Vick the Quick - More like Vick the Sick

Michael Vick, the fastest quarterback to ever play football is going to go to jail after accepting a plea bargain this upcoming Monday. It appears as though it is going to be at least two or three years before he plays in the NFL again, IF he ever gets a second chance in the league.

It's crazy to think that in 2003, he was the most popular player in the NFL. His jersey was the number one selling jersey. He was the cover boy for Madden, which gave him the sickest video game rating since Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl . He was THE most martketable face in the league, even more so than everybody's mama's boy Peyton Manning...

I have personally seen Michael Vick play twice. Once in the infamous game of the 2003 pre-season game in Hotlanta when my Baltimore boy LB Adalius Thomas broke his leg during a routine tackle when Vick scrambled out of the pocket.

TANGENT ALERT: That was the first time I ever traveled with an NFL team, and let me tell you, NFL teams spare no expense. We received a police escort to the airport, and we were rushed right past security where we boarded the plane almost instantly with lobster tail waiting for us for the pre-flight meal. Once getting there we stayed at the Four Seasons hotel, had a monstrous breakfast, and an incredible per diem.

Last year, I flew out to Baltimore to watch Vick the Quick play in the regular season. The Ravens sacked Vick a lot that game (including a nice WWE suplex sack by my Oklahoma boy DT Kelly Gregg), but let me tell you, I have never seen anybody race around the end to avoid trouble in the pocket and pick up 10-20 yards before the defense could react . He is lightning fast and thus the player rating on Madden was accurately given.

Vick the Sick has had many knocks on his character recently with getting busted with pot at the Miami airport, flipping off a home crowd after struggling in a loss, and of course the recent gruesome dogfighting allegations with the subsequent plea bargain . But Vick was also a great philanthropist and was one of the first to step up and contribute when his alma mater Virginia Tech was shot up by a crazed student last fall.

He has always been under the microscope, but I don't think he ever really understood how big he was. Or maybe his problem was that he was so big he thought he was above the law. He should have learned how quickly the great can fall, even at their athletic peak with examples of Mike Tyson and Maurice Clarett. This is probably the fastest non-injury related incident of a superstar falling from grace.

Heck, it was so fast, even his team the Atlanta Falcons didn't see this one coming. They traded their highly sought after backup Matt Schaub just before the draft (a move they definitely would have avoided had they known about the FBI investigation of Vick). They didn't go after a free agent quarterback nor pick on up in the draft. Now they are stuck with piano boy Joey Harrington and Chris Redman as his backup. Special note that Chris Redman hasn't even played in the NFL since 2003, when Vick was on the Madden Cover.

Shoot, the Chargers look magnificent trading down and getting 2006 NFL MVP running back LaDanian Tomlinsen in a draft day trade when everybody thought they were crazy for trading the number one pick with a franchise quarterback in the draft. I guess they had been so spooked with the Ryan Leaf/Peyton Manning fiasco of 1998.

Ironically, I think Planet Earth is upside down when O. J. Simpson didn't go to jail for double murder after a mountain of evidence (including a bloody glove and fleeing from the cops in a white Ford Bronco). Kobe didn't go to jail for going backdoor on a teenager, and was even able to play regular season games on the same days as his trial dates. Now Vick's career is over for doing something that is not that uncommon in the backwoods of Mississippi - Clinton Portis quote.

I am not saying that dog fighting is ok. It it sick, inhuman, saddening, bloodthirsty and disgusting. I just think that murder and rape are worse crimes because they involve other human beings. If this had been cockfighting (I've always wanted to type that), then he would get a slap on the wrist and pay a fine.

My fellow Ravens intern Jason and I would joke (we worked together during the Kobe trial) everytime Kobe's name was on ESPN in the summer of 2003, we would blurt "Kobe - Going to Jail" in high-pitched mocking voices. But we did NOT see this coming when we were running for touchdowns later in the evenings playing as the coverboy Vick on the Play Station 2.