Now, if we could get more people that start foundations to help people, I’d be more impressed. But there’s just too few of the good guys to make football interesting to me.

I do not follow football. My sport is baseball and baseball only. I find football to be a sport of war. The athleticism of the participants is overshadowed by the blunt force used to execute the game. Football will never be called “the gentleman’s game”. The fans would surely be displeased if it were.

I am also a vegetarian. I don’t eat animals let alone condone their mistreatment. The crime Mr. Vick was accused of is nauseating. I would be hard pressed to ever forgive someone who mistreats any living creature regardless of whether they had paid the legal penalty.

The issue of a player returning to the game after a criminal conviction is using the language these businesses favor in order to frame the discussion. While the “game” is entertainment, the relationship between the player and the NFL is one of employer and employee. Sports entertainment is a business first and foremost. I am not a lawyer (IANAL), but the question facing Mr. Vick and the NFL are those of employment law and profitability not of morality or ethics.

The NFL has a brand just like any other business. They have every right to decide if a hire of an employee would affect the image of that brand. The NFL is not obligated to do anything outside of what is legally required of them. Like any business, the NFL should be making wise business decisions. As a holding company of sorts, they should be asking what effect hiring Mr. Vick will have on revenue for the companies (teams) it represents.

The sticky wicket in all of this is the real and effective monopolies the NFL, MLB and other major leagues businesses have in their respective markets. I don’t know enough about the law to understand how “at will employment” is addressed in the case of a monopolized market.

Separately, I question the analogy of a day care worker convicted of these crimes and a football player reentering the market of professional athletics. The crime Mr. Vick was convicted of is completely unrelated to the business he was in: “No animals were harmed in the making of this football game.” This in no way invalidates a business from considering the impact on revenue of hiring someone with a high profile criminal conviction.

As a friend of mine in the wealth management industry is fond of saying of stock brokers who act in the best interest of their clients, “it is always about the money and it is only about the money”.

Ms. Forsthye’s writing never fails to cause me to think carefully and differently about the topics she covers. She is the only writer who has the ability to engage me in a way that makes me want to be an active participant in the conversation. Thank you Ms. Forsthye!

If the NFL can allow murderers of human beings to continue to play the game it can allow murderers of animal beings to play as well.

I believe it will all boil down to how much the animal rights contingent is willing to press the sponsors of the NFL. If sponsors leave, Vick will not be back.

Good subject/article Catherine.

On a different vein of thought: It does raise an interesting question of whether anyone should be allowed back depending on what crime they commit. If Vick had done crimes against people, especially to children, what then? Let him back? Hmm.

Keep Vicks on the bench – permanently.