Jared Allen Vs. Mike Vick

Thanks to the Twitter feed for Jim Rome’s weekday ESPN program, we were alerted Wednesday to the fact that Vikings defensive end Jared Allen would be making an appearance. Due to some high-level PFT business matters (the toilet was clogged, again), I wasn’t able to watch it live. So I recorded the show, and checked it out Thursday. Allen was his typical crazy self, and there were several things that came out of the interview that might end up being worthy of a mention here. For now, though, we’d like to open a debate regarding Allen’s choice of headwear. Our friends at The Sporting Blog have captured an image of the “hat.” It’s not Sable, and it’s not Nutria. It’s also not clear precisely what it is. (At one point, Allen made reference to shooting a coyote with a blow gun, but the thing looks too small to be kin to the best customer that Acme Corporation ever had.) Anyway, here’s the point for PFT Planet to ponder: How is Allen’s affinity for killing animals any different than Mike Vick’s? On the surface, the only distinction is that Vick’s victims were also the primary American house pet, making it much harder for folks who love their dogs as much or more than some of the human members of their families to understand Vick’s actions. At a deeper level, hunting is legal. Dogfighting and killing dogs deemed unfit to fight aren’t. At an even deeper level, our primary beef with Vick is that his actions suggest a level of brutality and inhumanity that causes us at times to think he should never be allowed to return to the NFL. But is wearing on your head the skin of a dead animal, its feet dangling like pigtails, any more respectful of the life that was taken for amusement purposes? We’re still mulling this one over, and we want to hear what you have to say. So think it over, and post a comment. And don’t give me the whole “I’m too busy” routine. It’s Friday; we all know you’re just going through the motions until the clock strikes five in your time zone -- either because it’s actually quitting time or because your employees changed all the clocks to say so while you were dozing on the surface of your desk in a puddle of tepid drool.