Michael Vick: Does he deserve a second chance?

“This guy is a scumbag,” declared a phone-in radio caller. “Hide Your Dogs,” blared a newspaper headline. Those were typical reactions here in Philadelphia, said Jeff Gammage in The Philadelphia Inquirer, when Michael Vick last week signed with the Philadelphia Eagles after serving 18 months in prison for his role in running a dogfighting ring. But not everyone in the City of Brotherly Love piled on the disgraced former Atlanta Falcons quarterback. For every fan who vilified him, it seemed, “there was another who said Vick had paid the penalty and served his time.” Taking no chances, Vick launched an aggressive public-relations campaign aimed at winning over a skeptical public. His own conduct, he told CBS’ 60 Minutes, “sickens me to my stomach. The same feeling I’m feeling right now is what people was feeling ... disgust, pure disgust.”

Spare me Vick’s newfound contrition, said Dave Davies in the Philadelphia Daily News. “Consider his deeds.” Vick didn’t merely help bankroll a vicious, illegal enterprise in which dogs tore each other apart for sport. A co-defendant testified that for several years, he assisted in killing poor performers by hanging or drowning them. Some dogs were electrocuted with jumper cables. Twice he threw family pets into the ring and gleefully watched them die. “He lied about it repeatedly, and pleaded not guilty when charged.” Sure, Vick has earned a second chance, and he’s gotten it: “He has his freedom back.” But that doesn’t mean he deserves to return to the big-bucks world of professional football.

Nobody would ever excuse the “heinous, evil acts” that Vick committed, said Bob Kravitz in The Indianapolis Star. And yet one can still believe he’s genuinely sorry and wants to atone. It’s human nature to hope that even “the worst of us can pay restitution.” Vick has justified that hope, said The Philadelphia Inquirer in an editorial. His recent conduct “demonstrates so far that he has learned his lesson.” He has surrounded himself with “respected mentors” and has teamed up with the Humane Society “to speak out against animal cruelty.” He’s entitled to earn a living practicing his craft. Arguing otherwise is “wrongheaded, mean-spirited, and contrary to the basis of the U.S. justice system”—which holds that once convicts pay their debt to society, they deserve “a second chance.”

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Oh, please, said Drew Sharp in the Detroit Free Press. “Vick getting a second NFL life is but another example of our society’s morality of convenience.” In America, “second chances are selective, and always have been.” Will all those now cheering Vick’s comeback feel similarly toward the next 29-year-old black man who serves 18 months in prison but can’t “run a 40-yard dash in 4.4 time, chuck a football 70 yards, or sell a $100 jersey”?

Of course not, said Richard Cohen in The Washington Post. Then again, what could we expect from the NFL, where by some accounts, at least 10 percent of the players have arrest records for drunken driving, domestic violence, and other crimes. At the end of the day, really, what counts is not the strength of their character but of their arms and legs. So let’s not fool ourselves. When Vick takes the field, “throughout the land, every kid will know—if they do not already—that what matters most is not that Vick has paid his debt to society or is remorseful, but that he could still throw the ball.”