Commentary
Pros, cons of signing Vick
By Larry Felser
Published: May 24, 2009, 12:30 am
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Michael Vick, just weeks away from paying the last of his debt to society, is about to return to becoming a member of that society. The unanswered question is whether he gets to resume his previous way of making a living, namely as a player in the NFL.
The answer to the question will arrive in two parts:
1. Does he, turning 29 next month and away from the game for two years, still possess the athletic gifts that allowed him to perform at a high level for six seasons?
2. Is there a team among the 32 NFL franchises willing to take a chance on him in the face of what is expected to be a firestorm of negative reaction against such a team that signs a player who committed the heinous acts in the dogfighting scandal that landed him in prison?
I can predict the answer to the second question.
Already there are rumors and whispers around the league that there are at least five teams willing to handle such a hot potato and explore the signing of Vick. Among the rumored five is the Buffalo Bills.
The reasons the Bills might consider adding Vick to their roster are:
Their owner, Ralph Wilson, is 90 and he has seen it all. The strong possibility of a firestorm reaction from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would not make him flinch. I doubt that he cares what PETA thinks. Besides, Wilson has always been a second-chance person, willing to give someone an opportunity to right a previous wrong.
This is the final year of the present decade, a period in which the Bills have not tasted the playoffs. If Vick’s audition suggests he could be a plus to the team’s chances to play in the postseason I suspect that Buffalo’s desire to add him would increase.
Vick would come here, or just about any other city, with the new team’s having no plans to use him as a full-time quarterback. In his starring day in Atlanta he was prized as a great athlete, not for his accuracy as a passing quarterback. The Bills would have to have some sort of offensive plan to use him as a “slash” utility man, as Pittsburgh once used Kordell Stewart. The Bills would have to become enthused to inject enough new stuff in their offensive playbook to use Vick as a specialty quarterback- runner-receiver, or to install some “Wildcat” formation plays that would give him the option of taking direct snaps and either running or passing.
As a non-full-time quarterback who is used for no more than 15 or 20 snaps a game, Vick would not be in line for the enormous money he was paid as an Atlanta Falcon.
If the Bills were hungry enough to take a chance on Terrell Owens they might be hungry enough to sign Vick.
The reasons the Bills might not be interested in signing Vick:
Two years away from the game at his age can erode skills and if he has slipped so would the Bills’ desire to add him.
His agent may ask for too much money.
If the football deep thinkers decide they have enough on their plate from smoothing out the new passing attack with Owens joining Lee Evans, a realigned offensive line, replacing Jason Peters, opening the season with a three-game absence of the suspended Marshawn Lynch, a few more potential suspensions and the breaking-in of rookies from what may have been a helpful draft, then adding even more plays and formations to accommodate Vick would be a burden.
We may see if the Patriots, always a jump or two ahead of the Bills, can convince the Kraft family that Vick might assure another trip to the Super Bowl.
Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday’s editions.
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