For those of you who have any doubts about why Eagles head coach Andy Reid would agree to sign a convicted felon like Michael Vick before the 2009 season, I encourage you to read the article by Ashley Fox on Philly.com titled “Andy Reid’s ordeals and triumphs”.
The article gets into the detail of how Reid dealt with the drug addiction and incarceration of his two sons Garrett and Britt.¬† It’s worth reading because you get a good sense of what the head coach went through as his son’s paid the price for their actions.
It follows him through his trips to the jails and prisons to visit his sons.  Reid is quite candid about the experience and the embarrassment which he felt when everything came to light and the judge pointed a big spotlight on Reid and his family.
“It wasn’t a very flattering situation, period,” Reid said. “The whole thing wasn’t very flattering. The judge, in his statement, he got everybody’s attention. None of us liked it, but that’s reality. He knew it was a high-profile deal. He knew he was under the microscope. And he did what he thought was right.
“He has this program [drug court], and he spends so much time on it. So he’s got a whole lot more experience than I did. I was new at all this. So I’m looking at a guy I know is smart and has been doing this a while and been dealing with these types of kids, and I guess as parents you believe in tough love, and that’s kind of what he was giving the whole family. Tough love. Yeah.
“Sometimes you don’t like that, but sometimes you need it.”
Ashley Fox doesn’t put the trouble concerning his sons’ drug and legal problems together with the signing of Vick but I do.¬† I think the two stories are definitely related.
From a football standpoint, you get the chance to see why a head coach who refused to sign players that had any type of minor behavorial problems, would agree to sign a player like Michael Vick, despite the negative publicity and shadow of controversy that surrounds him.
No one can ignore the complete turnabout in behavior by Reid.  No one could have predicted Reid would sign Vick in a thousand years, except for the ordeal he experienced with his sons.
It makes me wonder what the Eagles could have done had Reid been willing to take a chance on more players who had a character flaw or two.   Maybe they could have captured a championship or two had he been as willing to give a chance to players with an obvious flaw or two in their character.
People hopefully get smarter as they go through life as a result of their experiences. It changes your perspective, maybe opens your mind regarding opportunities that might not otherwise be explored. I am not a big fan of Mike Vick’s previous activities, but I do believe in opportunities for redemption. Apparently Coach Reid is of the same point of view. I hope it works out and he is able to contribute to the Eagles’ effort this year.
So Andy Reid felt like helping out Michael Vick. Did he have to pay him 7 million dollars a year while he was “helping” him? Why pay $7 million and get virtually no production out of it?
what a freaking stupid way to run a football team…..I still say we didn’t need Vick, it made no sense at the time…we had a veteran back-up in Feely who could step in when McNabb got injured and the heir-aparent in Kolb…why throw a guy who was 2 years removed from playing, who had no experience in the west coast system, who had a questionable work ethic when he was at the top of his game…not to mention all of the negative press and grief from the animal lovers….where was the upside for the eagles??
-green fan – ok, yeah the upside certainly didn’t show last year – but who’s a better backup to Kolb out there in the league? And more importantly, where’s the downside at all? Are you going to tell me that Vick hurt the team on the field last year? That it wasn’t the Stew Bradley loss (and his backup), and the Oline issues, that cost us those Dallas games? Ok, probably not – so then you say ‘negative publicity’ – uh, how did that hurt? Are people ignoring the Eagles? Who jumped ship? How did that effect anything on the field? Did it hurt them financially? Are other teams not trading and talking? Are fans not paying attention to Kolb, Desean, Asante, the draft picks, training camp – and I’m talking about JULY here…. The answer to all that is a simple – NO. So what really IS your point?
The upside was that he’s a dynamic athelete who wasn’t even really your backup. If the Eagles hadn’t signed Mike Vick, Feeley wasn’t the backup – remember, Kolb was. So Feeley was really irrelevant. He wouldn’t have seen a snap all year.