AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > July > 18 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USAn open letter to Arthur Blank
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
To: Arthur Blank, Owner & CEO, Atlanta Falcons,
Flowery Branch, GA 30542
Dear Mr. Blank: This morning, as my wife scanned the disaster headline in the AJC, she mused, “Wonder if Arthur wouldn’t trade it all now for an apron and a little hat with ‘Home Depot’ on it?”
I said, “And give up all this?” I quoted from the Falcons press guide: “Blessed with rare athletic abilities not before seen at the quarterback position in the history of the NFL … called ‘most electrifying and exciting player in the NFL,’ ” writing of Michael Vick.
“Give up all that?” I said. “This was his dream world. Give him Michael Vick and he had an empire.”
No owner of a professional team franchise could have been kinder than you have been to Michael Vick. You have coddled him. You have taken him in as a friend, and team owners can’t have friendships with players. It doesn’t work.
Some few owners have taken to appearing on the sidelines, but you have taken it a few degrees further. Cameras have shown you sallying about with him, arm around him, smiling in victory, frowning in defeat. Another time you were shown pushing his wheelchair when he was injured. Even Jerry Jones doesn’t go that far. Players are field hands to Al Davis. You don’t see him fraternizing with any Raiders.
Of course, where you broke ranks was when you endowed Vick with a $130 million contract. That gave him a bigger chunk of the team than any of your minority owners. That gave him the impression he was the team. The Atlas of all he could survey. I often wondered if you ever had a sit-down, hard-nosed nuts-and-bolts jaw session with him, let him know who’s the boss, not his brother.
During the winter, after you traded Matt Schaub to Houston, I wrote a column suggesting that you had traded the wrong quarterback. Another writer scoffed at it, but the e-mailing public leaped aboard. “Vick is a thug and should have been traded,” one of the gentler respondents wrote. “He is holding the franchise hostage,” another wrote. Of all the responses, some 50 of them, only one took serious issue. I’m sure you must have fielded a few of them yourself. Did that not open your eyes? Now when you need Schaub most, he’s in Texas, not that any guarantee came with him. But at least he was not a Falcons player you had to be ashamed of.
Let me tell you about a man named Clint Murchison. Clint owned the Dallas Cowboys during the Tom Landry heyday, but you never saw Clint on camera. He was Texas-wealthy and didn’t feel any need to have his ego stroked. He could walk the street in Dallas and hardly anybody recognized him. He left the football stage to Landry and Tex Schramm. They built the franchise and made it run. Not that your staying off the sideline in the waning moments of the game is going to change anything, but I think it has thrown a shadow over your relationship with Vick.
Now it really gets touchy. Whatever his role in the alleged fighting-dog scandal, there’s one thing he can’t escape. He is the landlord of the place in Virginia, owns it, is responsible for what goes on there. You must have about $90 million of that exorbitant contract still hanging fire, stands to be written off. Nobody can show you where to go to fill that hole in the lineup, but it would be nice, wouldn’t it, if you still had Schaub in camp. He knew the offense and he wasn’t a magnet for trouble. Looks like you traded the wrong quarterback, sad to say.
Sorry, dear fellow, FB.
P.S.: You have a fellow on your board who could be a help to Vick on how to earn respect. His name is Henry Aaron.
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