I wish Michael Vick had been signed by Cleveland, so he'd be cheered on by the Dawg Pound. (AP PHOTO)
I'm not much of a romantic when it comes to the business of sports. I don't like the tackiness of naming stadiums or bowl games after airlines, banks and weed eaters, and I wish ticket prices were cheaper, but I recognize it's a business and always has been.
And, as Jerry Seinfeld noted, I root for laundry. I couldn't stand Johnny Damon in his Captain Caveman dayswith the Red Sox, but I'll happily cheer on the clean-cut version who now plays for the Yankees. I've got no problem with mercenaries. If you help my team win, I don't care who you are.
Still, when your favorite football team signs a guy most people know as someone who likes to torture dogs, well, it's a little harder to sit there coldly and say, "As long as he doesn't screw up the salary cap and helps them out with the wildcat offense, that's fine by me." And it raises a natural question for business-minded types: when are the results not worth the cost?
Obviously, that all depends on what you think the cost is. It's been pointed out correctly that plenty of teams have employed drunk drivers, wife beaters and assorted unsavory characters and never received a tenth of the attention Michael Vick has. Donte Stallworth just got suspended for a year for killing a man in a drunk-driving accident, yet as far as I can tell no one's waging a campaign to ban him from the league forever. For whatever reason, Vick's crimes have stirred up passions that none of those other cases have.
Vick's defenders have argued he paid his debt through prison time and has the right to play. I'm not sure I buy that. The government has no right to tell the NFL its teams can't hire him, but no team is obliged to take him on. If he was essentially blackballed by the NFL, I don't see how he's any different from any other ex-con who has a hard time finding an employer willing to take him on.
That's why employers ask about your criminal history when you apply for a job. It doesn't matter if you mom and your parole officer swear you've turned over a new leaf. Most just don't want the hassle of always worrying that you'll revert to form, scare off other employees, etc.
Which is ultimately how I fall on the Vick story. I find what he did pretty repellent, but he's just one more player in a long line of players, some of whom have been pretty awful people. And hiring a backup quarterback who will bring a circus with him everywhere he goes doesn't seem like a great return on investment. I'm still too scarred by the Terrell Owens debacle to want to deal with that again.
But if somehow he leads the team to a Super Bowl win...
