Michael Vick To Make A PETA Ad

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Disgraced one-time NFL superstar Michael Vick, who is serving prison time for funding an illegal dog-fighting ring, is primed to do public-service ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals upon his release later this month. According to three people with knowledge of the matter, the proposed endorsement is part of a comprehensive PR scheme aimed at rehabilitating the quarterback's image and gaining him re-admission to the league that banned him from playing.

I don't have the time or brain cells to give this what it deserves right now, but as site contributor The Truth notes... perhaps it's not the wisest PR strategy to let people know this is, well, a PR strategy.

We now return you to many overwritten fake scripts for the shoot...

UPDATE: Oh, hell, who am I kidding? It writes itself.

VICK: Hi, I'm Michael Vick. You might remember me from such felonious behavior as cruelty to animals, and running illegal dogfights.

(Camera pans to reveal stables in background, and a tracking device on VICK'S leg)

VICK: You might also know me by my comically silly pseudonym, Ron Mexico, under which I had sex with prostitutes and contracted herpes.

(Soft camera focus on a cute larger dog on a leash that VICK holds)

VICK: What I did was wrong -- mind-boggingly, horrifically, never be able to look me in the eye again wrong.

(Camera comes back to VICK, whose nostrils flare)

VICK: But you know what's even more wrong? Failing to spay or neuter your pet.

(Camera pans to a club, which is revealed to be in VICK's non-leash hand)

VICK: When you fail to responsibly care for your pet's reproduction, you allow monsters like me the livestock we need for our sick, sick games.

(Camera cuts to dog, looking up at club with worry)

VICK: So if you want to stop bloodsport dogfighting, spay your animals today.

(VICK kneels to nuzzle dog playfully)

VICK: I'll be sad you did.

And... scene!

The UFL Are What We Thought They Were

Word on the wire last night that the UFL -- you remember the UFL, don't you? It was one of those things that insufferable idiot Mark Cuban was going on about -- is all set to start its first and last season this fall. You've got a four-team league in New York, Vegas, Orlando and San Francisco with name coaches (Jim Fassel, Dennis Green, Jim Haslett and Ted Cottrell).

They'll play on Thursday nights on Versus, also known as the channel that you don't watch the NHL on, have a six-game season, and wrap things up on Thanksgiving. They're also going to try to get noted dog-killer Michael Vick to join the festivities, just to give the train wreck watchers that will go to see this thing something juicy to heckle.

Now, say this for them... at least they've got name-brand coaches. I know that whenver I'm choosing to watch a new minor league during the busiest time in the sports calendar (seriously, you've got World Series games along with the NFL, NBA and NHL during this time, along with college football and, well, saving your money to get through Christmas), I want to know that it's being coached by someone who I'm familiar with for past spectacular failures. And with Denny Green on hand, we'll be sure to tune in for those post-game press conferences, just to see if the media (which is to say, three bloggers, two of them drunk) can get him to say his catch phrase, Gary Coleman-like.

Could they, say, have played their freaking games in the yawning six-month gap when the closest thing you get to NFL football is Mel Kiper Jr. and the same-old same-old coverage of Gosh, It's Hot In The Summer In A Training Camp? Hell no. Could they have rolled out more than four teams, and put them actually close together, so that they could tap into that good regional hate that people have for each other in the DC to Boston megalopolis? Nah, let's just do it in Orlando instead, which is Iowa City with heat and humidity. Personally, I can't wait to see the team names and logos, because with this amount of brain power shone to date, I think we're going to get something truly special. As in short bus special. (Oh, and nice timing with the economy on this. At least you won't have to fight the NHL for airtime, since that will probably be closing up shop by then anyway.)

Which leads me to the final three questions...

1) Can't you boys just admit that you're hoping to backdoor your way into an NFL expansion franchise now, rather than actually pretend that you're launching a legitimate enterprise?, and

2) Given that you're all showing about as much intellect and marketing acumen as the XFL -- hell, you're in the same exact cities! -- how, exactly, did you get to become millionaires again?

3) Will it lead to a new talking Cuban doll?

The Perfect Union

According to Peter King over at SI, Mark Cuban's fledgling football league (because, in between winning nothing with the Mavs, trying to buy the Cubs so he can entice another franchise with false hopes and bombast, and messing around with Yahoo's board to see who can bring in the least amount of shareholder value) is thinking hard about...

drum roll please...

Michael Vick!

Now, Lord knows, there will be more professional football in your life at some point. The simple fact is that every year, the public grows less and less tolerant of the eight months of dead time that the NFL makes its fan base endure. It is not the #1 sport in the US; it is the number one through three sports in the US. MLB and NBA are not rivals; they are sideshows. The country begins and ends with football.

The UFL may or may not be the league that breaks through, though, to be honest, I'm not seeing it. Friday Night Football is a fine thing for high school, but it's kind of a dead zone for actual television viewing... and that's the night that the league is supposed to play. During the fall is the best time of the year to be a sports fan, between the MLB playoffs, the NFL regular season, the start of the NHL and NBA seasons, and the sheer rush that is Q3 / Q4 and the holidays. That's also when they are planning to play.

Needless to say, this is Big Stupid on many, many levels.

A winter / spring league, in domes and warm-weather cities, would work... provided it was domestic, didn't have dippy rules a la Arena Ball,with the rules tweaked for offense to make sure that unwatchable football doesn't happen. Sprinkle in some reasonable name coaches, a few decent names (either washed-up vets that are local to their teams, maybe some good local college players), and make sure the refs are good. Finally, relax some of the nonsense rules that people hate the NFL for imposing, make it supremely tailgate friendly, cap the salaries and don't expect to make money for five to ten years... and you may have something. Given that the Cube isn't about patience or sense, it's not going to happen that way with this league, but it eventually will.

Meanwhile, Vick. Good grief. If the league is to be paid for with sports blog hits, they'll do fine. Otherwise, not so much...

Epic Drop: Top 12 Reasons Michael Vick Surrendered Early

Your list is here, and it must be good, since it's more than ten and all.

It still astounds me, really, that a guy could fall this far this fast; I think it may be unprecedented in American sports history. Who else, really, was as big as he was, and self-destructed so unnecessarily? Sure, there were Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, but that took years, and they were still capable athletes, even in the throes of addiction. There have been any number of shocking and career-ending injuries, but that really doesn't have the same feel as what Vick did to himself. OJ is the most obvious corollary from the terms of Media Circus, but Murderenthal was 20 years past athletic relevance when he went to town (allegedly).

In this, as in many other things, the only QB ever to run for 1,000 yards in a season... is unprecedented.

A Small Note To Gene Upshaw's Critics in Vickgate

Um, just what in blue blazes are you supposed to do when one of your union members goes off the resevation and self-immolates?

Defend him, and get pilloried in public for defending a man who killed dogs with his bare hands. (Read some of the comments in the Vick pieces we've written this week, and see how much fun it is when you just fail to include that Killing Dogs Is Bad.) Stay away from him, and you get people talking about how neutered you are, and how you failed your people and capitulated to the commissioner.

Look, this isn't about a guy who needs help in the face of a drug addiction. It's also not a case where a player let a bad moment get the best of him.

This is a man who ran a criminal operation, engaging in an activity that the vast majority of the country finds extraordinarily repugnant, against a skilled federal prosecution, FOR YEARS. Defend him, for any reason or motivation, to any degree, at your grave PR peril. We love our dogs.

Upshaw has a lot to answer for as NFL union boss; the awful pension plan, the long term health problems, the fact that the vast majority of his members could be crippled and income-free on any given play, at any given moment. But his treatment of Vickgate was a no-win situation in which he didn't lose that much. People who say otherwise, like this guy, are just looking to fill space.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Consolations for Michael Vick's Fantasy Owners

A happy little list for happy little people.

Epic Drop: Don't Touch Vick's Stapler

Today's drop is here. I think we can all agree that with this kind of smile, he must be innocent.

Take a Sedative Bob

I love when politicians get involved with sports. It always ends in comedy. Currently, Senator Mitchell’s probe of baseball keeps me giggling. He’s been at it a year and finally just got one player to sit down with him and talk – off the record of course. And who could forget that side show of the hearings Congress put on with current and former players? You had Raffy Palmeiro openly lying that he never used steroids – read his lips, it’s all there. Mark McGwire was there but didn’t want to talk about the past. Apparently nobody told him that is what you do at hearings. And the best part. Sammy Sosa acting like this was the first time he was hearing English as he sat there with his interpreter and played the non-English speaking immigrant role.

Whenever politicians have anything to do with sports I get excited because you know some You Tube moments are about to follow. Which leads me to this. Did you see Sen. Robert Byrd’s speech last week basically condemning Michael Vick to the special places in hell? Since Sen. Byrd is from West Virginia, he probably would know where those special places are – hidden somewhere in his home state. Here’s what he had to say (taken from the Washington Post):

"It is a brutal, sadistic event motivated by barbarism of the worst sort and cruelty of the worst, worst, worst, sadistic kind," Byrd said in a 24-minute address on the matter. "One is left wondering: Who are the real animals? Who are the real animals, who are the real animals -- the creatures inside the ring or the creatures outside the ring?...

The Book of Proverbs in the Holy Bible, the King James Bible, tells us a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," Byrd said. "The immortal Dante tells us the divine justice reserves special places in Hell for certain categories of sinners. Madam president, I am confident -- madam president, I am confident that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt! I yield the floor."

Now I’m not defending what Michael Vick has been accused of (still innocent until proven guilty). I love dogs and hate to see any animal abused the way those dogs were. But for any politician, especially Senator Byrd to condemn someone for their actions like that is ridiculous. This is a man who is a former KKK member and recruiter, refused to serve in WWII because "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side", voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and as recently as 2001 used the N word. Oh yeah, he also was the only Democrat to vote to censure Bill Clinton, is against gay marriage or allowing homosexuals to serve in the military and opposes affirmative action. Maybe a hard look in the mirror would have done him some good before giving his supercilious speech.

Now this is a sports blog and should be contained to sports, not politics, and not about who is going to hell. But I must point out to Bob that he should stick to bigger issues at hand – the war in Iraq, the current housing problem, health care, social security reform and other important issues instead of wasting time and money on a speech that his own fellow Senators were not in attendance to hear. And in terms of Mr. Vick – get a good lawyer. It seems like you’re going to need one.