It's Sunday, which means it's probably time to fill my weekly allotment of Vick news. As you've probably heard by now, it's looking likely that Vick will be indicted, an unfortunate but somewhat predictable outcome. With the glacial pace of the investigation so far, I'm not ready to count Vick out for this year. If anything, the case will end up costing him during the '08 season. Unless someone whose voice and face aren't garbled steps up to point the finger at Vick, the team gets to play through most of the '07 season with this cloud hanging over its head.
That should be a blast.
I'm also interested in Terence Moore's new column, which is basically a conversation with Dan Reeves. It features a less acidic Terence Moore, which means I get to read through it without his rhetoric chewing a hole through my monitor. More importantly, it shows us that people are reaching out to Vick. I can't think of a better candidate to help him than Dan Reeves, under whom Mike looked the most like a star that he ever has. Reeves contends that he had no idea Vick was into dogfighting, and there's really no reason to doubt him. He obviously knew his rookie QB was into something, though:
It's not like I blame Reeves or even Mora for what happened here. It's not the coach's job to be a babysitter, and it always seemed like Vick had plenty of those in the organization. But if it was pretty clear Vick wasn't mixing with the right crew, someone should've probably done a little more than talked to him. They probably should've forcibly removed him from the situation before he signed a $100 million contract and became merely okay on the field and a liability off it. Even if he does manage to clean up his image now, the damage is already done. He should definitely reach out to Reeves and try to rehabilitate himself as a player and a person. In the end, that's the only way he's going to get the league--and his fans--to show him any leniency.