Somebody Please Muzzle Those Vick Protestors

I must digress from the current bashing of the Browns over that pathetic performance against the Packers in our first pre-season game the other night.

Before someone writes in to label me an evil animal hater, I am not.  My family has pets.  I like to think that my son has respect for them.  But I am so sick and tired of the endless bashing of Michael Vick and the Eagles for signing him.  I read today that there will be organized protestors at all Eagles games, home and away.  What kind of craziness is that?

I may not hire Michael to clean my dog dishes, and I may not hold him up as a role model for my child, but I have no problem at all with a Team signing him to play professional football again, even if I was an Eagles fan.  Vick committed a crime;  yes.  But he was sentenced by a Criminal Court and has paid the price that a Judge determined was reflective of all of the circumstances.  Is he now expected to never play football again, ever?  Then why do we not insist that every convicted person be prohibited from returning to his or her vocation after being released from a prison sentence?  I know what the activists would say – because not every offender is a sports celebrity;  or because not every offender commits such a reprehensible crime where the victims are helpless animals.  On the first point, it would be nice in an ideal world if every pro athlete was a perfect role model for the youth, but that is a terribly naive and unrealistic view of sports.  Those of us who have been around a while recognize that sports figures should no longer be held to abide by some special moral compass.  They are regular folk who get paid gobs of money and give us something to cheer about.  Some of them are a lot more than that through charitable efforts and other admirable conduct, but not every player can be held to that standard.  On the second point, when did animals become some kind of lightning rod for bleeding hearts?  What about human beings for crying out loud?

I will never cheer for the Eagles over our Browns, but I truly hope that Vick has a good season and silences those protestors (I would have used the word “muzzles”, but the term in the title is probably enough already to get me lynched).

Go Browns!  5 bucks for the first guy to get the football into the end zone.

-Clayton