Michael Vick’s once-promising career as an NFL quarterback is likely over.
The No 1 overall pick in the 2001 draft is currently without a team after seeing time in five games last year with the Steelers, his fourth NFL team. If his football days are over, Vick says he’s content with that.
“I’m 35, about to turn 36,” he told the Daily Press of Hampton Roads, Virginia this weekend. “I’ve got one more dedicated season in my blood, if somebody needs me to come in. But I’m kind of happy where I am right now. I’ve got my health, I’ve got my kids, I’ve got my family. The game has done so much for me in terms of relationships, opportunities to take care of myself and my family. I’m just thankful. I give all credit to God.”
If Vick does ultimately land with a team in 2016, there won’t be any league-wide farewell tour complete with pregame ceremonies, parting gifts and standing ovations. Because despite his immense talent, Vick’s NFL career can only be characterized as a disappointment.
He had his moments, no doubt. There was the 2004 season, when he took the Falcons to the NFC Championship Game at age 24, and his remarkable 2010 campaign with Andy Reid’s Eagles when he put up career-best passing numbers and inspired all the “Dream Team” talk of 2011. Whenever his playing days officially end, he will leave the NFL with the most rushing yards by a quarterback in the history of the game, more than 1,000 yards ahead of Randall Cunningham in second place. But so often, Vick played very much like running back miscast under center.
He had a cannon of an arm, but struggled with accuracy. He struggled even more with injuries and consistency. As his athleticism waned, he had little else to offer, as his ineffective and somewhat depressing stint with the Steelers last year showed.
Of course, all of this is without mentioning the two years he spent out of the NFL due to running a dog-fighting ring. Massive understatement alert: that’s a blip on any resumé. The stint in Leavenworth came in the prime of Vick’s career, but he hadn’t been playing great football leading up to his arrest and conviction. The Falcons were a combined 15-17 in the two seasons before he went to prison with Vick failing to crack 2,500 passing yards each year. While he always scared defensive coordinators, the numbers show most worked through their fears enough to keep him in check quite nicely.
The “Michael Vick Experience” did not revolutionize the NFL. He’s far from a JaMarcus Russell or Tim Couch-type bust, but he never achieved close to what most hoped he would coming out of Virginia Tech. Vick’s legacy will not be that of a great pro quarterback.
But his legacy doesn’t have to be bad.
There is nothing positive to say about the actions that led Vick out of football and into prison. There is also nothing negative to say about how he has handled himself since stepping out of jail after 538 days on May 21 2009.
Vick is a part of a league that, unfortunately, routinely sees player names in the police blotter. Just this week in an interview with ESPN, Greg Hardy absurdly claimed that he never put his hand on “any woman” in his “entire life.”
Back in October, Hardy – whose accuser said he threw her on a bed covered in guns – set an all-time NFL record for lack of self-awareness (or for being an unabashed garbage human) by saying he was coming out “guns blazing” and then commenting on Tom Brady’s wife.
Then there’s former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. After being charged with double murder in 2000, Lewis plead to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice and has spent all his energy off the field since then promoting himself as some sort of spiritual shaman of smashmouth football. Asked in an interview before the 2013 Super Bowl what he would say to the families of the men killed in 2000, families who believe Lewis hasn’t been forthcoming about what occurred, Lewis said he’d want them to know that “God has never made a mistake.” It’s hard to make a comment much worse than that.
Well, maybe not too hard.
Contrast Hardy and Lewis with everything Vick has said and done since 2009. He has repeatedly expressed remorse. He’s made no excuses. He worked with the Humane Society long after his prison sentence ended, including lobbying Congress to pass the Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act. All without pay. The Humane Society’s own website posted that: “he’s supportive of our Pets for Life program to end dog fighting and helps spread the message through his public appearances.”
In stops with the Eagles, Jets and Steelers, coaches and teammates have had nothing but positive things to say about him in the locker room. His signings with each team were met with protests by fans, but he never lashed out at the uproar or painted himself as a victim.
There’s no way we can know for sure if Vick has truly changed or what’s in his heart. Maybe it’s all a cynical, long con designed to produce articles like this and set himself up for future endorsement and motivational speaker riches. But everything short of the über-cynical viewpoint suggests this new Mike Vick is real and sincere. You can still be disgusted and horrified by his past actions, while acknowledging that he paid his debt to society and seems to have turned his life around.
Vick won’t go down as an all-time great quarterback. He wasn’t that good. But his legacy could be as the athlete other players will emulate when coming back from going bad.
