Michael Vick’s interview with 60 Minutes Sunday night probably isn’t going to change how you feel about him.
Then again, it wasn’t really designed to.
Vick is trying to rehabilitate his image with the average fan, the casual news watcher who just knows him as the “guy who killed dogs” and that’s about it. That fan isn’t worried about how Vick fits on the Philly depth chart or how his contract is structured, and they certainly aren’t reading or commenting on football blogs.
With this fan in mind, Vick’s interview with James Brown went about as well as could be expected, like his introductory press conference with the Eagles.
We didn’t learn many new things, but Vick was again mostly well spoken and very contrite. (Perhaps just well coached . . . but it’s working. Plenty of politicians and athletes have botched their pleas for forgiveness.)
Vick said that he didn’t really understand what he’d done until he was in his prison cell alone, often crying at night. He said he realized then how bogus his previous excuse-making was.
“It was all because of the so-called ‘culture’ that I thought was right,” Vick said, shaking his head. “That I thought was cool, that I thought was exciting at the time. It all led to me sitting in a prison cell by myself. With no one else to talk to but myself. “
Vick spoke about watching dog fights since he was eight years old while growing up in Newport News, Virginia. He relayed a story about when local police once approached a dog fight when he was a kid, only to drive away because they didn’t think it was a serious crime.
Perhaps sensing that this line of questioning sounded like more excuses, Vick said he put all the blame on himself.
“I should have taken the initiative to stop what happened and I didn’t. I feel so bad about that now. And I know I didn’t step up. I wasn’t a leader,” Vick said.
Vick agreed that he showed a lack of “moral character” in Brown’s words. He repeatedly said he felt disgusted with what he did.
Vick’s mentor Tony Dungy and Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle were both interviewed for the story, with Pacelle saying he’s still “skeptical” of his alliance with Vick.
“If Mike disappoints us, the public will see that,” Pacelle said. (CBS showed footage of a recent Vick speech to kids about dogfighting.)
The most interesting part of the interview centered around Vick’s actions when he was first caught by the authorities and how Vick lied to everyone around him.
“I was scared. I knew my career was in jeopardy,” Vick tried to explain. “I knew I had endorsement with Nike. And I knew it was going to be a big let down.
“I felt the guilt and I knew I was guilty and I knew what I had done. Not knowing at the time that actually telling the truth may have been better than not being honest. And it backfired on me tremendously.”
“May have been better” is some poor wording that the angriest anti-Vick folks out there can latch on to. Surprisingly, it sounded like Vick’s biggest regret of that time period was lying to Falcons owner Arthur Blank.
Asked about how it felt to “break Blank’s heart” in Brown’s words, Vick said the following:
“I mean I can’t describe the feeling, the hurt deep inside. Hurt that I never felt before. Knowing that I disappointed him, knowing that he gave me every opportunity to come to him and reach out, whenever I needed him. He cared about me and I took it all for granted.”
Time will tell if Vick’s words help any with the casual fan, and he admits his actions will be much more important than any comeback interview.
He seems to know that many people, perhaps most, won’t ever forgive him. He says his role is to be “a living example of what not to do.”
The one moment of seemingly uncoached candor that stuck out to this not-so-casual fan journalist PFT lackey was when Brown asked about Vick’s reputation for being a lazy player in Atlanta.
Vick smiled and said he knew the things people said about him: that he was the last guy in the building and the first one to leave. And that they were all true; he took it all for granted, including his talent.
He’s generously being given a second chance by the NFL and the Eagles, and the next few years, not months, will show if he takes this chance for granted too.