Welcome Back, Michael Vick?

Thursday night, news came that quarterback and NFL pariah Michael Vick has returned to the league, signed by the Philadelphia Eagles to bolster their chances of making it to the Super Bowl. And this development leaves me feeling deeply ambivalent.

Does a man like Vick -- a felon convicted of Federal charges stemming from his involvement in a horrific dogfighting ring, yet also a man who has paid his proverbial "debt to society" -- now deserve another chance to pursue a very, very lucrative football career?

I just don't know.

In a press conference Friday, he said, "I know I've done some terrible things, made a horrible mistake... We all have issues, we all deal with certain things..." But what he did to land behind bars was no mistake, no garden-variety accident. His actions, though truly difficult to fathom, were willful and deliberate. The brutality that Vick displayed in pitting his unwilling canine minions against each other in fights to the death, as well as in executing many of them, indicates a cruelty, a lack of empathy that is often found in incipient serial killers, not in your average citizen.

And such language makes me feel as though he really hasn't come to grips with what he did; instead, it seems as though he is sorry only that he got caught and had to pay the price.

Nonetheless, he has paid the price -- a terrible price that cost him years of his life in prison, years of his career and millions upon millions of dollars, driving him to bankruptcy. Should we now deprive him of the opportunity to make a future living, too?

Were veterinary medicine or animal husbandry his chosen work, perhaps we would be right in doing so. But now, I fear, we must simply hope that Michael Vick is able to live up to his own professions of rehabilitation. I wish him the best; perhaps he can actually get his life straightened out.

But I'm surely glad that he isn't trying to do so as a member of my beloved Vikings.

Rethinking The Hillbilly Gunslinger

The whole, never-ending Brett Favre saga that has unfolded over the past six months has been simultaneously gripping and tiresome, evoking equal parts fascination and nausea. But, I must say, recent events in this drama have certainly made me rethink my position on Ol' Number Four.

Previously, my view of Favre was that he was a singularly talented, but none-too-bright, drug-addicted hick with little respect for the integrity of the game (as witnessed by his record-breaking flop for Michael Strahan). But now, after acting like an utter jackass for the better part of a month, he has somehow managed to maneuver the Packers organization into:

• A) Offering him twenty million dollars, spread out over the next ten years, to remain retired.
• B) Looking like the bad guys in this surreal little scenario by making said offer.

Essentially, the Packers told him publicly: We don't really want you anymore, but we don't want anyone else to have you, either. (Jeez, most guys only hear that sentiment from their wives!)

What can I say? Except, "Bravo, Mister Favre! True genius!" Now, if only I can find a way to finagle some unsuspecting corporate entity into tendering me the same deal...

But there is still a way for Favre to snatch defeat from the jaws of public-relations victory. He is said to currently be considering Green Bay's offer; if he were to accept it, it would further cement his image as a vicodin-addled boob with no respect for the game.

Of course, he'd still be getting $20,000,000.00 for doing nothing. Bastard.