I Miss Vick!

[raven43]

I just saw on the news that Michael Vick filed for bankruptcy and they were showing clips of him runnin around makin people look silly, and I realized.... I miss watching him play so much. I for one cannot wait until he comes back, if he comes back. He is so amazing. He's maybe one of the best entertainers in NFL history. I mean even now, he's still pretty much the face of the franchise (sorry matt ryan, you gotta earn that money)He was the other reason I turned on the TV on sundays. the other being the Ravens. That's right, to me Vick was second only to the Ravens. Especially since I was born and grew up for a period of time in Virgina. He was a serious role model and hero of mine. I still have the 12" scale model of the man..... The dog fighting thing really had me torn but I gotta say, I'm rooting to see him com back. Any thoughts?

[ROH522155]

i really want to see him play too but he deserves his jail time

[bmorefan80]

Sure I miss him...Miss him getting pounded by the Ravens!

I'm sure he doesn't miss our team that much

[Sub-Zero]

I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to watch a talent like him again. seriously what a waste!! I guess Vince Young is the closest, even though their not quite the same.

[raven43]

I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to watch a talent like him again. seriously what a waste!! I guess Vince Young is the closest, even though their not quite the same.

Vince Young? He's got what we call "Straight Line" speed. I've never see him do what Vick could do. The spins, the jukes, the flips, and the ROCKET ARM!. Vince Young is honestly not in the same league as Michael Vick.

[Sub-Zero]

I would still take Vince over Vick. Vince has the intangibles Vick could only dream of.

[foreversunny23]

do you think he can make a comeback? i don't know if any teams will take him now...

[Guest Crowdog89]

Vick has two years in prison to think about how he messed up....and he's still suspended indefinitely by the league.....not to mention he may have to face more jail time from the State of Virginia after he's done serving his federal time.

I think we have seen the last of Michael Vick in the NFL....if not permanently, at least for a long, long,long time. He'll never be the same even if he is allowed to come back.

[Ravens_Pwn12]

I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to watch a talent like him again. seriously what a waste!! I guess Vince Young is the closest, even though their not quite the same.

vince young is no where even close or even will be to what mike was.

mike is never going to come back unless he gets lucky and is pick-up by the raiders. by that time hes going to be too old and an embarrassment to himself

[Ravens_Pwn12]

Vick has two years in prison to think about how he messed up....and he's still suspended indefinitely by the league.....not to mention he may have to face more jail time from the State of Virginia after he's done serving his federal time.

I think we have seen the last of Michael Vick in the NFL....if not permanently, at least for a long, long,long time. He'll never be the same even if he is allowed to come back.

i thought Vick got 22 months, about 6 months ago

[Guest Crowdog89]

i thought Vick got 22 months, about 6 months ago

I was rounding up.....2 years=24 months.....

That still doesn't mean he'll be immediately re-instated to the league. Also, as I said, the State of Virginia is also going after him...which might mean even more prison time at the State level...before it's all said and done.

[raven43]

I would still take Vince over Vick. Vince has the intangibles Vick could only dream of.

intangibles? What intangibles? The ability to pick a fight with one of the best linebackers in the buisness at one of your own teams minicamps? Seriously, all Young can do is throw interceptions and hope the defense goes into a scheme that will allow him to force a run that might remotley remind people of what Mike Vick could do if Vick were playing drunk. There will never be another Michael Vick.

[MKdave]

There will never be another Michael Vick.

Let's not pretend Vick was like some god of football. Even if we forget about the dog fighting, I still wouldn't want him.

Did you know, in his last season, in every game he led the team in rushing, the team lost?

Quarterbacks are supposed to pass the ball, Running backs are supposed to run the ball. He wasn't good enough at being a quarterback, yeah he had a rocket arm, but If you can't get it done in the short and intermediate ranges, you're not going to succeed as a QB, even if you can run a 4.3.

[Sub-Zero]

intangibles? What intangibles? The ability to pick a fight with one of the best linebackers in the buisness at one of your own teams minicamps? Seriously, all Young can do is throw interceptions and hope the defense goes into a scheme that will allow him to force a run that might remotley remind people of what Mike Vick could do if Vick were playing drunk. There will never be another Michael Vick.

better than the ability to have the entire community and front office completely lose trust in you!! imagine the crowds reaction now every time Vick were to touch the ball. yeah those great intangibles!! there will never be another Vick!!

[raven43]

better than the ability to have the entire community and front office completely lose trust in you!! imagine the crowds reaction now every time Vick were to touch the ball. yeah those great intangibles!! there will never be another Vick!!

Before Vick's dog fighting thing, how many off feild issues were there for him? He was a model citizen from what I know. Vince Young is no where near as talented as Vick. No amount as of "intangibles" is goingto change that. Vick changed the game. Young is playing in a league that Vick made better for a quarterback of his style. The dogfighting is not going to change what he did on the feild. The dogfighting is just an excuse for Young fans to claim they have the best scrambling QB. Which is wrong. There will never be another Vick.

[MKdave]

Vince Young is no where near as talented as Vick. No amount as of "intangibles" is goingto change that.

Intangibles are what win games!

There are thousands of amazing natural atheletes out there, but intangibles are much harder to come by.

[MKdave]

Before Vick's dog fighting thing, how many off field issues were there for him? He was a model citizen from what I know.

Well, there was the marijuana bottle incident,and the middle finger to his own fans.

Also, read what you just wrote. BEFORE the dog fighting thing... he was a model citizen. Model citizens don't fight dogs. Good people don't fight dogs. You can't assume because we found out about it NOW, that it wasn't happening before. That's like saying, Hitler was a great person, before that holocaust thing.

[JonM229]

That's like saying, Hitler was a great person, before that holocaust thing.

I see your point, but I think that's not a very good analogy.

[MKdave]

I see your point, but I think that's not a very good analogy.

How come?

I understand killing thousands of people is far removed from killing a hundred or so dogs, but the premise is pretty much the same. They were both evil human beings.

Once someone does something as dispicable as those two acts, they should never again be labeled as 'model citizens', because quite clearly they weren't.

[raven43]

Well, there was the marijuana bottle incident,and the middle finger to his own fans.

Also, read what you just wrote. BEFORE the dog fighting thing... he was a model citizen. Model citizens don't fight dogs. Good people don't fight dogs. You can't assume because we found out about it NOW, that it wasn't happening before. That's like saying, Hitler was a great person, before that holocaust thing.

Listen I don't think that fighting dogs is right. But think about how a lot of hispanic countries have C fights. You may thnk that's wrong. But that's part of their culture. And for somebody here to say that thier culture is wrong is just plain ignorance. Now I'm not saying that dog fighting was Vick's "culture" but like you said, it could have ben going on for a while,like since he was a child. He just may have grown up in tha kind of environment.

I don't think the dogfighting was right, but who am I to judge the man?

PS. there have been worse things done than the sowing of a certain finger. Like TO spitting in D-Hall's face. Or Haynesworth stomping on a guys face. Or (another one with fans) that NBA brawl in the stand between players and fans a few years back.

PPS (to mods) I didn't know you couldn't say that kind of animal fight. I didn't mean it in an inaprpriate manner

[MKdave]

Those are all good points, but I would say that, although worse things certainly have been done by other player, It still doesn't make showing his own fans the finger commendable.

[Sub-Zero]

Before Vick's dog fighting thing, how many off feild issues were there for him? He was a model citizen from what I know. Vince Young is no where near as talented as Vick. No amount as of "intangibles" is goingto change that. Vick changed the game. Young is playing in a league that Vick made better for a quarterback of his style. The dogfighting is not going to change what he did on the feild. The dogfighting is just an excuse for Young fans to claim they have the best scrambling QB. Which is wrong. There will never be another Vick.

wait a minute!! how exactly has he changed the game? I don't see many GM's looking for the next Michael Vick. sorry you can't change the game if you can't consistently win in said style. Last time I checked he made only two playoff appearances, and the last time I checked running QB's haven't won a Super Bowl in this decade!

[Guest Birdfan]

Before Vick's dog fighting thing, how many off feild issues were there for him? He was a model citizen from what I know.

You must not have been paying attention. There was the "water bottle" incident and who can forget him flipping off the fans? And Ron Mexico will live in infamy.

In fact, you can get a nice summary from Wikipedia:

Controversies and incidents

Between his selection by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2001 NFL Draft and early 2007, Vick was allegedly involved several incidents or events:

In early 2004, two men were arrested in Virginia for distributing marijuana. The truck they were driving was registered to Michael Vick. The Falcons coach Dan Reeves recalled that he lectured Vick at that time on the importance of reputation, on choosing the right friends, on staying out of trouble for the good of his team. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Reeves as having told Vick: "You are an Atlanta Falcon...Whatever you do is going to be a reflection on all of us, not just you."

On October 10, 2004, Vick and the other members of his party including employee Quanis Phillips were at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport on their way to board an AirTran afternoon flight to Newport News, Virginia. While they were passing through a security checkpoint with Vick, a security camera caught Phillips and Todd Harris picking up an expensive-appearing watch (either a Rolex or a fake) which belonged to Alvin Spencer, a security screener. After watching the theft on a video tape, Spencer filed a police report. However, he claimed that Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, known as the Falcons "fixer", interfered with the investigation. Although Vick representatives declined to make him available for an Atlanta police inquiry, six days later Spencer did get the watch back from them, according to the Washington Post.

In March 2005 a woman named Sonya Elliott filed a civil lawsuit against Vick alleging she contracted genital herpes from Vick, in the autumn of 2002, and that he failed to inform her that he had the disease. Elliot further alleged that Vick had visited clinics under the alias "Ron Mexico" to get treatments and thus he knew of his condition. On April 24, 2006 Vick's attorney, Lawrence Woodward, revealed that the lawsuit had settled out of court with an undisclosed amount. Many fans bought custom jerseys from NFL.com with Vick's number 7 and the name "MEXICO" on the back, as a reference to his lawsuit. The NFL has since banned customizing jerseys with the name Mexico.

November 26, 2006

[berad]

Even though he brought his punishment and all that happened to him on himself, I still pity him. He lost literally everything because of this. Criminals who have done far worse have gotten off with far better breaks than Vick.

[Raven07]

yea hmmmmm wonder who THEY could be...... most famous would have to be OJ and he's in the HALL OF FAME! but lets not go there on that obe, it could close this topic. so yea Vick is paying his dues and doing right so far, if he keeps it up, then who knows

i do know though, that Vick has permission to stay in shape and work out during his jail time stay. i do know that much, so its not like he's just sitting in there doing nothing, he's healthy and staying in shape which is good if he wants to get back into Football later on.

[raven43]

yea hmmmmm wonder who THEY could be...... most famous would have to be OJ and he's in the HALL OF FAME!

If the glove doesn't fit............

[theFRANCHISE]

i do know though, that Vick has permission to stay in shape and work out during his jail time stay. i do know that much, so its not like he's just sitting in there doing nothing, he's healthy and staying in shape which is good if he wants to get back into Football later on.

Although he's allowed to stay in good physical shape, there's no way he can stay in "football shape" in prison -- there's no replacement for on-field conditioning, both in-game and practices.

He can do all the training reps he wants, but football conditioning is less about reps and more about actual game situations. Although practice is, in itself, simulating game situations, it's not the same when you're doing so with inmates, rather than fellow professional athletes and coaches.

Although Vick has the arm to play QB, he obviously doesn't have the vision, nor will he ever be able to develop it after his prison time is served. If he's reinstated in the league at any point after his sentence, he'll already be in his thirties. He'll be at least two years removed from the game (if not more, should he not be reinstated upon release). And he'll likely be out of a job with the Falcons, even if the Matt Ryan experiment fails.

Because of these factors, in my estimation, Vick would be better suited to play RB and be an unofficial third-string QB if he were to return to the league. Although this sounds like a generalization based on his tendency to scramble, it actually makes sense given how difficult it is to master the QB position. With the time he'll spend away from the game, it'll be difficult enough as-is for him to digest a brand-new playbook and get acclimated to the speed of the game. As a QB, the learning curve is that much steeper, and he'll have to pick things up that much faster.

BUT...as a RB, he would only have to learn blocking assignments on pass plays, and would have to learn how to find running lanes in the offensive line -- the latter of which he is already somewhat familiar with as a scrambler (albeit, unintentionally).

If Vick were to take good enough care of his body in prison, he could work to maintain the majority of the speed he displayed on-field, during his time away from the game. He wouldn't have to process nearly as much information as a RB, and he could catch on quicker with a team, since teams are always looking for a good complementary back.

[MKdave]

NO WAY should vick convert to running back. RBs are absolutely useless if they can't put it up the middle. And Vick doesn't have half the stregnth required to do that. Sure, he could bulk up, but then he would lose the speed that is the reson he's even in this conversation. Also, I don't think I've ever seen him break a tackle. Maybe he's spun away from a tackler or juked them, but for a running back there's rarely enough space to attempt a move like that. Also, Vick would have to drastically change the way he carries the ball. Something that sounds much easier than it is.

Fumbles would also be a concern, and 'QB slides' would not be tolerated from a running back.

[raven43]

NO WAY should vick convert to running back. RBs are absolutely useless if they can't put it up the middle. And Vick doesn't have half the stregnth required to do that. Sure, he could bulk up, but then he would lose the speed that is the reson he's even in this conversation. Also, I don't think I've ever seen him break a tackle. Maybe he's spun away from a tackler or juked them, but for a running back there's rarely enough space to attempt a move like that. Also, Vick would have to drastically change the way he carries the ball. Something that sounds much easier than it is.

Fumbles would also be a concern, and 'QB slides' would not be tolerated from a running back.

I agree, I heard a lot of talk about him converting to defense or special teams, and I couldn't see it happening.

[MKdave]

The only other position he could hope to play at a high level is wideout.