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Monday, May 14, 2007
Falcons coddling Vick too much
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Three minutes and 15 seconds into Michael Vick’s only public discourse since the controversy began over his possible role in illegal dogfighting, his omnipresent Big Brothers from the Falcons’ public relations department ended the questioning.
No surprise there.
Neither is this when it comes to the handling of Vick by those with Falcons ownership and management: They still don’t get it. They’ve contributed to Vick spending his six NFL seasons evolving from a maturing star into a pampered knucklehead.
Then again, given the Falcons’ three-monkey approach for the longest time regarding Vick (see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil), he hadn’t a reason to stop his silliness. He knew Big Brother would protect him, along with owner Arthur Blank, general manager Rich McKay and a slew of others in the Falcons organization who consistently said little or nothing after all of those other Vick controversies just within the last few months.
In other words, Blank is taking revisionist history to the extreme. He said last week that neither he nor others with the Falcons hierarchy have coddled Vick, but the quarterback has had more than a few social visits to the owner’s Buckhead home. Not only that, Vick has played video games with Blank’s kids. There also was that infamous day when the broken-legged quarterback was pushed along the sideline in a wheelchair by the smiling owner.
Still, regarding the latest Vick controversy, Blank told the AJC last week that he couldn’t have been more stern talking to Vick about the consequences of his actions.
So where was such a bold and public reprimand by Blank or any other Falcons officials after that water-bottle fiasco? And the stiffing of those U.S. congressmen in Washington? And the one-fingered salute to booing fans after a home game? And the herpes stuff involving Ron Mexico? And the stolen Rolex (not his, by the way) at the security gate of the Atlanta airport?
If you’re keeping score, those with Falcons ownership and management became Mazaru (the Japanese monkey who covers his mouth) after the congressmen thing and the obscene gesture thing. They issued brief statements that said nothing worth repeating after the Rolex thing and the Ron Mexico thing.
Following the water-bottle thing, McKay said he had a “stressful” meeting with Vick. It’s just that two months after the case was dropped, McKay said he didn’t discuss the contents of the bottle during that meeting. Sort of an important thing to talk about, don’t you think?
Then came Blank’s “stern” meeting with Vick over this dogfighting thing, mostly because Blank hadn’t a choice. He knows the deal with Roger Goodell. After the ruthless NFL commissioner suspended Pacman Jones for a season and Chris Henry for eight games, Goodell said he’ll also punish teams in the future for the misdeeds of their knuckleheads.
That means this Vick deal won’t end pretty, and the Falcons have nobody to blame but themselves. Among other things, if they were as obsessed with trying to shield their quarterback from his posse as they were from the media, they wouldn’t be this close to joining Vick by getting sacked by Goodell.
Consider this: Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb join Vick as the NFL’s other high-profile quarterbacks. Vick is the only one among the five whose team requires at least one Big Brother in the room whenever he is conducting an interview of any kind.
All these quarterbacks have regularly scheduled media sessions, including Vick, but can be available when approached by their lockers. Vick is the only one with a Big Brother assigned to him in the locker room at all times, just in case somebody has the audacity to try to ask him a question.
There was a different Vick under Dan Reeves, the Falcons’ coach until late in the 2003 season. He hired somebody to work with Vick’s diction, and he required that Vick deal with the media like Favre, Brady and the rest. The idea was to make Vick realize he was the face of the franchise, which meant he had responsibilities — such as interacting with reporters, without having somebody holding his hand and making sure he wasn’t asked something that ownership or management didn’t like.
Then Reeves was fired. Then the Falcons added Big Brothers to Vick, and then they employed their three-monkey approach, and you know the rest.
Flowery Branch officially is a zoo.
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