Joey Porter, Please Shut Up!

Being part of the NFC South and a fan of Carolina Panthers, comes with reminders of some things that you would just as soon forget – DeAngelo Hall, Rae Carruth, Deion Sanders and Michael Vick.  Let’s face it, one of those topics hasn’t gone away and will probably not go away anytime in the near future: Michael Vick.

Next summer, Vick will be released from prison for his role (we all know he was the ring leader, don’t we?) in a dog fighting ring.  He will likely serve out his sentence and will follow that up with a petition for reinstatement to the NFL.

We all have our opinions and so do the players.  Friday, one player in particular made some statements that, frankly are about as stupid as they come…Joey Porter.

“He’s already been punished enough,” said Porter, who owns a pair of pit bulls and a Maltese. “They gave him his penalty. He paid his penalty. What else should they do to him now?”

This makes some sense if you’re a second-chance kind of person.  I personally think a convicted felon shouldn’t be given the opportunity to earn millions when the average tax payer can’t find a job if they answer “Yes” to the felony question on a job application.

I digress.  Onto the real problem with what Porter had to say.

“All it was was dogs. They act like they don’t even like pit bulls anyway. That’s the funny thing about it if you want to get back on that topic. I got pit bulls, I got to put them under a different breed just to travel. So you can’t even fly pit bulls nowhere.

“It’s a breed they don’t care about. It’s not like he was fighting cocker spaniels or something that they like. They don’t really care too much about pit bulls.”

Dumb.  Stupid.  Idiotic.  Moronic.  Please shut up!

First of all, what Michael Vick did with those dogs was reprehensible.  Very few among us would argue that.  The problem here is that the more serious charge of racketeering was dropped.  Remember that the Feds would have been involved and Vick could be serving many more years in prison.

The court system let us all down on that and we know it.  Again, an average person wouldn’t just be in prison for that they would be under it.  But being an NFL player and a rich one at that, Michael Vick had the resources to hire good lawyers and his position as a player meant that the prosecutor was happy to get any charge to stick and ran with it.

Joey Porter seems to think that this is just about dogs and the treatment of them.  It’s not.  It’s far from that.

I think what Vick did to those animals is horrible and should be punished and I don’t think any – repeat ANY – convicted felons belong on an NFL field wearing the uniform of an NFL club.  Not anywhere.  Not anytime.  Ever.

The problem is that what the prosecutor did to the public is thrust a guy guilty of a much more serious crime back onto the streets much sooner because he felt like he would just go for what he knew would stick.

We all know Vick did it but he’ll be out among us in just a few months.  Joey Porter thinks he deserves a second chance.  He also thinks that people care more about other breeds of dogs than they do about pit bulls.

Hey, Joey, if the public or the courts cared more about cocker spaniels than they do about pit bulls, why is Michael Vick in prison for killing them?  Can you answer that one?

Tell ya’ what, Porter.  I’ll make you a deal.  Ready for this one?  Read carefully, you don’t strike me as someone with tremendous reading comprehension.

You go play football there in South Florida and let the courts and the league make the decisions about Vick’s future.  You can also leave the discussions on dogs to people who are smarter than the pets they own.