Rich Hofmann: Giving second chances personal for Eagles coach Reid

THE FIRST HINT had come early at training camp, although Andy Reid camouflaged it in enough careful wording to throw everyone off the track. The topic at Lehigh that day was Michael Vick, and whether he should be signed by another team after doing his jail time. Reid said that he knew Vick a little, that he liked him. He said more than once along the way that the Eagles were happy with their quarterback situation, but that he thought Vick deserved another shot.

He said, "At this phase in my life, I'm big on second chances.''

It was a reference to the legal issues of his two sons, Garrett and Britt - the drugs, the incarcerations, all well-publicized, all personally wrenching for Reid and his family. It was Reid offering a rare window into his heart. He is a man who does not often do that, who does not tell many personal stories, who does not open himself up to that kind of public introspection.

But it was the first hint, magnified now by hindsight, that Michael Vick was on the coach's radar.

On the night when the Eagles announced that they had signed Vick to a 1-year contract with a club option for a second year - the same Michael Vick who did 18 months in prison for his involvement in a dogfighting operation - Reid opened his heart again. It was a stunning news conference, so unReidlike - even if he did start with injuries.

In it, the coach acknowledged that Vick has been on his mind for months and years. He said that Vick got into trouble at about the same time his sons got into trouble, and that he followed Vick's story from afar and compared it to what his sons were enduring. It was as open and as human as Reid has ever been at an interview podium, and it was clear that not only was this Reid's decision, first and foremost - but that his personal life opened him to the possibilities.

At one point last night, he was asked whether he might not have been so open if he had not seen his sons, and the mistakes they made, and what they went through. He said: "I don't know that. I would hope that I would be, just like I hope the fans would be.''

A minute later, he added, "I've kind of lived that process. I've seen change.''

The first reaction was not positive or negative, not really. The first reaction was stunned. There is no other way to describe the feeling when ESPN.com initially reported last night that the Eagles had signed Vick.