Lurie's "tortured" signing

By John McMullen

Philadelphia, PA (The Phanatic Magazine) - Jeffrey Lurie sounded like a tortured soul when he stepped to podium at the NovaCare Complex on Friday and attempted to explain why he signed off on Michael Vick's return to the NFL.

"I'm just going to speak from the heart and speak from the hip because there is nothing really to prepare," Lurie said as he began what was essentially a prepared statement. "This took a lot of soul searching for me. I was asked to approve Michael Vick joining a very proud organization several days ago. Sometimes in life you have to make extremely difficult and soul-searching
decisions."

Of course, "tortured" in this context is a literary device. To the best of my knowledge, the Eagles owner has never been hanged from a tree, electrocuted with jumper cables, held underwater in his swimming pool or thrown into the middle of the Linc into a fighting pit with other NFL owners.

A self-proclaimed animal lover, Lurie will never suffer the same fate as the dogs who died at the hands of the guy he handed a $1.6 million check.

"Anybody who knows me personally knows I'm an extreme dog lover," Lurie said. "I was asked to approve something, approve Michael coming to the Eagles after having committed something that so many of us, and myself very much included, regard as horrific behavior. I don't even have words to describe the cruelty, the torture, the complete disregard for any definition of common decency. I don't have the words."

Powerful stuff if only Lurie had the strength of his own convictions. Instead, he trotted out
the cliched "second-chance" theme that so many Vick apologists cling to like a life-raft.

"I spent hours with Michael. [I] asked him extremely tough questions. [I] tried to evaluate remorse. It’s a tough thing to do while skeptical," Lurie said. "You're innately skeptical of somebody that is capable of doing horrendous things, that they could be remorseful. In spending the time with Michael, I think he deserves ( a second chance)."

Believe it or not I'm firmly entrenched with Lurie in the "second chance" club. The difference is, I believe it should be used for people who make "one" mistake and truly want to turn their lives around, not six-year abusers, who conveniently say the right things only after they are caught.

If the Feds were never turned on to Vick, anyone doubt his dogfighting operation would still be going strong?

Lurie seemed to be almost trying to convince himself the obvious wasn't obvious at all, weaving a strange yarn on "self-hatred."

"I wanted to understand if he had enough self-hatred, for me," Lurie said. "I needed to see a lot of self hatred in order to approve this."

As things wore on, the Eagles owner was a walking, talking contradiction, bumbling and stumbling through what felt like a live psychotherapy session.

When asked why the Eagles had to be the "crusaders," Lurie said it wasn't about that.

"I don't think I saw this as an opportunity or a position of being a crusader," Lurie said. "Again, I saw a man who was extremely remorseful, who hated what he had accomplished in terms of perpetrated, who had served two years of prison time, and who really wants to have changed his life."

OK, so let's judge Vick on the football field, right?

"We don't measure him on yardage. My own measurement of Michael Vick will be 100 percent, ‘is he able to create social change in this horrendous arena of animal cruelty?’"

Huh?

Which is it?

Since the folks at the NovaCare Complex aren't all that well-versed in truth telling, I'll read the tea leaves for you.

Simply put, Lurie sold his soul for a better opportunity to win, a far cry from what he was attempting to portray:

"I've often said that we are full pedal to the metal and when coach [Andy] Reid said this man can give us a dimension that we don't have and add another weapon to our offense in unpredictable ways, in partnership with the players that we have and the quarterback we have, then again, a soul-searching tough decision but something that we think can improve the team and at the same time create social change."

What a guy....The only thing missing was Superman's cape.

Lombardi Trophy or not, I have a feeling Lurie will soon see some of that "self-hatred" he wanted from Vick when he peers into the mirror.

-You can reach John McMullen at jmcmullen@phanaticmag.com