WaPo- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday ordered quarterback Michael Vick not to report to training camp with the Atlanta Falcons until the league has reviewed his legal troubles stemming from federal dogfighting charges.
Vick’s playing status is to be determined by Goodell, and the NFL gave no timetable for the decision other than to announce that the review would be completed “as soon as possible.”
“While it is for the criminal justice system to determine your guilt or innocence, it is my responsibility as commissioner of the National Football League to determine whether your conduct, even if not criminal, nonetheless violated league policies, including the personal conduct policy,” Goodell wrote Vick in a letter yesterday, according to an NFL statement.
Better late than never, I suppose. Goodell has the players union to deal with, after all.
And frankly, I have to wonder here a little bit, about that. where is the players union on all of this? We have not seen any overt defense of Vick as yet, but neither have we seen their condemnation of him either.
Before you get the impression that I think Goodell is the good guy here, let’s remember that he met with Michael Vick last April, following the discovery of dogfight in equipment during a drug raid on Vick’s Surrey County Property. the man should have been cut loose back then. He was not. As far as I’m concerned, Goodell is now an accessory after the fact.
Lest you think this is “let’s dump on Michael Vick”, I would also ask if the silence from the players union, and Goodell himself, isn’t because of their recognition that this kind of thing goes far beyond one man. We have already discussed the idea that this is as much as anything else a difference of cultures… so the question becomes, how many others in the NFL are involved? My guess is a fair few. My guess also is, this thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and there’s going to be a lot of cover-up going on, between now and the beginning of the next season.
