As most people already know Michael Vick has been officially released by the Atlanta Falcons, he is now free to play for another NFL team.
Although legally he is able to sign with another team it hasn’t stopped the great debate over if he should be allowed to ever play football again.
Vick is eligible to immediately sign with a team even though he has not been reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
“Everybody always knew that Mike wouldn’t be playing with the Falcons,” Vick’s agent, Joel Segal, said. “He’s really just taking it one day at a time.”
Goodell has said he will sit down with Vick after the quarterback completes his 23-month sentence on July 20 for running a dogfighting ring.
“Michael’s going to have to demonstrate to myself and the general public and to a lot of people, did he learn anything from this experience? Does he regret what happened?” Goodell said last month at the NFL meetings in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Does he feel that he can be a positive influence going forward? Those are questions that I would like to see when I sit with him.”
Vick, once the highest-paid player in the NFL, is making $10 an hour as a construction worker while he serves the final two months of his sentence on home confinement in Hampton, Va. He was released from federal prison in Kansas on May 20.
Dimitroff said Friday’s release came only after the team was unable to trade Vick’s rights. Any team which now pursues Vick must await his possible reinstatement from Goodell and must try to determine how two years away from the game will affect his conditioning and skills. Vick will celebrate his 29th birthday on June 26.
“There were a number of teams that were open to discussion but at the very end without mentioning the teams they just felt like it was not the right time to do it for them and we just decided to move forward,” Dimitroff said.
The Falcons could not even land a draft pick for the player who had been the figurehead for the organization. After Vick’s release Friday, no team expressed immediate interest in signing him.
Fox Sports is taking a poll to determine public opinion, go to their site and cast your vote as to whether or not you think he should be allowed to play.
