Posted on 09/18/2011 9:10:27 PM PDT by doug from upland
ATLANTA -- Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick has left the game against the Atlanta Falcons with a neck injury after being slammed into one of his own linemen late in the third quarter.
After letting go of a pass Sunday night, Vick was spun around by an Atlanta defender and slammed into right tackle Todd Herremans. The quarterback got up slowly and wobbled to the sideline, where the trainers worked on his right shoulder and neck. He also appeared to spit out blood coming off the field.
Mike Kafka took over for Vick and finished a touchdown drive that gave Philadelphia a 31-21 lead. After the Eagles scored, Vick walked to the locker room for observation.
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.go.com ...
I can’t watch him play. He’s despicable.
Many years ago I had occasion to hang out at the Cowboys facility for a few days. The NFL has changed some but not that much. My faith in some 350 pound lineman to meter out justice to Vick is still there. It is just a matter of time.
I hope his career is over. He can then go back to the hood and be just another drug dealer, eventually getting capped in some back alley.
Butchering an animal for food isn't torture. /sarc
X-rays of his head will show nothing.
(Tip of the hat to Dizzy Dean)
Same here. I don’t give a rat’s if he breaks his neck. Personally, I believe he should be tied up and gang raped like he did to the dogs. He has not changed; he said in an article only a few months ago that he doesn’t understand what the big deal was with the dog fighting - he was “helping people make money” - something to that effect. Look it up. I live in metro Atlanta (native) and I proudly wore my #2 (Matt Ryan) jersey all around town yesterday. I got many glares and was proud of them and I glared right back. You do NOT want to take on this Southerngal!
Wed Aug 17 10:42pm EDT
Vick on dogfighting in GQ: ‘People act like it’s some crazy thing they never heard of…’
By Doug Farrar
The first time Michael Vick(notes) talked about the dogfighting that cost him two years of his life in a federal penitentiary, it was February of 2010, and he was opening up for a TV show called “The Michael Vick Project.” Back then, Vick made it seem as if the man who ran and financed a large Virginia dogfighting operation called Bad Newz Kennels was someone out of his own body.
“I was living a double life,” he said then. “The dogfighting operation was getting bigger, and it was spiraling out of control. I would fly home to Virginia every Tuesday on my off-day, just to check up on my dogs and fight the dogs.”
[More on Michael Vick: Did the NFL push him to the Eagles?]
The remorse may still be real, but judging from quotes that hit the Internet on Wednesday, Vick isn’t quite as penitent about what he did. In a brilliant story written by Will Leitch of Yahoo! Movies for GQ.com, Vick talked more about the cultural aspect of the dogfighting trade, and how some folks just wouldn’t understand where it comes from.
“[The media] are writing as if everyone feels that way and has the same opinions they do. But when I go out in public, it’s all positive, so that’s obviously not true […] You got the family dog and the white picket fence, and you just think that’s all there is. Some of us had to grow up in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and we just had to adapt to our environment. I know that it’s wrong. But people act like it’s some crazy thing they never heard of. They don’t know.”
As William Burroughs once said about another matter, this is a thin tissue of horse[bleep]. There are obviously thousands and millions of people who have to live in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and a great many of them manage to wake up every day and avoid the temptation to fight, torture, electrocute, and kill dogs.
Incredibly enough, Vick then made himself out to be some kind of innocent victim in the whole sordid episode.
“I think that’s accurate,” he told Leitch, when asked if some people simply don’t understand that aspect of black culture. “I mean, I was just one of the ones who got exposed, and because of the position I was in, where I was in my life, it went mainstream. A lot of people got out of it after my situation, not because I went to prison but because it was sad for them to see me go through something that was so pointless, that could have been avoided.”
Vick then talked about his experience in prison, and the perceptions of him that he thinks are misplaced. “For a while, it was all ‘Scold Mike Vick, scold Mike Vick, just talk bad about him, like he’s not a person,’” he says. “It’s almost as if everyone wanted to hate me. But what have I done to anybody? It was something that happened, and it was people trying to make some money.”
Back to the money thing. In January of 2005, Vick signed a $100 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons that guaranteed him a then-record $37 million. The investigation that brought Bad Newz Kennels down and eventually sent Vick to prison didn’t happen for more than two years from the day he signed that contract. Vick wasn’t hurting financially, nor was anybody close to him
And this may be the most amazing takeaway:
“I miss dogs, man. I always had a family pet, always had a dog growing up. It was almost equivalent to the prison sentence, having something taken away from me for three years. I want a dog just for the sake of my kids, but also me. I miss my companions.”
Companions? I’m guessing the dogs didn’t see it that way.
The general consensus about Vick is that what he did was horrible, but also that he paid the price. Not only did he lose his freedom for two years, but he lost tens of millions of dollars and had to start over in the NFL. But the unspoken condition was that Vick would never try to publicly excuse and rationalize what he did, and that’s what makes these quotes so troubling. This will set his perception back with a lot of people, and we may wind up including the league office in that discussion.
But I still don't like the man, and think he is an overrated quarterback.
He lost everything? 100 million dollars?
He paid the price set by law. Unfortunately, there are people who do horrific things to humans and pay the price set by law -— usually not a severe enough price.
If there is true contrition and attempt at redemption, he should spend the rest of his life and much of his money helping alleviate animal suffering. If he doesn’t do that, any remorse is just bull****. I have nothing against the Eagles, but forgiveness of Vick will come when he truly does something to be worthy of such.
Anyone doing the things he did is a person without a conscience or a heart. I am uplifted when good things happen to people who work hard and do good. There is nothing uplifting about this sociopath. But because he is on your team, you root for him. Years ago, when I found out that Darryl Strawberry was using cocaine and beating his wife, I did not root for him. I quit attending Dodger games. Seeing people cheering for him disgusted me.
For the record, I love animals so much that I don’t eat them.
Pretty funny. Im not a dog torturer fan, nor am I a PETA fanatic.
Doug I applaud your commitment via vegeterianism. You have a good strong moral position there. However, for my part I doubt I would imprison anyone ever for something they do to their own animal.
That includes farmers and pit bull owners. Now, if they harm my dog, cow or anything else shooting is too good for them.
Just IMHO.
Really hard to see why people don’t know or want to understand these were fighting dogs, you may not like that type of thing I don’t either, but he was not torturing spot after the family pet brought him the day’s newspaper.
Puppy dogs and kittens turn Freppers into raving liberals.
All kinds of animals get slaughterd, for eating, hunting, etc. Lots of people love shooting birds and they may have a pet parakeet. I can’t apply all the moral imagery to them that applies to murderers of human beings, including unborn babies.
And yes, if it’s human it’s murder. If it’s an animal it is not murder.
Killing a fighting dog and then having a pet at home is not exactly the same as Nazis committing mass murder and returning home to their families. Not even close, but we have people here (lots of them) who cannot tell the difference.
It’s good that Michael Vick had a pet dog to which he was kind. It is not that hard to understand. Would I do the stuff he did? No. Do I like it? No. Was he a criminal? Yes.
Did he deserve the severity of punishment he got because of who he was? Probably not.
BTW he was charged with dog fighting and tax evasion, mot “dog murder” because it doesn’t exist. Lost years out of his life in prison, many millions of dollars. He has to pay back about $30 million of that new NFL contract in restitution.
I just think a lot of typing is wasted on this when we have child murderers operating out there. Let’s direct the anger and resouces their way. And I wasn’t evenb thinking abortion on that last line, we have people who spend more time on M Vick than on pedophile child killers. That’s what bothers me.
Honestly, I'm a football fan, and I am a huge, gigantic dog lover. I work with tons of rescues, I foster, I donate, I volunteer, I was a vet tech until it was just too hard to see how horrible people are to their animals. So I wish I could say that it was just the dog-fighting, but I NEVER liked Michael Vick. I always thought he had a really sleazy air to him, and I never thought he was as good as ESPN did. I'm allowed to dislike the guy, it doesn't make a bad person. I'm sure there are people who dislike me for less. I don't wish harm on him, I really don't, but I'm not going to cry if he dant play.
Nice strawman argument no sale here. Vick is scum that got enough money to support this disgusting “sport” and I hope he dies destitute.
They were fighting dogs because that is what Vick made them. Many people have pit bulls as pets, albeit not a pet I would want, especially around children. They are just too powerful.
Determine for yourself what is wasted typing. Let others choose what is important to them.
For the record, despite not eating animals, I don’t lecture others who do or those who hunt. It is my choice and right for me. I would, of course, like to see all of God’s creatures treated in a humane way, even if they ultimately are part of the food chain. Mistreatment and torture is evil, even against animals.
Please don’t include me in the diatribe about raving liberals. My credentials are in order here.
The only person mentioning Nazis here is you. Everyone else on this thread is aware that animals are lesser creatures than humans. We do, however, believe they deserve to be treated decently. That makes us human beings, as opposed to a man who harmed innocent animals for money and thrill. He is no man.
I also read that he gave the crowd an obscene gesture and pointed at the scoreboard when he left.
I hope God forgives us all but I also hope he doesn’t expect a flawed human like myself to forgive Michael Vick because I won’t.
As far as the stupid remarks about killing animals for food being torture... not worth a response.
Doug your conservative credentials are impeccable, in general I observe that puppy dogs and kittens turn half the people here into “liberals”. Eeryone wants to take away Vick’s career, money, even his life without regard to the rule of law, I guess because it feels good.
I have a strong reaction when people who claim to care so much about the dogs’ lives, write that Vick should be tortured and killed in various ways.
My analogy to Nazis is a refernce to the way everyone is treating Vick.
I’d say killing an animal as he did is creepy, brutal, cold hearted. Vick obviously lacked any awareness of that.
Didn’t they kill the surviving dogs that were seized? Oh I know that’s different, when the do gooding authorities step in and kill the animals.
I agree with much of what you wrote, but I think the degree of anger displayed here by many is misplaced.
Fair enough to your points but someone doesn’t have to be liberal to love and want to protect puppies and kittens.
No of course you don’t view the millions upon millions of animals killed for food as torture or in any way wrong. why? because you like to devour the flesh of those cooked animals?
Or is it that you accept animals can be killed as it suits people? For food? For the pleasure of hunting? For drug testing?
All those millions of animal deaths “obviously” are ok but killing 10 pit bulls now that’s evil.
maybe just maybe no one should kill any animals because it’s wrong, or else not go insane over every animal abuse case.
just trying to give a little perspective, love all my pets, would never harm an animal except in self defense.
Actually, many of the dogs were rehabilitated and adopted out. Those that were unable to be adopted are being taken care of, on Vick’s dime, incidentally, by two wonderful organizations. I think all but 5 or 6 of the dogs survived and are doing quite well.
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