As an animal lover, I don't have any respect for Michael Vick based on what he did but he did his time, and he has a second chance to do things right. I kind of agree with Gris, that sports needs to have better policies w/its athletes. That being said, his two-year contract is for upwards of $8million. That's absurd. I think a lot of people struggling in this economy would take two years in prison, knowing that they would be $8 million richer on the way out.

Vick signs with Eagles. Good news for dogs...bad news for eagles.

A post war Hitler could play in the NBA if he got game. What's dif' about the NFL? Nothing. Vick is stupid, broke, busted, and he hurt puppies bred to kill in a cruel world....I'd say he's automatically a candidate for the Cleavland Browns QB job...imagine how much fun the "Dog Pound" will be!

Just let the man play.

There's no doubt that Michael Vick did some pretty atrocious things. The prosecution in his case detailed extensively the means he used to kill dogs that were no longer fit to fight. It was quite gruesome and demonstrates a lack of humanity. In addition to dogfighting, Vick's operation was involved in the drug trade and gambling. Vick himself denied any knowledge of this, claiming that a cousin ran it for him in his stead, but that's frankly very hard to believe.

That said, the man paid with jail time, lost a lucrative career, and his reputation. Louie is correct also to point out that there are plenty of people in the NFL who have done way worse than Vick and gotten off with nothing more than a slap in the hand. Vick should be given a chance to show the world that's he's truly repentant. Why punish him more than he has to be punished?

Did more than his time. There is something wrong with a country where you get 2 years in jail for dogfighting or 18 months in the pen for shooting a hawk and a guy like Donte Stallworth can get drunk and kill another human being and get 30 days in jail! That is a travesty! There is a huge difference between a dog and a human!

He drives a dump truck for one of the town governments over in Vermont, and I heard his cousin borrowed some money and then got sick and can't work. I do have sympathy for him.

Michael Vick was wrong with the dog fighting, but he has done his time, and has been reinstated to the NFL. As long as he realizes what he has done was wrong, and doesn't do it again, and he gets his act together, I think he will be fine. Hopefully he can start a new chapter in his life, and mabye some team will sign him and he can get his career going again.

So he killed and tortured some dogs. It's a crime, and he deserved his punishment, but that's pretty far down the list compared to the crimes committed by some other people on this list. The guy did his time, so let him be. This review isn't coming from a fan's perspective, I don't even watch football.

I think outright monster is going way too far. He committed a crime, got caught, did his time. That's called justice. Two years for killing dogs when there are plenty of examples of people who serve 5 years for manslaughter doesn't seem like a slap on the wrist to me. The point of the process is not to ruin his life for good. If that's expected, then what is the hope for the notion of criminal reform? He is also not legally required to publicly display remorse or contrition, although it would certainly help his public reputation.

He is now free to return to society and try to resume his life. In his case that means trying to make a living as a professional athlete. So long as his skills are sharp and a team requires them and he can make the turnstiles spin, he'll earn a paycheque. But he toils living in the public arena. Part of the system now-a-days includes making a subsidiary income via marketing endorsements. Through his own bull-headed stupidity he appears to have removed himself from that sector of the sports industry.

Committed a heinous crime against those that are dependant on us for protection. Got a slap on the wrist because he is rich and famous. Will continue to play ball and live the rest of his life as if this never happened. In all his public statements he never once acknowledged that what he did was wrong. He said he was sorry for his family, spent his millions quickly so he would not have to pay his creditors (childish and it backfired) This indicates to me that he did not learn his lesson and in the future, may do this again.
How many of us, if convicted of a felony and locked away for two years could get our old, lucrative careers back?
If there is any justice in the world, he will pay for his crimes in the next life, because he has not paid for them in this life.

Strangely, I am beginning to feel some sympathy for Vick, because the coverage has been so overblown. This is one of the most complex sports scandals of recent years, and the path by which I got to feeling some sympathy for him is a winding one.

1. First, of course, I felt the usual cynical outrage at another star athlete on the rampage.

2. Then I felt outrage when the descriptions of the horrifying treatment of dogs came across the media.

3. But then some moral ambiguity set in at the recognition that Vick wasn't doing anything that isn't practiced around many parts of the globe. We know that even here in the U.S., people like boxer Roy Jones Jr. engage in cockfighting, in which long blades are attached to chicken feet so that they can slice one another to pieces. Had Vick been caught cockfighting, which is still legal in a couple of states, the media coverage would not have caused moral outrage at all. So I thought that it was unfair to judge Vick by a hierarchical valuation of animals that is culturally relative.

4. But then I recognized that dogs do have a special place in relation to human beings ... not because they are somehow better or more special than chickens, but because they are the one type of animal that we humans have completely controlled throughout history. We castrate them, we breed them, we have made them completely dependent on us. To act in this way toward such a dependent creature seems morally outrageous.

5. But that didn't close the case for me. NFL players are also encouraged to be violent; the impulse to kill is very much their source of livelihood. Could we imagine a baseball or basketball player doing this? No. This kind of behavior is endemic to sports like football and boxing. So in the end I found myself agreeing with the NFL commissioner's rather a-moral take on the issue, which was that Vick's gambling, rather than his animal abuse, was the real problem. Gambling would compromise the values of the NFL; violence does not. Horrible as that conclusion is, it's the only one I find morally correct in these circumstances. There's a lot more complexity in this issue than most people in the media are willing to acknowledge.

Another talented rich guy who thought that meant a free pass to any kind of behaviour.

Whoops......

rich jerk. hope he gets the punishment he deserves. fighting innocent animals is disgusting. shows how cruel he must be.

I got this today in an email...it kind of says at least some of it for me...(well the G rated version anyway)

Feed him to the dogs, I say... 

UPDATE: Right now he's got the same rating as Stalin. Goes to show what we think of people who strangle and electrocute dogs...

Bill Simmons wrote today that as a superstar athlete, you can just about get away with anything - rape, drugs, buying prostitutes - but just don't piss off the dog lovers, or you are toast.

I couldn't agree more.  Anybody who has been around a dog - even one from a tough breed - knows that these loving and innocent creatures make the world a better place.  Vick is going down, methinks.

Anyone who could do this to the most innocent of God's creatures....yeah...monster.