Read All About It! Michael Vick Hero of Eagles’ First Game

by Walter Brasch / October 3rd, 2009

The headlines, pictures, and most of the stories about the Philadelphia Eagles 34–14 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs focused upon backup quarterback Michael Vick.

The Eagles fans–desperate for a Super Bowl trophy and proclaiming that since Vick paid his time he should be forgiven–gave him a hearty ovation when he first appeared in the game early in the first quarter.

Vick, the All-Pro felon who was convicted in federal court of conspiracy, financing, and operating a dog fighting operation, appeared in only 11 plays, rushed for seven yards, threw two incompletes, and was largely a decoy on the other plays. But he drew the attention of sportscasters and reporters in his first NFL game since his suspension.

Based upon the number of column inches the print media threw to Vick, combined with the air time TV devoted, he was the star and the rest of the team were supporting players.

Quarterback Kevin Kolb, who ran the offense while starter Donovan McNabb sat out his second game while recovering from a broken rib, did everything Vick couldn’t do. He threw for 327 yards and two touchdowns, becoming the first quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards in his first two career starts. Almost as an afterthought, the media later reported that Kolb was the NFC offensive player of the week. Not reported is that Vick, with a $1.5 million salary, is making about $400,000 more this season than Kolb.

Also overlooked by much of the media were DeSean Jackson and Brent Celek, each of whom had 100-plus yards as receivers and and LeSean McCoy who had 84 yards rushing. The media also ignored the offensive line, which gave Kolb the time to throw, and the defense, which yielded only two touchdowns.

The Eagles don’t have a game this Sunday, so the media will focus not upon Kolb, not upon the receivers or running backs, not upon the Eagles defense, and certainly not upon the offensive line. “Rehabilitation” will be the key topic this week. It’ll be stories about Donovan McNabb’s recovery from his rib injury–and Vick’s “rehabilitation” from a life of animal cruelty, and his hoped-for march to another All-Pro appearance. It’s just a good thing there aren’t any live eagles as team mascots.

Walter Brasch, during a 40-year work career in mass communications, has been a member of several unions, in both the private and public sectors. He is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the author of 16 books, including With Just Cause: Unionization of the American Journalist, Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution, and his latest Fracking Pennsylvania. He can be contacted at: walterbrasch@gmail.com. Read other articles by Walter, or visit Walter's website.

This article was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 9:00am and is filed under Justice, Life/Animal Rights, Sports.

13 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. JE said on October 3rd, 2009 at 1:55pm #

    Wow. So no one deserves a second chance. get over it and write about something pertinent to HUMAN suffering you blowhard.

  2. Charlie said on October 4th, 2009 at 2:01am #

    JE, the article isn’t about second chances. It’s about a celebrity-obsessed media that would rather hype a felon than conduct themselves as actual journalists.

    But if you want to see it as a story of a rehabilitated animal torturing felon, then why not also wonder why Vick gets coverage and other felons don’t. What about the dope dealer from the projects who gets out of prison and turns his life around, taking an honest job instead of continuing a criminal enterprise? Where are the reporters and cameras for him? In fact, wouldn’t his story be even more “inspirational” than Vick’s? Vick had fame and money–he enjoyed a lifestyle and economic status few people will ever know; but he committed his crimes anyway. He wasn’t fighting dogs to eat–he did it for the thrill of it or just to see the savagery of it or whatever.

    Why is it that sports figures, movie stars, and other glitterati are lavished with second chances, but no one else is deemed worthy? How many child abusers, unfit parents, drunk drivers, illegal immigrants, etc. are seen by Eagles fans as rehabilitated and deserving of a second chance? Do they hire convicted child molesters as babysitters? Why not? Don’t they deserve a second chance as much as Vick does–or could it be that Vick is regarded as deserving simply because he can throw a football?

    I realize that Vick’s crimes were superficially unrelated to his occupation, so you could make a credible case for giving him a second chance in his former occupation–unlike putting embezzlers back in positions of financial authority, for instance, or hiring child abusers as daycare center workers. Nevertheless, I think it’s reasonable for anyone to harbor some lingering suspicions about felons and to be uncomfortable with treating them as if nothing ever happened.

    Moreover, a “second chance” implies that there is some obligation on the public’s part to be forgiving and understanding. There isn’t. The obligation is entirely on Vick to demonstrate any rehabilitation he has experienced. After that, I’ll be forgiving and understanding. And until then, the media also have an obligation to withhold their obsession with him and concentrate on their jobs, not celebrity gossip mongering.

    Lastly, this IS a story of human suffering, at least indirectly. People who abuse animals have a character defect that also resides in those who ignore human suffering, and they are not the best role models for the children sitting in a football stadium on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

  3. mjosef said on October 4th, 2009 at 4:30am #

    This essay is about the National Steroid Football League, brought to us as a patriotic enactment of militarist fantasy by the same billionaires operating the levers above our head. So the “role model” bilge is out of the picture.
    Yes, dog-fighting is terrible. However, it is widely practiced today in some of our finer ghettos and slums where social conditions are beyond terrible. Poverty, drugs, lack of jobs, an inheritance of social exclusion: that’s what breeds dog-fighting, and creates the supply of young men who amplify their natural athletic talents with big-business supplied needles and HGH bottles to entertain us all with nothing better to do.

  4. stephan geras said on October 4th, 2009 at 7:20am #

    “the role model bildge is out of the picture”….
    Yep, and the US military gets and spends more on the hardware and the corporate image then all other “developed” countries combined. Violence is our culture, a culture of empire, that kids of all colors are susceptible to and eager to participate in especially when it ivolves lots of money….or for some, just a steady job that pays the bills without the constant insecurity that comes with selling drugs.
    Social exclusion???? How about college graduate football fans who plot to kill innocents in Afghanistan. Moral relativity stinks. Watching dogs kill each other is not exclusive to the “ghetto” culture either.

  5. mjosef said on October 4th, 2009 at 7:32am #

    Nothing about my statement encourages views of “moral relativism.” The reality of social conditions need rational consideration, and so why don’t we swing down to your local ghetto today and check out the scene. Sure, we can see the warped criminal mindset growing in the suburbs as we pass by them on our way, but if you want dog-fighting, Stephan, you should concentrate on the zip-codes where red-lining, manufacturing outsourcing, wealth-building exclusion, and a few more very common, very observable factors have led to generations of impoverished social exclusion, so feel free to use a few more question marks.

  6. stephan geras said on October 4th, 2009 at 8:02am #

    mjosef, I think the point is clearly made, and I extrapolate from your statements that you agree, that image is a force in a culture massively disseminating capitalist values, and, precisely, that it doesn’t matter to the image makers, what social or economic conditions they emerge from. I don’t think it’s easy to jettison the “bildge” and have a rational discussion without dealing with the rhetoric.
    Oh, and I don’t take tours through “the ghetto”.

  7. beverly said on October 4th, 2009 at 6:33pm #

    “Why is it that sports figures, movie stars, and other glitterati are lavished with second chances, but no one else is deemed worthy?”

    Excellent point here and throughout your comment, Charlie.

    When Michael Jackson kicked the bucket, the black press and some black people (and many of on the white side too) were up in arms lamenting how Jackson was a victim of racism due to the media’s sensationalistic coverage of his ups and downs.

    They failed to admit that celebrities of any racial hue get built up and torn down regularly. Whatever mayhem – be it misdemeanors, malfeasence, murders, or just plain weird behavior – celebrities engage in rarely impacts their ability to get second, third, and infinite chances to make serious money. Jackson gets implicated in two child molestation charges and hadn’t had a hit since Grandpa Bush was president but still got money from the music industry (owned by mostly whites and Asians) to produce albums and launch concert tours, and, loans to sustain his spendthrift lifestyle. Vick can throw a football so he can commit henious acts and return to earn a very nice salary playing pro ball. AND, like Charlie says, the media devotes lavish coverage to these guys and corporate sponsors aren’t far behind after a sufficient period of “redemption and PR rehab.” Vick plays his cards right, finds Jesus, cries on Oprah or The View, and we’ll probably see him on one of the pre/post game shows as an talking head in a few years when his playing days are done.

    I support second chances. But it appears the rich and famous get the better end of the second chance stick more often than the average schmuck who screws up. If Vick or Jackson had been nobody Joes, they’d be hard pressed to get a part-time gig at Walmart.

    So true, Charlie, that this is a story of human suffering. Those who dismiss the uproar over Vick’s dog fighting, saying we are making more over it than we do over abuse of people are shortsighted and ignorant. Those who inflict abuse and neglect on animals exhibit similar uncaring, unfeeling behaviors towards their relationships with people too. Further, many who dismiss the anti-Vick sentiment of animal lovers are the same folks who dismiss concern and are oblivious to links between the imperialistics acts of our govt and the chaos and terrorism that threatens people here and abroad.

  8. russell olausen said on October 4th, 2009 at 6:36pm #

    Once the media has invested in a person as media project, returns to that project to death and beyond is standard practice. Goodness or badness of said person is minor so long as the project moves indoctrination forward.

  9. Annie Ladysmith said on October 4th, 2009 at 11:50pm #

    Shows ya just how stupid the media is, and how insulting that they should imagine us as equally stupid to follow their lead. Ya know what’s also stupid FOOTBALL!

    The US has an incredibly violent culture because kids grow up learning violence as a form of recreation, i would say football is a part of that dysfunctional lack of empathy. Yeah! What does it matter if dogs get tortured, afterall, we’re putting real people through an unreal HELL in IRAQ with no end or no empathy in sight.

  10. Lee Hall said on October 5th, 2009 at 12:10am #

    Surely the role model question does have merit. What Vick did to the dogs should be reprehended; no one should suffer or die so some other people can get their kicks or make a buck off it.

    But then, football itself contains aspects of domination and subordination – as well as bodily abuse as entertainment – that compromise a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Chomsky said: “Athletes are basically gladiators.”

  11. Trevor said on October 5th, 2009 at 9:13am #

    Vick is being rehabilitated by the NFL and it’s media lackeys because he is an NFL asset. If his playing days were over, they would throw him under the bus and never look back.

  12. AM said on October 5th, 2009 at 9:24am #

    This essay is about the National Steroid Football League, brought to us as a patriotic enactment of militarist fantasy by the same billionaires operating the levers above our head. So the “role model” bilge is out of the picture.
    Yes, dog-fighting is terrible. However, it is widely practiced today in some of our finer ghettos and slums where social conditions are beyond terrible. Poverty, drugs, lack of jobs, an inheritance of social exclusion: that’s what breeds dog-fighting, and creates the supply of young men who amplify their natural athletic talents with big-business supplied needles and HGH bottles to entertain us all with nothing better to do.

  13. JE said on October 6th, 2009 at 10:04pm #

    Charlie,

    Serious? So everyone who condoned or participated in dog fighting or say cock fighting until it was deemed socially unacceptable by secular humanists had character defects. That’s quite a stretch to try and make that correlation. Hilter loved dogs…responsible for a lot of human deaths…Vick was response for the deaths of a lot of dogs but to my knowledge hasn’t killed anyone. The whole moral equivalency of your argument gets back to the point I was trying to make with my original post. When there are people still dying of starvation as you type on your mac book I refuse to listen what you or the author of the article has to say about petty subjects. And while I deeply care about my 3 dogs, I could give a shit about dogs as a species…in fact I’m pretty sure that by all objective measures they are doing better than we are at this point.

    And I’m not saying anyone should forgive Vick. Fuck em…he’ll get his…in fact he already did (get his and get fucked I’m sure). But to waste space on DV for articles that are non-issues. After all most everyone already thinks he is a prick and therefore posting something that goes along with this established sentiment by it’s very nature is contrary to the mission of this site…either that or the name of the site is a misnomer…something I’ve often wondered about as of late.