Fresh Loaf

Seeing as how the New York Giants completely shut down the New England Patriots’ offensive juggernaut last night, I wonder if there’s any regret up in Flowery Branch that the Falcons decided not to wait until after the Super Bowl to select a new head coach.

After all, the front-runner for the Falcons job at one time was the man who devised the strategy for the Giants defense: defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

Rather than postpone a decision until after the Super Bowl so they could interview Spagnuolo, the Falcons moved ahead and hired Mike Smith from the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Spagnuolo sure looks like hot property now. Just sayin’.

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A federal judge ruled today that former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is entitled to most of the $20 million in bonus money that he was paid by the team prior to his imprisonment on dogfighting convictions.

A special master had ruled in October that Vick had to return all the money to the Falcons. The NFL player’s union appealed that decision and U.S. District Judge David Doty of Minneapolis ruled that returning the money would violate the league’s collective bargaining agreement. He ruled that the league can only recoup bonus money, and only $3.75 million of the Vick money came from a signing bonus.

While the Falcons try to breathe life into their franchise, Vick remains in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan. No word on whether he was able to watch the Super Bowl.

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I hope for the day when the lightbulb finally goes off over Arthur Blank’s head: Running an NFL franchise bears absolutely no resemblance to running Home Depot.

Until then, we’re assured of more episodes of the Falcon Follies as the franchise falls deeper and deeper into chaos.

A few points:

— Blank announced that he wants to hire a general manager, and let the new GM hire a coach. Why then is Blank going around interviewing just about every warm body in the NFL for the Falcons head coaching job?

— What does Blank even know about hiring a professional football coach? After being burned by one former college coach who high-tailed it off to Arkansas with three games left in the season, what does Blank do? He starts to court Pete Carroll, another college coach. Sure, Carroll has NFL experience. But has anyone checked his record as an NFL coach? It’s 34-33. That speaks for itself.

— Rather than hire someone who knows professional football to run the franchise, Blank seems determined to have his hand in every aspect of the team. What potential GM or head coach is going to want to come to a team where the owner is constantly looking over his shoulders?

It’s like hiring Guenter Seeger as your personal chef, then trying to tell him how to cook a soufflé. Arthur, please stay out of the kitchen.

ESPN.com is reporting that Carroll has already decided to decline a job interview with Blank. Can anyone blame him? Is any legitimate candidate going to want to walk into the kind of dysfunction that exists at Flowery Branch?

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The San Diego Union-Tribune reports today that the Bill Parcells-spurned Atlanta Falcons have made overtures to former San Diego Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer and to assistant Chargers GM Buddy Nix.

Known as a no-nonsense coach, Schottenheimer was the NFL Coach of the Year in 2004 and in the fickle manner of pro football, fired two years later after conflicts with the Chargers general manager. He also infamously played quarterback Drew Brees in a meaningless final game in 2005 that resulted in a shoulder injury that almost devastated Brees’ career.

Nix, according to the paper, is being eyed as the new general manager for the Falcons. Nix joined the team in 2001 just in time for the Chargers to pull off the best trade in San Diego history: the first overall draft pick in the 2001 draft to the Falcons. The Birds picked Michael Vick; the Chargers used the Falcons’ draft pick to select a running back you might have heard of: LaDainian Tomlinson.

For the Falcons, the wheels keep spinning. Bill Cowher turned them down. Bill Parcells used them to leverage a deal in Miami. Schottenheimer is known for turning losing teams into winners. He also tends to stick around a while, something a couple of previous Falcons head coaches weren’t, uh, known for.

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Twenty years ago today, the Falcons were in dire straits. They wanted a big name. They wanted someone to come in and turn the franchise around.

Bill Parcells, who was then the Super Bowl-winning coach of the New York Giants dispatched his agent to talk to the Falcons ownership. They talked, he seemed on his way and then the deal fell apart because he was still under contract to the Giants.

After telling reporters last night that he was probably going to take a job directing the football operations of the Falcons, today Parcells backed out again.

How many hits can one franchise take? In the space of 10 days the team’s star quarterback was sentenced to federal prison for almost two years, the owner went on “Monday Night Football” talking up the future with the new head coach, and then said head coach quits the very next day and goes to Arkansas.

No one’s talking yet about what happened but, obviously, something happened today in Parcell’s meeting with team owner Arthur Blank to change his mind.

The Falcons have historically been a franchise enamored with futility. But this goes beyond the pale.

The Big Tuna just left a big stink in the city of Atlanta.

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Bobby Petrino dumped Atlanta.

Getting dumped sucks.

Atlanta felt badly, lashed out, and bad-mouthed Petrino to anyone who’d listen.

Now Atlanta has apparently started a relationship with one of modern pro football’s most successful coaches — a relationship that might not have been possible had Petrino not dumped Atlanta when he did.

The end of a bad relationship is a good thing. If Atlanta’s better off, and Petrino’s better off, the only reason for lingering hard feelings is unhealthy egotism.

I think Atlanta should write Petrino a nice note apologizing for all the mean things it said.

Bobby Petrino
University of Arkansas
P.O. Box 7777
Fayetteville, AR 72702

Perhaps the following video clip will put you in the right mood:

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Bill Parcells, the former head coach who is certainly headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, tells the New York Daily News that he is on the verge of accepting a job with the Atlanta Falcons as the director of football operations.

“I’m going to oversee the football operation,” Parcells told the paper. “I’m going to hire a general manager if the deal is finalized in Atlanta. We are going to hire a coach and talk to all the coaches who are there. It’s going to be a collective effort. The triangle is going to be the GM, the coach and Bill Parcells.”

Notice one significant name missing from that equation: Arthur Blank.

Does Blank finally “get it”?

Last week, I wrote that the Falcons will continue to struggle so long as Blank thinks he can run the football operation. Running an NFL franchise is not the equivalent of running Home Depot. And remember that Bobby Petrino complained about Blank’s interference. It’s obvious that Blank must follow the lead of Ted Turner when he owned the Braves: Hire someone who knows football to run things, then show up to accept the applause and the trophies. But leave the team to someone who knows what the hell he’s doing.

Parcells is that guy. And if he can handle Jerry Jones in Dallas, he can certainly handle Arthur Blank.

So the Big Tuna is coming to Atlanta. Maybe Bobby Petrino did us all a big favor, after all.

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The NFL has fined five Falcon players who showed support for fallen former quarterback Michael Vick last Sunday. Of course, they didn’t show enough support to actually win one for the Vicker. They only adjusted their uniform to “honor” Vick. Wide receiver Roddy White, for example, wore a “Free Mike Vick” T-shirt under his uniform. And DeAngelo Hall ran out onto the field holding a Vick poster.

The Nation of Islam Sportsblog has its own take on the situation:

… what got back to Vick (from the NFL) is clear:

You are dead to us.

‘Free Mike Vick’?

No.

Mike Vick has been in chains from the first day he put on shoulder pads.

And this well intentioned, though poorly thought out maneuvre by the Falcon players only further tightened the shackles around their own wrists.

If I’m going to be chained, a $130 million contract would most definitely help alleviate my mental anguish. Hell, I might volunteer to be chained for half that much money. But only if they let me wear shoulder pads.

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In today’s Birmingham News, the agent for former Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino doesn’t paint a pretty picture of their perspective on what led to Petrino’s sudden and stunning departure from Atlanta.

Russ Campbell says that Falcons owner Arthur Blank broke two promises to Petrino. First, Campbell says Blank agreed when he hired Petrino that the coach would be free to leave the Falcons to take a college job if he decided he didn’t want to coach in the pros.

Second, he says Blank promised Petrino that he wouldn’t mess in the coach’s business.

“One of the main issues,” Campbell told the News, “was the owner’s involvement in the football program.”

Blank assured Petrino a year ago that he would stay out of the way if that’s what the coach wanted, Campbell said, but “he’s in it up to his elbows.”

Campbell offered an example: After a pregame team prayer, Blank pulled Petrino aside and strongly objected to the prayer’s wording.

Yeah, just what a head coach wants to deal with before he takes his team out on the field. And Blank had dinner with the coach every Monday to talk about the previous Sunday’s game. Those probably weren’t very pleasant for Petrino, either.

In the wake of the Petrino debacle, Blank has indicated he plans to get even more involved in the team’s operation. One suspects/hopes that at some point Blank is going to learn the lesson Ted Turner eventually learned when he owned the Braves: that he didn’t know a damned thing about running a baseball organization. So he hired someone who did, and then stepped out of their way. All Ted did was provide the cash, soak up the applause and pick up the trophies.

Not a bad strategy.

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The reaction to Bobby Petrino’s quick decision to quit his job as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in order to go hog-calling in Arkansas has drawn heated reaction on the Net. Some of the adjectives invoked include “weasel,” “jackass” and “rancid.”

Some samples:

“I was looking for a commitment from Bobby and having some exposure on behalf of the franchise Monday night,” Blank said of the face-to-face meeting. “[I] wanted to know, ‘Are you with us or not?’ I did press the question with him … Bobby extended his hand and said, ‘You can tell them you have a head coach.’”

— Arthur Blank, AJC.com

* * *

And so Blank, it seems, wasn’t the only one who misread Petrino. Unfortunately for Blank, whose good intentions and desire to win keep blowing up in his face, he’s the only one who hired him. Turns out that maybe Blank is better at finding people to manage the drywall department or to order hammers than he is at finding someone to manage his football team and bark orders at his players.

— Len Pasquarelli, ESPN.com

* * *

He ran the team with an aloof style, feeling no reason to share his decisions on personnel with the affected players. He could walk through the locker room without speaking to anyone and was openly criticized by two of the team’s stars, Pro Bowlers [DeAngelo] Hall and Alge Crumpler.

Quarterback Joey Harrington was noticeably perturbed a few weeks ago when, after leading the Falcons to two straight wins, he heard from the media that Petrino still considered injury prone Byron Leftwich the starter.

— Peter King, Sports Illustrated online

* * *

“This is the worst year I’ve ever had in football,” one veteran player said. “It’s just miserable. I think (Petrino) had a clue about offense, but he couldn’t communicate with anybody. You’d talk to him and it was almost as if he would stare at you and not get what you were talking about. He’s a strange guy.”

That player went even further, claiming that Atlanta owner Arthur Blank had told some of the veteran leaders on the team, including Crumpler and running back Warrick Dunn, that the team had made a mistake in hiring Petrino.

— Jason Cole, Yahoo Sports

(more…)

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The Atlanta Falcons lined up for the team’s very first kickoff in the National Football League in 1966. And as the kicker ran up to kick, the wind knocked the football off the tee.

It turned out to be a symbolic start to what has become one of the NFL’s worst franchises. But as bad as the Falcons have been throughout their history, it’s never been as bad as it was this week.

In one 24-hour period, the Falcons:

• Saw their star quarterback sentenced to 23 months in federal prison;
• Lost by 20 points to a 5-7 team on “Monday Night Football”;
• Saw their head coach bolt like a rat jumping from a sinking ship, taking a pay cut to go back to a college job less than 24 hours after he had assured team owner Arthur Blank that he was here for the long haul.

Michael Vick’s arrest took the rudders off the Falcons franchise and what we’re seeing is not only the resulting free fall and crash, but the lowest point of a franchise with a history full of low moments.

It’s hard to feel bad for a billionaire, but today I want to find Arthur Blank and give him a hug.

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October 2009.

That’s when a 29-year-old Michael Vick will be released from federal prison for bankrolling a dog fighting operation that will go down in history as one of the dumbest things a high-profile professional athlete has ever done.

$130 million.

That’s the contract Michael Vick threw away when he helped kill a half-dozen pit bulls that weren’t up to snuff as fighting machines.

23 months.

That’s how long Michael Vick will spend in prison. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson went above the 12-18 month sentence that was recommended by prosecutors when Vick pleaded guilty. There was word last week that federal prosecutors who debriefed Vick on the dog fighting world said he was not forthcoming with them. At the hearing today, it was revealed the FBI gave Vick a polygraph test in October, which he flunked. And the fact that Vick tested positive for marijuana just two weeks after he entered his guilty plea certainly didn’t play in his favor. (One now wonders just what strings were pulled to get that charge concerning the Aquafina water bottle with the hidden compartment at the Miami airport dropped.)

Michael Vick was once the prototype for the new modern quarterback. Now he’s the poster child for stupidity.

As ESPN notes on its homepage, the sentence is a serious blow to Vick’s future as a pro football player. He’s going to spend the next two years in prison, where he’s not going to be getting good food. He won’t be able to work out. He was already a player who needed to improve, and there will be no way to hone his talents sitting in a cell. He was a player who depended on speed, and that speed will be dissipated once he’s released.

And there are the state charges that hang over him that could mean even more prison time once he’s released on the federal conviction.

Even if he can still play football once he’s out of prison, what team is going to want him and all the baggage that comes with him? What team is going to want to deal with protesters outside the stadium with every game? And that’s assuming he’s even allowed back in the NFL, which shouldn’t be taken as a given.

This is the highest fall for a professional athlete since Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball in the prime of his career. Michael Vick and Peyton Manning were the faces of the NFL. Vick had the world at his fingertips.

Today, Manning leads the Indianapolis Colts toward another Super Bowl while Vick arrived at the courthouse in Richmond, Va., wearing prison stripes.

Michael Vick has thrown his life away. And that’s the most tragic thing of all.

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Quanis Phillips and Purnell Peace — who were two of Michael Vick’s closest friends and later turned on him when they agreed to plead guilty to dogfighting conspiracy charges and to testify against him — were sentenced to federal prison this morning in Richmond, Va.

Phillips was one of Vick’s childhood friends and later worked at MV7, Vick’s marketing company. He received a 21-month sentence. Peace received an 18-month sentence. As part of his plea agreement, Phillips gave a statement that said Vick joined in executing at least eight dogs that didn’t do well in test fights by various methods, including hanging and drowning.

“You may have thought this was sporting, but it was very callous and cruel,” U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson told Phillips.

The sentence handed down to Phillips and Peace give an indication of what Vick will face when he is sentenced Dec. 10.

If Vick receives an 18-month sentence in the federal case, the earliest he could return to professional football — if a team will sign him — would be 2009. However, he also faces two state charges in Virginia that have his football career in deeper limbo: Vick could be sentenced to five years in prison on each of those counts.

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UGA-GEORGIA TECH GAME: Coach Chan Gailey’s “Kill the Bulldogs with kindness” game plan didn’t work out.

(photo by Joeff Davis)

The rancor wasn’t as overt as in 1893, when a mob of knife-wielding, rock-throwing Georgia fans chased the victorious Georgia Tech football team back to its train, but the bitterness both sides have accumulated over the last 114 years was palpable during the UGA-Tech game Saturday at Midtown’s Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Though their team lost 31-17 to their intrastate rivals, Tech fans refused to go quietly. When throngs of Bulldogs’ fans left their seats at halftime to watch the Kentucky-Tennessee game on the small TVs in the stadium concourses, Jackets’ fans interjected with repeated renditions of “Rocky Top.” Several Tech partisans even reached up and switched off the TVs. When Tennessee’s eventual victory, which knocked UGA out of SEC championship contention, was announced over the PA, Tech fans cheered. (Many more cheered today upon hearing of head coach Chan Gailey’s departure. Gailey was fired two days after losing his sixth straight game to UGA.)

Incidentally, the supercompressed jockeying for TV-viewing angles in the concourse was lousy for the blocked-off concessioneers, but it was a boon for stadium frotteurs. “This is the most action I’ve had all year!” one smarmy fan announced to those crowded around him.

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The Washington Post devotes a story today that details the accommodations Michael Vick can expect now that he’s turned himself in to begin his prison sentence. Vick has traded the red and black of the Falcons for the standard uniform of the Northern Neck Regional Jail: black-and-white-striped uniforms. The good news is that inmates can wear their own shoes. Wonder if Vick will wear his signature brand of Nikes?

The paper also reveals Vick’s Thanksgiving menu: turkey, stuffing, rice, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie.

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When is a new home-run record not a new home-run record?

Perhaps when the new home-run king is indicted for lying to the feds about steroid use, and there’s a drug test that backs them up. In short, an unprecedented mess awaits Barry Bonds and, especially, baseball commissioner Bud Selig. The big question Selig is going to face is simple: Does he erase the new (allegedly steroid-enhanced) home-run “record” that Bonds set last year from the record books?

Baseball has never seen anything like this before. When “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was given a lifetime ban from baseball for the Black Sox scandal after the 1920 season, his batting records were left intact. When Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban for gambling, it didn’t affect his batting records. In neither case was there a cause and effect.

But with Bonds, it’s very different. His alleged crime directly affected the records he set. Take Marion Jones, the Olympic gold medalist who confessed in October that she took steroids provided by BALCO, the same outfit that allegedly provided them to Bonds.

Like Bonds, she said she initially thought she was taking flaxseed oil. After Jones’ confession (she pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal investigators), she gave up the five medals she received at the 2000 Games in Sydney. The International Olympic Committee is expected to formally strip her of the medals prior to her sentencing in January.

Selig may have no other alternative than to “strip” Bonds of the records he’s set with the apparent use of illegal substances. How can anyone honor a home-run record set by a guy who was demonstrably bulked up on steroids?

The baseball commissioner has never been one to take bold measures. But in this case, he may have no other alternative. The home-run record Bonds set last year is now tainted. And Selig must take the lead of the Olympic committee and wipe Bonds’ stained stats from the record books.

Hank Aaron, home-run king. It has a nice ring to it. It has an honest ring to it. And to get out of this mess, baseball has got to rediscover its integrity.

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Speaking of passports  …

Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder apparently told a reporter he thought he might need a translator while he’s in London for Sunday’s game against the Giants in Wembley Stadium. He also confessed to being ignorant of geography.

I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I learned that.

“I know (Washington Redskins linebacker) London Fletcher. We did a football camp together. So I know him. That’s the closest thing I know to London. He’s black, so I’m sure he’s not from London. I’m sure that’s a coincidental name.”

If he’s joking, the 2002 North Springs High School grad is a funny man.

If he’s not, then, well, remind me to not procreate in the Sandy Springs school district.

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From the AJC:

The women’s pro basketball league and Atlanta real-estate executive Ron Terwilliger have reached a deal to put an expansion team in the city, owners of the 13 WNBA teams and 30 NBA teams have been informed. A formal announcement is expected on Wednesday.

That’s great news!

If the team is successful, it might even improve the city’s chances of getting a men’s pro basketball team!

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Although I was a very young tyke in 1966, I still have memories of the Falcons’ inaugural season when quarterback Randy Johnson spent most of his time trying to avoid being a punching bag for opposing linemen. The Falcons went 3-11 that year, then 1-12-1 the next.

It was futility at its finest.

What I saw last night is simply the worst Falcons team since the original version. As the ESPN commentators pointed out, the defense came out playing hard. They seemed determined to prove their mettle. But once the team fell behind, they stopped trying. And the offense? It only showed how dependent the team was on Michael Vick playing an NFL version of Houdini every week.

But it’s not about the loss of Vick. It’s about how little is left without him. There is an abject lack of planning and player management in the Falcons organization. They started two rookies on the offensive line, one of whom wasn’t even drafted. The wide receivers dropped pass after pass after pass. The team has blown $12 million on Joey Harrington and Byron Leftwich, two quarterbacks who can’t lead this team.

But let’s be real: Even Tom Brady would have problems making this team win.

The Falcons are a mess. The veteran players clearly don’t respect coach Bobby Petrino. GM Rich McKay has done a woeful job of player evaluation. And Arthur Blank must be walking around like someone who doesn’t know what hit him.

The Falcons are 1-5. The team has given up. The question now: Are they mediocre enough to be the most mediocre team in the NFL? There’s a No. 1 draft pick next year that’s on the line. And that’s the only thing the Falcons have to play for now.

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If there is any doubt that the Atlanta Falcons will sever ties with its former star quarterback, look no further than today’s arbitration hearing, where the team seeks to recoup $22 million in bonus money paid to Michael Vick.

According to ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio, the Falcons contend that Vick “defrauded” them because he knew he was in violation of the terms of the contract when he signed it — he was fighting dogs and knew it violated the personal conduct clauses.

A team doesn’t throw around the term “defrauded” if they intend to continue a relationship with a player. A lot of people in Atlanta desperately want Vick back. Forget it. He’s gone.

An interesting aside: An ESPN poll revealed that a vast majority of people want Vick to be able to continue his football career once he’s released from prison. But when asked if they would want him to play for their team, a majority said no.

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This strange story was reported today by ESPN.com: Michael Vick accepted an invitation from PETA to attend a course on preventing animal cruelty. He then returned to take a test on what he learned, and passed.

Said PETA Assistant Director Dan Shannon: “He seemed nervous at first, but he seemed really interested.”

PETA, of course, has helped lead the charge in designating Vick as the poster child of dogfighting. Vick quietly spent a day with the organization on Sept. 18 and impressed the organization with his sincerity.

It’s the first positive news from the Vick camp since he made his emotional plea for forgiveness at a press conference following his guilty plea in federal court.

Since then, Vick has tested positive for marijuana, been sued for defaulting on a $2.5 million loan and been sued for at least $2 million for not repaying loans related to a car rental business. He’s also been indicted by a Virginia prosecutor on state charges related to the deaths of dogs and dogfighting.

He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson on Dec. 10 for the federal charges.

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According to the AJC’s David O’Brien, the Atlanta Braves told free agent center fielder Andruw Jones today that they can’t afford him and will allow him to sign with another team. Center field at Turner Field without Andruw Jones? It doesn’t seem possible.

I remember hanging around home plate during batting practice in 1999 when the Mets were in town. Shawn Dunston was in the batting cage and he hit a ball right center that would have been a hit in a real game. Except he exclaimed, “That was an Andruw Jones out!” When I asked him to explain, he said the players counted the number of “hits” they got during BP. But there were outs and then there were “Andruw Jones outs.” Essentially, any fly ball hit in the vicinity of center field was an “Andruw Jones out.” That’s how much respect other players have for him.

Jones is generally regarded as the best center fielder since Willie Mays. And even though he had a subpar year in 2007, he was also battling through nagging injuries. After losing Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine to free agency, it doesn’t come so much as a shock to lose Andruw Jones. You get used to it.

The fact is the Braves are owned by a company that is headquartered in Colorado, a company that purchased the Braves as a tax write-off. The Braves aren’t even mentioned on the company’s website.

The Braves will never approach the peaks of the team’s glory years in the ’90s until it is owned by someone in Atlanta who will come to games and invest emotionally in the team. Until then, the team will continue to lose its best players because management will have budget constraints.

So long, Andruw, we hardly knew ya.

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It’s obvious that the suits over at TBS don’t like Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren.

In 2003, TBS banished the two longtime Braves announcers from TBS’ dwindling broadcasts of Braves games before fan anger drove it to rescind the decision. This year, TBS takes over the broadcasts of baseball play-offs from ESPN, and when the network announced its lineup of announcers, Caray and Van Wieren were nowhere to be found.

As the AJC’s Tim Tucker writes today, Caray is, understandably, peeved.

A TBS flack issued a fairly terse statement: “TBS has put together four telecast teams that we feel will best serve our national baseball audience. … We appreciate Skip’s abilities as a play-by-play announcer and look forward to his [Braves] calls for us next year on Peachtree TV, but we decided to go in another direction as we look to brand our new MLB-on-TBS playoff package.”

Skip Caray has called baseball on TBS since 1976. He is destined for the Hall of Fame. He is one of the best baseball announcers still working.

But he’s not good enough for the network he helped build into a national presence?

I have one word for the TBS suit who made this decision: stupid.

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A grand jury in Virginia has handed up two felony indictments against Michael Vick and three others.

Vick was charged with one count of beating or killing a dog and one count of engaging in and promoting dogfighting. The charge of beating or killing a dog carries up to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine per animal.

Vick and his co-defendants pleaded guilty in federal court to killing between six to eight dogs.

The arraignment is Oct. 3.

Read the AJC story here.

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On a day when fallen boxing champion Mike Tyson pleaded guilty to a cocaine charge and faces four years in prison, the county prosecutor in Surry County announced that he will seek a state indictment against Michael Vick for dogfighting and cruelty to animals.

And if the fallen former Falcons quarterback is convicted of state charges, he would face an additional 40 years in prison.

One presumes that Vick’s legal team would fight any state indictments on the grounds of double jeopardy. It is a basic legal right, addressed in the Constitution, that forbids the government from trying Americans twice for the same offense.

In recent years as the U.S. Supreme Court has grown more conservative, it has become more “liberal” in its interpretation of what constitutes double jeopardy. According to our friends at Wikipedia:

Double jeopardy is … not implicated for separate offenses or in separate jurisdictions arising from the same act. For example, in United States v. Felix (1992), the Supreme Court ruled: “a[n]…offense and a conspiracy to commit that offense are not the same offense for double jeopardy purposes.”

Which would seem to place Vick in a tenuous situation where he could face serious jail time on top of whatever federal sentence he may receive in December.

It will be argued that Surry County Commonwealth Attorney Gerald G. Poindexter is piling on and using the indictments to save face. Poindexter’s office originally pursued the dogfighting allegations against Vick, and was criticized for not being aggressive enough. In fact, the feds swooped in and basically took the case away from Poindexter.

He told the AP last night:

“Most of the matters that I’m presenting have already been admitted in sworn statements authored by the defendants in the federal proceedings,” Poindexter said.

Poindexter couldn’t detail the exact indictments he will pursue, but said the local investigation and the federal investigation largely focused on different crimes.

“The killing of dogs is one of those statutory prohibitions. Dogfighting is a crime, the mistreatment of animals is a crime, so you could take your pick, or take them all,” Poindexter said before cutting the conversation short. “I don’t have anything else to say about it. I’m through with it. Hopefully it’s coming to an end.”

For Michael Vick, it appears, the end is not coming anytime soon.

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