Though both the NFL and the Eagles don’t have an issue with quarterback Mike Vick’s decision to chase his first NFL practice in more than two years with Grey Goose and pineapple juice, Vick’s league-appointed adviser and mentor is taking a different approach.
“Michael, you can’t do that,” former Colts and Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy said in response to the news that Vick was drinking alcohol.
The news of Dungy’s reaction to the news of Vick’s consumption comes from Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback. It appears in the “Quote of the Week” portion of MMQB, in which King typically highlights words that have appeared elsewhere in the seven days since his last column.
It appears that Dungy passed this specific quote directly along to King, since we’ve been unable to find the words to Vick in any other context.
King explains Dungy’s position as follows: “Vick can have a drink; that does not violate any terms of his return to the NFL. But Dungy’s point was that Vick needs to be a saint as he gets back on the road to a life in football. He can’t give the media or the public any ammunition to suggest he isn’t doing everything he can to live a clean life and devote himself totally to football. Unfair? Yes. But until Roger Goodell green-lights Vick back into football, Vick has to be sure he doesn’t give anyone reason to doubt him.”
We disagree with King’s assessment as to the fairness of the issue. The manner in which Vick handles the little things well shed considerable light on how he plans to handle the big ones. And even if he’s prohibited only from drinking too much alcohol, the fact that he’d drink any of it (especially in public) at a time when every move he makes is being studied and scrutinized makes us wonder whether he understands the magnitude of the public relations challenge he now faces.
And as to those of you who don’t understand why any limits should be placed on the ability of folks on supervised release to imbibe, the goal here is to keep people who previously have demonstrated horrible judgment from ingesting anything that might cause them to make very bad decisions all over again.