Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
I’m going to get on my soapbox for this post, If you’ve been following the news Atlanta Falcons star (and franchise player) Michael Vick was recently indicted for his involvement with dog-fighting. What does Mr. Vick get for his heinous crime, well… the charges are pending, but the Falcon’s are going to suspend him for 4 games (oooh, that hurts) but courtesy of a binding agreement with the players union he’ll get paid for those 4 games, so it’s almost a paid vacation -
Maybe Mr. Vick can entertain himself by participating is some human trafficing, or he can spend 3 of those 4 weeks mule-ing heroin over the border from Mexico, surely the penalties for those offenses would include a spa vacation or an ice cream cone at the very least.
Now I know that some muscle-headed sports guy is going to point out that Mr. Vick’s massive salary ($130M) is highly dependent on performance milestones - and that this 4 game suspension will actually cost him millions in lost incentives. I forget how many mangled and tortured dogs in a million?
Clearly the NFL have a vested interest in Mr. Vick’s freedom, as well as the TV revenue he generates, but their overall lack of outrage makes me mad, if Mr. Vick had a habitual drug problem, he’d stand to get banned from the sport entirely, but slaughter a truckload of trusting, innocent canines, he barely gets a slap on the wrist.
I can hardly wait for the PeTA commercials on Superbowl sunday this year.