No Surprise: ESPN Still Swooning Over Violent Vick

Mike Vick announced this week that he’d like to coach football now that his playing days are over.

The quarterback retired this offseason and now the former Atlanta Falcon is exploring his post-NFL options. ESPN and others are gaga over Vick’s possible plans to coach. In fact they seem to have a Chris Matthews-esque tingle up their leg about it. After all, Vick is one of their favorites. He’s most certainly their favorite dog electrocutor/hanger/shooter/drowner. Kordell Stewart has nothing on Vick’s versatility when it comes to torturing and killing animals. Mr. Vick is the true ‘Slash’.

Vick’s NFL career came crashing down in 2007 after he pled guilty for his involvement in a gruesome dog fighting ring. The signal caller spent 21 months in federal prison. He was released by Atlanta shortly before leaving prison. Much to the joy of those who put football above all things, Vick got another chance in the pros with the Philadelphia Eagles. He also spent time with the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite years of forcing dogs through the ‘rape machine’, Vick was once again a welcomed part of Roger Goodell’s football machine. The same league that has shunned Tim Tebow embraced Vick with open arms.

The love affair with Vick continues for some. ESPN’s Darren Woodson, for one, thinks it’s peachy keen that the man who led the NFL’s Peach State franchise wants to coach. Woodson gushed on air Friday about Vick, saying he has a “great story to tell”. Woodson also alerted the public that Vick would be a grand teacher because he’s had his “ups and downs”. So that’s what we call the mutilation of dogs now? Ups and downs? Thanks, Darren. That’s the type of journalism that the ESPNs, MSNBCs, and CNNs of the world love to spew.

Vick served his penalty for what he did and all NFL teams had the right to sign him. It doesn’t mean the Eagles, Jets, and Steelers had to. But they did. People blindly supported a man who committed evil act after evil act simply because he could scramble with the best of them. He also scrambled the brains of dozens of dogs. Yet Vick is celebrated by many NFLers and by even more media members. Some of these same people are offended by the hunting of wild animals for food but at the same time they chalk up violent fighting rings to the victims being ‘just dogs’.

If things go as expected, Vick will coach on some level soon. Unless he’s busted for something, he’ll probably be roaming the NFL sidelines before too long. The same people who loathe our police and military will praise Vick as some sort of a hero. They’ll tell us he overcame his ‘mistakes’. You know, mistakes. Like leaving the milk out overnight, forgetting to close the garage door, or bludgeoning the skulls of dogs for years. Mistakes.

The media will continue to love this character, while at the same time do everything in its power to bring down good people. You can call them out and not accept their coverage or you can look the other way because the NFL is too high on your priority list. But no matter what, the truth will always be there. Mike Vick is a first ballot Hall of Fame dog killer and not much else.