Vick finally addresses dogfighting in a real manner

Michael Vick recently sat down with GQ Magazine and the results have sparked the type of controversy the Eagles were hoping was in the rear-view mirror.

To the obtuse focused narrowly on football, it was all about Vick's claims that he never wanted to play for the Eagles but that could have been ascertained by virtually anyone ruled by logic instead of emotion.

Obviously when Vick was getting out of prison and preparing to resume his career, he wanted to go to a team where he could start immediately. The quarterback confirmed that in a story in the next issue of GQ, available on newsstands Tuesday.

"I think I can say this now, because it's not going to hurt anybody's feelings, and it's the truth. . . . I didn't want to come to Philadelphia. Being the third-team quarterback is nothing to smile about. Cincinnati and Buffalo were better options," Vick said.

Evidently it was NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Tony Dungy that persuaded Vick to sign with the Eagles, regarded as a far more stable team where he could be under the radar while rehabilitating his reputation.

"I commend and thank them, because they put me in the right situation," Vick said.

That could be a story in itself if the commissioner was truly steering a player toward one particular team at the expense of another but there is no guarantee that organizations like Buffalo or Cincinnati wanted the public relations headache.

The real blockbuster here, however, is that Vick finally addressed the racial overtones in dogfighting for the first time in an honest fashion and exposed a stunning lack of remorse, something his critcis long suspected.

"Some of us had to grow up in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and we just had to adapt to our environment," Vick said. "I know that it's wrong. But people act like it's some crazy thing they never heard of. They don't know."

Then asked directly whether "white people don't understand that aspect of black culture" Vick continued to go down a road she should have avoided.

"I think that's accurate," Vick responded. "I mean, I was just one of the ones who got exposed, and because of the position I was in, where I was in my life, it went mainstream. A lot of people got out of it after my situation, not because I went to prison but because it was sad for them to see me go through something that was so pointless, that could have been avoided."

To say that contradicts the NFL and Eagles-led narrative that Vick has changed as a person and re-made himself while in prison is an understatement.

"It's almost as if everyone wanted to hate me. But what have I done to anybody? . . . But it's not fair. It's not fair to the animal. I know what to do now."