Michael Vick made a good decision on the night after his 30th birthday party. That decision was to call an individual and tell him the whole truth and that decision is probably one of the main reasons he’s still a Philadelphia Eagle.
Vick says he thought his career might be over because of what had happened in the birthday party and after the birthday party.
He had gotten into a shouting match with Quanis Phillips, who was one of the co-conspirators in his dog-fighting trial. Vick knew he was supposed to have no contact with Phillips.
He left the party then got a call which sent chills through him. Someone had called to tell him Phillips had been shot after the party. He learned that the shooting had occurred just two minutes after he had left the scene.
Vick thought everything was over. He was virtually certain that he would never play for the Eagles again and fairly sure that his chances of playing in the NFL again were over.
But former Falcon made a call that kept one man on his side. That man happened to be the guy who had put himself on the line in the first place to bring him to Philadelphia. He called Andy Reid and told him his story.
Reid ripped into him for putting himself in that position.
“You shouldn’t have been in that environment. . . . You shouldn’t have been out after 12. . . . I don’t know where this is going to go,” Vick said the head coach told him.
But, I believe he had been given Reid information which would allow him to fight Vick’s case behind the scenes with the people who would decide whether Vick would remain an Eagle or be released.
“The one thing that I was proud of him for was that he made the call,” Reid told an auditorium of reporters. “I thought it was an important step. I appreciate the trust that he had there. He didn’t put me in positon to hear it second hand or anything else. What he told me was exactly what the police said. Those are things that build a trust between two people. honesty is an important factor.”
In looking back at the situation, I think Reid must have made an impassioned plea to Jeffrey Lurie and team president Joe Banner, in order to keep the owner and the team president on board with hanging onto the troubled quarterback.
I don’t know what his argument was but it might have included some of the same arguments he made to bring Vick here in the first place.
Looking back it’s very obvious that Lurie could have canned Vick if had wanted to because the quarterback made an egregious mistake and now we know he had been making this same mistake throughout the offseason. Vick was hosting parties for the public.
Lurie had said that he had no room for any mistakes and this clearly was one, but I think that call to Reid gave him enough information to get on the phone with Lurie and Banner, in order to keep them on Vick’s side.
I was surprised to read in the Sports Illustrated article that Vick said the light went on after the shooting. Think about it, the light wasn’t on after losing a $100 million dollar contract and 18 months in prison.
Regarding the birthday party and the shooting Vick said today, “That was a turning point in my life when I realized that I just had to get things in order and get my priorities in line—and that’s what happened. That was the point where I said ‘okay, I get it now. Let’s do this the right way.”
Michael Vick made a good decision on the night after his 30th birthday party. That decision was to call an individual and tell him the whole truth and that decision is probably one of the main reasons he’s still a Philadelphia Eagle.
I read the excerpt of this today that was in the Daily News. That was the most surprising part, that he had apparently not completely comitted himself to change after a stint in a federal prison. It was only after this episode that he came up to Philadelphia ( at his PO’s order) and started to get in early, stay late, study, etc. He is playing well, no question, I am thrilled by it. But after seeing him play badly in the preseason (as did both QB’s) there was no guarantee whatsoever that he would bounce back and play so well. His resurgence was hardly the given that some portray it to be. The athletic ability was always there, but without the recent improved grasp of the passing game, he would still be the same Vick that defenses had figured out a few years ago. He’d have been no more than Randall was as an Eagle. All talent and no playoff wins. This article takes none of the lustre off the things he has accomplished this season, but it does illustrate how incredibly fortunate he is to have even made it to the 1st game of the season on the Eagles’ roster. Or the roster of any NFL team at all, because had he left that party a quarter of an hour later, I think he would have been tarred and feathered by the league regardless of his involvment.
Wow, love the guy..but he’s a friggin stupid person right?…Lose all that and still come out on the other end gangsta?..Just dumb…Just win #7…Just win,,,
The light does not go on until you take yourself out of the environment and friends that helped created the problem. Which includes his gifted but ignorant brother.
A person’s salary is usually the average of the 5 closeest people he hangs with. That’s how much family and friends can influence you. It’s hard to kick some people to the curb.
It’s not easy to come to the reality that some of your close friends and family do not really have your best interest in mind. The partys were probably raising alot of money and helping out the muchers and maybe even paying off some of Mikes 20 million debt. It’s like smoking cigarettes. You know it’s bad for you, but you are still getting something (relaxation – permanent) out of it.
You put peanuts inside of a coconut shell. A monkey sticks his hand in to grab the peanuts. He can’t get it out because his hand makes a fist to hold onto the peanuts. He is then clubbed by a hunter simply because he will not let go of the peanuts to save his own life. Many celebrites hold onto the peanuts(drugs(elvis), ego(M Jackson), sorry mother(lindsey lohan)). I’m not shocked that M. Vick was any different.
Like G says if losing $100 million and spending 18 months in prison didn’t knock some sense into him what will
I guess it is hard to make new fiends that don’t have your background –loyalty is admirable but you have to draw the line at partying with them
easy to criticize if you haven’t worn his moccasins. Prison doesn’t rehabilitate, ask Mike. Took someone to believe in him, someone he could trust, someoeone who he now does not want to let down.
Reid doesn’t say a whole lot about what he does, says for his players, but we are learning alot about Reid through the Vick story. Happy Thanksgiving to all
Prison is not always supposed to rehabilitate, it is also punative in nature. I do realize that is a big argument with two sides, but be honest, you do not end up in the Federal Corrections system for singing too loud at church. Yeah, its easy to criticize him, but don’t gloss over the fact that there are certainly some legitimate grounds for it.