It’s official, the Eagles have signed Vick to a two-year contract. I think Kate Woodviolet from the LA Pet Rescue Examiner sums it up best.
Philadelphia Eagles President Joe Banner announced Thursday night that the team has signed disgraced former Atlanta Falcon and admitted dog killer Michael Vick to a two-year contract.
It is unclear how Vick can be eligible to sign a two-year deal if his reinstatement is only conditional at this time. It also calls into question whether Goodell and the NFL, instead of determining Vick’s future based on his conduct during the initial six-week period, were simply waiting to see if any NFL team wanted Vick before committing the league to a full reinstatement.
The Eagles announced the move on the website via the column “On the Inside” written by Dave Spadaro, under the breathless headline “Yes, It’s True! Vick Is An Eagle.” The brief article contains few details on the deal, although Spadaro gushes that the news “certainly is exciting, thrilling, shocking.” Spadaro does not once mention Vick’s conviction, nor the specific crimes to which he pled guilty. Such omissions go far toward explaining why so many people across the nation are still unaware of the extent of Vick’s admitted brutality towards his own dogs, as well as to family pet dogs he and his friends placed in the ring with fighting dogs because, according to a 2008 USDA report, they “thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs belonging to [Vick’s] Bad Newz Kennels injure or kill the other dogs.”
Also helping to promote widespread misconceptions that Vick only “fought a few dogs” is the fact that throughout his legal odyssey Vick himself has only publicly acknowledged committing “immature acts” and, more recently, “terrible mistakes.” Even today, comments left on the Eagles website by fans who support the Vick signing insist, incorrectly, that Vick only fought dogs, rather reflecting an understanding of the fact that in addition to putting pet dogs in the ring with trained fighters, Vick also both participated in killing and conspired to kill at least thirteen of his own dogs by various means including shooting, hanging, drowning, electrocution and, in one case, viciously slamming the dog’s body to the ground; acts that NFL Commissioner Goodell once characterized as “not only illegal, but also cruel and reprehensible.” Apparently Goodell’s opinion of killing dogs by various torturous means has changed.
Pictured above is Leo, a former Vick dog, now fully rehabilitated and a certified therapy dog.
