On the night of June 24, Vick put himself in a very bad situation. Foolishly gave the green light to a $50-a-head, open-to-the-public party at a Virginia Beach restaurant to celebrate his 30th birthday. As luck would have it, Quanis Phillips, a co-defendant in the dogfighting case that cost Vick an 18-month stint in a federal prison, showed up at the party and, yada, yada, yada, Phillips got shot in the leg outside the restaurant.
Vick says he didn't have anything to do with the shooting, and the Virginia Beach cops believed him. But his poor judgment almost turned the lights out on his career.
"Day to day, you have to make sound, solid decisions," Vick told reporters yesterday after reporting to the team's training camp at Lehigh University. "You can't have lapses in judgment. That's what happened. I didn't protect myself. I let my guard down. And you just can't do that. It's something that never should have happened. I can't afford to put myself in those kinds of situations."
Both the Eagles and the NFL investigated the Virginia Beach incident. Ultimately, both came to the same conclusion: Vick used bad judgment, but didn't do anything wrong that would merit releasing him or banishing him from the league.
"The league and the Eagles, we looked at what the law enforcement people said," Reid said. "They cleared Michael. He didn't break the law. I talked to him right after the situation happened. He told me what happened. It was the same story all the way through. The story didn't change. Law enforcement people confirmed it. But he's got to make sure he learns from it."
Vick says he realizes now that, considering his situation, holding a public birthday bash was a pretty dumb idea, though you wonder if he really believes that when you hear him say, "If certain people hadn't showed up, it never would have happened."
Well, guess what, Mike? They did.
