"These dogs were scarred in many ways both emotional and physical," said John Polis, Best Friends spokesman. "It was something we had never really seen before."

Hunter and his wife quickly saw Mel's scars. The dog wouldn't bark, wouldn't show affection, and would spend nearly an hour shaking with each new person who tried to touch him.

It turns out that Mel had been a bait dog, thrown into the ring as a sort of sparring partner for the tougher dogs, sometimes even muzzled so he wouldn't fight back, beaten daily to sap his will. Mel was under constant attack, and couldn't fight back, and the deep cuts were visible on more than just his fur.

"You could see that Michael Vick went to a lot of trouble to make Mel this way," Hunter said. "When people pet him, I tell them, pet him from under his chin, not over his head. He lives in fear of someone putting their hand over his head."

On Monday night, no, Mel was not hanging out by the televised football game. He was hanging on his owner's bed as they watched something on HBO.

"How can you support football when you know one of their stars did this to a dog?" Hunter said. "If more people saw Mel at the same time as they saw Michael Vick, he wouldn't be so lauded."

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the lessons learned from Vick's crimes were on display in a postgame quote from Eagles star receiver DeSean Jackson.

"We were like pit bulls ready to get out of the cage," he told reporters.

Cheap and easy, huh?

[01d 0rd3r]

As a person who was vehemently against vick I have to say I am surprised. I was not against him for the dog fighting, I couldnt care less about it. I was worried about his athleticism and his accuracy. I must say that I was wrong on all accounts. He is still fast and agile, plus his accuracy and his decision making is much improved. Now having said that, I still think that the rams made the right decision with Bradford. Vick maybe the hot commodity right now (and he maybe highly helped by the talent around him) but he is still 31. Bradford is the right decision in the long haul, he will be with us longer, and he will play at the same high level that vick is at.