Have Eagles become a halfway house?

He looked into the quarterback's eyes and saw what he wanted to see - and you can take that either way. For the record, Vick came into the meeting 1 for 1 in lying to NFL owners, and we won't know for a while if his perfect record remains intact.

In the balance for the Eagles is a potential mess. Thirty percent of their fans will hate this move because of the dreadful nature of the crimes and because there is an undeniable racial component in this particular cultural disconnect. Thirty percent would accept Osama bin Laden on the roster if they thought he could help win a game, and they won't care. The rest will wait and see how it plays out. If the team suffers and falls, the fall will be steep. And for what?

"When it all boils down, people will try to take advantage of you and leave you out to dry," Vick said while still denying his role in the dogfighting operation. "Lesson learned for me."

The Eagles could be about to learn a painful one themselves, although they don't seem worried. The team did its homework, Reid said, with the confidence of someone who has no idea what sort of school building he just entered.

Contact columnist Bob Ford

at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com. Read

his blog at http://philly.com/postpatterns.