Gonzo: More bobbing and weaving from Eagles on Vick

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Andy Reid has employed the same talking points for more than a decade. You know them well. They're like lyrics from a song you can't forget.

One of Reid's favorite phrases, ratty and worn from years of use, is that he needs to put his players in better positions. As far as Michael Vick is concerned, Reid, Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner failed miserably on that front. They set Vick up to fail. The good-citizen bar was set too high above his head for him to clear.

On Monday, shortly before he reported to training camp, Vick was cleared by the NFL to play football. Vick reportedly met with commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss the shooting that occurred outside the quarterback's Virginia Beach birthday bash in the early hours of June 25. The league was apparently satisfied with what Vick disclosed.

But this isn't really about football. It never has been. It wasn't when the Eagles signed Vick. It wasn't when Reid tried to pound Vick's square quarterbacking skills into the team's round offensive system. It wasn't when the team elevated Vick to the backup quarterback role after trading the face of the franchise over the last decade - a man who, it should be noted, never went to federal prison. Then again, Donovan McNabb had trouble with the short passing game. No one's perfect.

The Eagles' relationship with Vick - seen as unseemly by some, tricky by all - was supposed to be about more than football (a good thing considering his pigskin contribution was almost nonexistent last year). The standards for Vick were supposed to be higher, more significant - not because that's what you wanted, but because that's how the Eagles said it would be.

They set the expectations. They positioned him as an "agent for social change." They assured us he'd be a "role model." And they promised, if he failed to comport himself properly, that it wouldn't take "very long to make that change."

The Eagles haven't made a change. Vick is in camp and it appears he'll be in town for the season. This despite the fact that - one more time and with feeling - he threw a party he acknowledged he never should have held, a gathering where one of the attendees took home a bullet wound as a party favor.